Belly-putter ban lifts game for Simpson
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Webb Simpson credited everyone around him for winning The Players Championship, his fifth career victory and in some respects his most important. And he didn’t stop with those he considers to be part of his team.
Thank-you notes also are in order for the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.
Golf’s governing bodies outlawed the anchored stroke that Simpson had used with his belly putter since he was a teenager. Simpson won the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic Club, one of three major champions in an 11-month span to use a belly putter.
Simpson struggled mightily when forced to learn an entirely different way to putt.
That’s no longer the case.
He led the field in putting during his four-shot victory at The Players Championship, and that wasn’t just one great week. Simpson was 10th on the PGA Tour going into the TPC Sawgrass. Now he is at No. 5 in the key putting statistic.
“It’s funny how those things happen,” Simpson said. “This is probably the first time I can say I’m glad they banned it because I wouldn’t have ever probably swayed away from the belly putter.”
He was always determined to play by the rules. He just wasn’t successful at the onset.
The ban took effect in 2016. Simpson decided to switch a year earlier, though he started to waver. On his way to Japan for the Dunlop Phoenix in late 2014, he told caddie Paul Tesori he was bringing the belly putter with him for just one more tournament.
Instead, he took a drastic measure.
“I see my bag in the garage, and I see the belly putter, and for whatever reason I had an urge to just break it,” Simpson said. “If I break it, I can’t take it with me. And so I go over there and snap it over my knee.”