And Andrew Bynum.
Andy Reid? We’ll deal with him in January.
This morning there is big news in the sports world, at least to those of us who confess to be golf nuts. Yes, you can count me in that crowd, although I seem to watch a lot more golf on TV than I actually get to play.
I tinker. I go to the range and pound balls. Usually I leave more confused than when I arrived.
But there is one thing I have never done - and will never do - in an attempt to lower my score.
Call me a golf snob if you will, but you will never catch me using one of those god-awful long putters. You know the ones. You press one end of the long handle against your chest or your stomach, then use the other to make the stroking motion. I am not what you would call a good putter. I have an incredible ability to three-putt from almost anywhere on the green. But you still won’t find me resorting to a long putter.
Now, if the golf gods have their way, I might have a lot of company. The U.S. Golf Association and the Royal And Ancient on Wednesday announced they would consider a new rule banning anchoring the club to the body. You can check it out here.
Good.
Nobody ever said golf was easy. I’ve played every sport there is. None of them has confounded me the way golf has. None of them lures me back to the course as much either. My football days are long gone. Basketball? Please, I'm never running that much again. Baseball? History. Softball? No more beer leagues for me. But golf? My hope is to retire on a golf course, and the way this industry is going, that may be next week.You’ll likely find me on the range, banging balls, sure that the ‘secret’ is somewhere in that next bucket of balls.
And if you see me on the practice putting green, you can bet I won’t have one of those long putters in my hands.
I will never be able to hit balls the way Tiger Woods does. If you’ve ever stood on the range or followed a PGA pro on the course, you know what I mean. These guys play a game I’m not familiar with. On the range, when they hit a ball, it makes a completely different sound than when most hackers like me make contact. It’s like an explosion.
But the truth is there is no real reason that every duffer like me can’t be just as good a putter as a PGA pro. It just takes a whole lot more time and patience than I have.
But it should include a swing of a club, in this case a putter, that is similar to every other swing we take on the course. Not some contrived, gimmicky invention made to tame the bane of every golf - the yips or what other ailment keeps us from becoming an accomplished putter.
No one ever said golf was supposed to be easy.
A lot of people have told me it helps to be just a bit insane to take up this sport. I probably qualify on both those counts.
I understand as much as anyone the desire for a lower score, and doing just about anything to obtain it. No, mulligans don’t count.
But I also like to think when I walk down that fairway (OK, more often it’s in the rough), I am sharing something with Old Tom Morris and those shepherds who discovered the game in Scotland a century or so ago.
I don’t think any of them every thought to take that shepherd’s crook, clutch it to his chest, and then try to make a perfect pendulum motion to knock that feathery into a hole.
Neither have I.
To the USGA and Royal and Ancient, I say, ‘here, here’ for a ban that is long overdue.
‘Putt’ it away, fellas.
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