ANTHONY L. WILKINS
Blog: January/February 2014
“The Belly of the Beast”
The sport of golf has come under much scrutiny as of late due to the recent ruling banning the use of the belly putter. Those golfers against the putter’s use view it as a form of cheating as no other club is allowed to be anchored to the body in any way and doing so gives the golfer a distinct advantage. Those for the use of the belly putter tout its ability to assist a golfer with stabilizing their putting stroke to help them focus on making more putts. This is especially true of amateur golfers all over the world who have developed the ‘yips’ when it comes time to pull out the flat stick.
I for one have no problem with either decision as I feel that no matter which kind of putter you decide to use, you still have to stand over your ball and sink the putt. But what I think this decision has done is bring up more important disparities in the game of golf.
When you think of sports like basketball, football, baseball, tennis and many more you can easily view them on two major levels. On one hand they are being played by high level athletes and on another hand they are being played by amateurs of varying skill levels. At no point do you ever consider that between the two levels that there are major differences as to how the sports are being played other than the level of skill used to do so. The equipment is used is pretty much the same from amateur up to the professional level athlete. At the same time, the respective fields as well as the equipment needed to play each sport do not have a wide variance in them.
Golf on the other hand is a completely different animal all together. First, the field or in this case the courses that professionals use are vastly different from those that amateurs are supposed to play. Yes, an amateur can play on the exact same courses as the professionals but we all know that scoring as well as a professional does on a course of the same length pretty much makes even attempting to do so a fruitless effort. Secondly, from the clubs, to the balls and a few other pieces of equipment in between, amateurs are blatantly told that so much of it is ‘tour’ rated. This basically means “Use at your own risk as you are probably not good enough to do so in the first place.”
This latest belly putter decision is where the line should be drawn. So many amateurs and even some professional golfers rely on belly putters in order to simply be able to keep playing the game due to physical limitations. With all of the differences between the two groups, attempting to force everyone to play by the same rules on uneven playing fields simply does not add up.
Golf has been in quandary about how to grow the game and I think that taking away things like the belly putter from amateurs is not going to make things better. No, I am not for trying to make the game and its rules ‘easier’ in order to get people to play as they will inevitably only follow the rules that they want to anyway. I just think that putting in place a rule that takes the game of golf away from those that have been playing it for years is not the answer.
Well, until next time,
Anthony
Anthony L. Wilkins is a national Academy of Sports Medicine & Titleist Performance Institute Certified Personal Trainer an avid golfer from New Jersey who currently resides in the metro Atlanta area with his wife and son.
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