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Texian

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Everything posted by Texian

  1. Absolutely the truth. I can't believe it took the golf experts on this forum 10 pages of posts to finally get around to Raphaël Jacquelin .
  2. I was playing one afternoon with a District Judge in Texas. He broke a window. "I'm going to go over and offer to pay for the damage," he said. "But I don't have to."
  3. I'll bet he found them under a bridge. Isn't that where trolls live?
  4. Agree, but what I really doubt is all the omniscient posters who just "know" he never had a lesson.
  5. Just because he was on a college golf team doesn't mean he's had a lesson. A lot of college golf coaches are little more than bus drivers. Here's what Bubba's website says: "More interestingly, the only golf lesson Bubba received was from his father at a very young age and he has not had a lesson since. He is truly a self-taught golfer."
  6. From his website: "Although Bubba was a standout left-handed pitcher in high school, he chose to stick with golf and received a golf scholarship to the University of Georgia where he helped lead the Bulldogs to an SEC title in 2000. In 2001, a year away from graduating, Bubba decided to turn professional and went on to lead the Tour in driving distance multiple years in a row."
  7. http://www.usga.org/uploadedImages/USGAHome/rules/UNDERSTANDING%20ANCHORED%20STROKES.jpg
  8. Agree on both, and a good place for me to end my part in this discussion, which started as a way to remind golfers that there are positive aspects to the anchored putter ban, and not to re-hash something that we can't do anything about. The positive aspects--you can still use long putters with minor modifications to your stroke, fewer of your opponents will be using them, and supposedly they're less expensive.
  9. Not enough. The equipment engineers are still way ahead.
  10. For the same reason that they don't do anything about some of the things that really need fixing--like club and ball technology that should be reined in to keep from making our courses obsolete and the game a mockery compared to how it was once played. The equipment industry is too powerful. They thought their stupid ruling would make long putters go away without having to fight that battle.
  11. Decide for yourself if it's an "advantage," based on trends, including majors won and players switching to long putters. Most of those who switched probably anchored. Whether anchoring is an advantage or not should not be an issue. Pausing at the top of the backswing may or may not be an advantage. Some do it and most these days don't. But it shouldn't be outlawed. The ruling bodies said that "one or both elbows braced against body" or "forearms held against body without anchor point" would be legal with a short putter but "anchored point created by forearm" with a long putter would not be. "This is not an equipment rule," they maintained, but that's a lie. They just didn't like the look of long putters. I've got news for them. Mine's not going away, and I hope the tour players who were so successful with them make the minor adjustments needed so they don't have to stop using them either.
  12. The fact is that the trend, as evidenced by tournament winners and numbers of golfers going to long putters, was toward long putters becoming a major factor among the pros, because it gave them an "advantage." Pros are funny that way. They look for any advantage they can get. This was too much for the dinosaurs who make the decisions "for the good of the game," and they blew it this time.
  13. That's a good positive attitude, and I'm sure you've played against some good competition. But Keegan Bradley (2011 PGA Championship), Bill Haas (2011 Tour Championship), Webb Simpson (2012 U. S. Open), and Ernie Els (2012 British Open), put a lot of good players at a "disadvantage," whether they admitted it or not. And by the 2012 British Open, 27 percent of the field used long putters. That, obviously, drove the old-timers in the R&A; and USGA over the brink of insanity.
  14. This shows just how unnecessary, stupid and unenforceable this rule is. Here's a scenario. Two players are tied on the last hole of their club championship match. They're pretty competitive and haven't really liked each other for years. One of them, the one with the long putter, putts, makes it, and apparently wins the match. His opponent, who is standing to his side, yells immediately--"Hey, that was an illegal stroke. Your hand was touching your chest." "Was not," says the apparent winner. "Well, maybe it was, just a little bit. But it wasn't intentional. And that's what the rule says it has to be, intentional." So they storm into the pro shop. You're the pro. What's your decision?
  15. Thanks. Sorry if I offended anyone. But see, I'm doing it already. I am aware of that. The reason I've never anchored the hand or the forearm is that it seems to me that anchoring makes the pivot point less stable. Your body is not a rigid post, and trying to make it that way to avoid movement at the pivot point would cause more tension for me. An analogy would be that in shooting a handgun your front sight will move around on the target a bit, no matter how hard you try to make it perfect, and trying too hard will cause tension and make it move even more. Again, I realize that everyone is different and I'm just giving ideas that seem logical to me.
  16. I agree with both statements. I guess the reason I referred to controlling the ball with my right hand, is that this is the mental image that seems to work best for my touch. As you said, this is obviously done by striking the ball with the putter head instead of tossing it underhand. I did go to the long putter because of the yips, after three-putting seven greens in a club championship match.
  17. Actually, I've got three long putters, so I'm probably not in the market. But if they are cheaper, and I haven't checked, that should give golfers who haven't tried them another reason to do so. Not sure what you mean by learning "a proper anchored (belly) putting stroke like the ones that the pros seemingly converged on with great success." If you mean "anchoring" by touching the body with the putter or your hand, then the pros won't be able to use that stroke beginning in 2016. Since I've never "anchored" in that manner, it won't affect the way I putt. Not to be repetitive, but my point is that holding your top hand (grasping the top of the putter shaft) a fraction of an inch away from your body can be just as effective as letting it touch, and I hope to see some of the pros doing that.
  18. I hope some of the pros who have been so successful with long putters will try this approach. I've never posted a video, but I'll see what I can do to produce one.
  19. The secret is the pivot, and using one hand to control the ball instead of two. I don't see how you could do that with two hands on a normal putter.
  20. As some of you may remember, I was greatly upset at the long putter ruling. I still think it is wrong, but that's been rehashed ad nauseam. But in keeping with my general cheery disposition and positive outlook on most everything, I have a new perspective. I'm posting it here to help those on what I consider to be a great golf discussion forum, and hoping and expecting that few if any of the golfers I will ever play will read this. I've come to the conclusion that this ruling will only help me. I've used 43-inch putters for about five years now, and never anchored. So I'll continue to do this. Now in case you don't know it, and most of the people who were in favor of this ruling are too close-minded to give long putters a fair try, the long putter, "anchored in a fist held just away from the chest," would be for most people who give it a fair chance, a superior way to putt. The reason is simple. Instead of having to control two hands, which gives more chance for movement error, you only control one. The other is "anchored," as surely as it would be if it were touching your body. After all, your arm is "anchored" to your shoulder, is it not? The reason I've decided that the ruling will give me a competitive advantage is that many golfers who now use a long putter with hand or shaft touching their body, will change, and those who might benefit from this superior putting motion won't give it a try. Most of them think all long putters are illegal. The bottom line--more bets for me. If you're smart enough to want to improve your game, here's how. The process is simple. Hold the putter in your left hand (for a right-handed golfer), stationary and not touching your chest, and imagine you are rolling the ball to the hole with your right hand as you would if you were pitching a ball toward the hole in an underhand motion. If you were trying to toss a ball to the hole without a putter in your hand(s), you wouldn't use two hands. Why do it with a putter?
  21. Me too. Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are. That's Jimmy Durante's sign-off, for you guys who've never had anything but sliced bread. Oh, Jimmy Durante was... Never mind. Look him up on Google.
  22. What's ignorant is looking at an illustration that plainly shows and states that the forearms are "held against the body" and saying that the arms are "free swinging."
  23. For the fourth or fifth time, I'm not going to change because my long putter stroke would continue to be legal. At my age, and having experienced all the missed putts I have, it's a better system for me. I just don't think Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson, Ernie Els, Bernhard Langer, Fred Couples, Carl Pettersson and Tim Clark, among others, should be forced to. Bill Haas, who has won with both and switched back to conventional this year, doesn't think the rule needs to be changed.
  24. So you're telling me that the USGA's illustration of what would be legal, captioned "FOREARMS HELD AGAINST THE BODY," shows "free swinging arms"?
  25. I didn't say Tiger finished second in any major to someone who won with a long putter. But asking me to believe that Phil's supposed dislike for the USGA is the reason he says the proposed change is "unfair" is a far greater stretch than me suggesting that Tiger's opposition is because he's concerned golfers using long putters will deny him Jack's record.
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