Another Win For The Belly Putter, Jesus
/AP's Joedy McCreary details Webb Simpson's win at the Wyndham Championship, vaulting him up the FedExCup standings on the eve of the playoffs.
After the round he talked about winning with a putter braced against his body.
Q. Webb, you won with the belly putter and that's been kind of the rave. Have you heard some controversy about that at all or what's your take on that? Obviously it works for you.
WEBB SIMPSON: Yeah. It's been 7 years now I've used the same putter and, you know, it seems like a lot more guys are using it, Keegan Bradley being the first guy to win a Major with the belly putter is encouraging to us belly putter users.
I think you're seeing younger guys use it, more guys use it and I don't know what it is for the other guys. For me I just like it better. I putt differently with it and I've never really found anything I like better.Q. Didn't you switch in college?
WEBB SIMPSON: I did. I switched the fall of my freshman year.
In this week's WSJ weekend edition long before Simpson joined Keegan Bradley in the belly putter win circle, John Paul Newport considered the state of putting and in particular, the future for long and belly putters.
Three-time major champion Nick Price, who has used a belly putter for years, predicted that within the next six or seven years more than half the players on the PGA Tour will be using long, anchored putters, even though many golf purists think all long putters should be melted down. Some find them abhorrent on aesthetic grounds. Others object that the anchored stroke violates the free-swinging spirit of the game.
"The belly putter isn't the easy cure that a lot of people think it is. It still requires a lot of practice," Price told me this week at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship in Harrison, N.Y. "But it simplifies the fundamentals of putting so much that increasingly guys who have putting problems or inconsistencies are going to end up turning to it."
