Clayton And Hemingway On Real Putting

Superb column by Mike Clayton on the anchoring mess and how this is more about the future and not having the game's next generation all anchor.

He looks to Hemingway for guidance.

If you care about the short putter and think the traditional swing of the putter is important then you must defend the traditional tool. If you don't, then by all means come down on the side of Simpson, Bradley, Tim Clark and the Commissioner. But understand it is not too late. It will, however, be in 10, 15 and 20 years. We have already made that mistake with the ball and for too long the traditional game has been the loser.

It was the great American novelist, Ernest Hemingway, who presciently argued decades ago that: 'my attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do a good deal better that anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring your own improvements.'

Too true.