Do you think arm lock putters will get banned?

[EmperorPenguin]

What about the Cobra Tricep putter?  This is a blast from the past (circa 1994).  You anchor it to your arm, the shaft goes up across your forearm and anchors on your left shoulder through your armpit.

[MattM97]

4 hours ago, EmperorPenguin said:

What about the Cobra Tricep putter?  This is a blast from the past (circa 1994).  You anchor it to your arm, the shaft goes up across your forearm and anchors on your left shoulder through your armpit.

 

That's now illegal. Arm lock is legal as long as it doesn't go past your elbow crease and touch your biceps. Forearm is fine according to the rules. 

[bluedot]

On 11/21/2020 at 2:56 PM, Guy In Lyon said:

So should I face away from the hole when teeing off?

 

At the risk of stating the obvious, you ARE facing away from the hole when teeing off!  To face the hole, you'd have to have an extremely open stance.

[Guy In Lyon]

4 hours ago, bluedot said:

 

At the risk of stating the obvious, you ARE facing away from the hole when teeing off!

You've never seen me putt.

[bluedot]

3 hours ago, Guy In Lyon said:

You've never seen me putt.

 

Funny (and true!) story about that.  I putt side saddle, and between senior tournaments and interclub matches, play a LOT of golf with guys I don't know and who have never seen me (or anybody else) putt facing he hole.  Good players never say a word, unless it's to talk about it and try my putter.

 

But chops often go CRAZY, and when they ask me things like, "What are you doing?" or "Is that legal?" my stock answer has become "What? Putting with an open stance?"  At that point, they're usually so confused that the conversation is over, which is what I was going for in the first place.

[1mcozik]

Best solution is to ban all golfers from hitting a golf ball in general and only allow old elitist to play golf again.

This is the way.

[bluedot]

8 hours ago, 1mcozik said:

Best solution is to ban all golfers from hitting a golf ball in general and only allow old elitist to play golf again.

This is the way.

 

Unfortunately, this isn't that far off the mark when it comes to the USGA.  Easily, it's the most "unusual" and arguably the least representative rule-making body in any sport, and some of the rules they've made over the years have been exactly what you are joking about.

 

Because I putt side saddle, my favorite example has to do with that.  When Sam Snead started putting croquet-style, straddling the line and putting with a regular length Bullseye putter, he finished 10th at The Masters (at age 55), the story is that Bobby Jones, who had no great affection for Snead, told Joe Dey, the executive director of the USGA, that he (Jones) didn't like what Snead was doing.  Dey, also no friend of Snead's, took that to heart, and the rule banning straddling the line on the putting green was in place less than a month later.  Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, among others, were critical of the rule, but the USGA went ahead.  Snead always said that the USGA actually did him a favor; he moved out to the side and putted just as well.

 

The point of that is that the rule wasn't made for any good reason other than what a bunch of old guys thought about what did and didn't look "right", and after centuries of no such rule.  Same with the anchoring ban, and it would be the same if they tried to write a rule banning the arm lock.  Personally, I think an arm lock ban rule would be nearly impossible to write, but that assumes that the USGA isn't so conceited about their own abilities and role in the game that they'd know the difference.  Or care...

[Bad9]

It looks as bad as the other anchoring methods did so yes it should.

[SugarLandGolfer]

On 11/20/2020 at 7:34 AM, bluedot said:

 It's the only rule that I can think of in golf that tells you how you can (or cannot) hold the golf club.

While easier to enforce, the only other rule like this this I can think of is that they allow flat grips on putters, but not on any other clubs. Why are putters special? 

[bluedot]

13 hours ago, SugarLandGolfer said:

While easier to enforce, the only other rule like this this I can think of is that they allow flat grips on putters, but not on any other clubs. Why are putters special? 

 

You can take it farther than the shape of the grip.  All other clubs have a limit to the length; putters do not.  In the big rules revision a couple of years ago, the USGA specified that measuring during a drop had to be done with the longest club in the bag other than the putter, but didn't cap the length of the putter at 48".

 

I assume that the reasoning must have to do with allowing golfers with back trouble to have a putter long enough to reduce back strain, but the inconsistency of the whole thing, along with the confusion that it induces, is just weird to me.  As I wrote earlier, the usual approach by rule making bodies in other sports is to reduce judgement calls and to treat like situations alike; the USGA is a spectacular exception to that ethic.

[cavemeister]

On 11/23/2020 at 9:09 AM, MattM97 said:

 

That's now illegal. Arm lock is legal as long as it doesn't go past your elbow crease and touch your biceps. Forearm is fine according to the rules. 

haha--i had one. Some guy won a big tourney with it--BUT stuck it in his armpit, and that way is a little like armlock...

[tjcarsillo]

I don’t agree with the original ban, but if your going to do it, you might as well ban all forms of anchoring

[Feelingofgreatness]

If it was cheating, everyone on tour would do it. So, NO.

 

[Fade]

OP, when you say "arm lock putters", are you referring to players, or to pieces of equipment?

[ws6]

On 11/23/2020 at 2:13 AM, EmperorPenguin said:

What about the Cobra Tricep putter?  This is a blast from the past (circa 1994).  You anchor it to your arm, the shaft goes up across your forearm and anchors on your left shoulder through your armpit.

The Paul Voyer putter.  He worked on that design when he was the head pro at the Greenville Country Club (SC).