Long Putter Ruling Is Imminent

We all knew it was coming; we just didn’t know when. Well, now we have a date. U.S. Golf Association executive director Mike Davis told GolfTalkCentral on Monday that an announcement will be made soon on the whether long putters, more specifically anchoring, will remain legal.

“We do plan to make some kind of announcement, as promised, later this year,” Davis texted. “We have yet to figure out a day, but I would guess sometime late next month or early December.”

Any change will have to wait until the end of the current rules cycle to take effect. That would mean we wouldn’t see a difference until January 2016. However, the USGA and R&A have made rule changes in the middle of a cycle before.

“The only times we’ve changed during a cycle was when there was something within the rules that absolutely didn’t work. Either we didn’t have an answer for something or the way the rules were written, it created a problem that was flat wrong,” Davis said.

“If we make a change, again, if we make a change, it will be Jan. 1 of ’16, and it would be a rules change. We wouldn’t ban the long putter, we wouldn’t ban the mid-length belly putter. We’re looking at the type of stroke that is made.”