TAYLOR MADE CHIEF URGES US TOUR TO IGNORE BELLY PUTTER BAN

FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH WEBSITE

By James Corrigan

The chief executive of golf’s biggest company has sent shock waves through the sport by urging the US Tour to ignore the forthcoming belly putter ban, insisting that the governing bodies “will be nonentities within 10 years”. The Royal and Ancient and the United Golf Association are set to introduce new rules in March which will outlaw “anchoring” golf clubs to the body and thus negate the use of long putters. The regulation comes in the wake of three of the last five major-winners employing belly-putters.

While the European Tour has indicated it will adhere to the regulations, the PGA Tour is still to decide whether it will stick to tradition and obey the rule makers. Mark King, the chief executive of Taylor Made, the equipment-makers favoured by the majority of professional golfers, believes it should break away.

“The anchoring ban makes no sense to me at all,” King said. “If I were running the PGA of America I would write my own set of rules. I’d do it with the PGA Tour. The industry needs to come together without the USGA. Leave them out.”

King presumably also means exclude the R&A. The two bodies set the laws and, despite long putters being around since the Sixties, have only decided now to eradicate their use. It would be a drastic move for the PGA Tour to flout the custodians, but King feels it could happen as the likes of Keegan Bradley, Ernie Els and Webb Simpson fight their corner.

“I’m still not convinced the PGA Tour is going to completely embrace the long putter rule,” said King. “Here’s a prediction: the USGA within 10 years will be a nonentity, they will be a non-factor in golf because they are choosing to be on the outside and no one is signing up for what they represent. The industry is going to move away from them and pass them. They’re obsolete. I hate to say that but that’s their behaviour.”

King vows that Taylor Made, the clubs which are used more by the pros on Tour than the rest of their competitors combined, will keep making long putters regardless of the regulations. And he also pledges that if the long-mooted rule changes concerning the ball are introduced they will apply the same philosophy.
Bifurcation is the new buzzword in golf and in King’s mind two sets of rules – one for professionals and one for amateurs – are inevitable. “It’s coming and coming fast,” he said. “If Tim Finchem [the PGA Tour’s chief executive] says he’s going to use all the USGA rules except the long putter rule, there you go. You have two sets of rules.
“The whole world, not just golf, the whole world is about innovation and consumers only want what’s new and exciting. They don’t want last year, they want new, innovative cool stuff and if we’re going to stop that or limit that we’re going to kill the industry not just equipment but the playing of the game.
“So if the USGA doesn’t jump on board and lead this new way of golf, they’re just going to be obsolete. And if Finchem goes ahead and leaves the long putter in, it’s just the start. The USGA is going over the edge.”