Capelle On Golf

I am not so concerned about the health of those who manufacture putters because they have already made far more money than they should from constantly upgrading, changing, and marketing their never ending lines of “must have” products to gullible golfers – and they will continue to do so.

Still, Keegan Bradley is afraid for their health, and feels a ban on long putters and/or anchoring would cost them a fortune. “To me, to change something that big and to cost manufacturers millions of dollars, you’ve got to have some pretty good facts.”

Let’s take Bradley’s position that costing the manufacturers “millions” would be a bad thing.  He is assuming that they will make more money by being able to sell long putters. But will they? I don’t think so.

Golfers will buy new putters. Take the case of Arnold Palmer. According to USA Today’s Jerry Potter, “Palmer has 10,000 clubs and 2,000 putters stored away in buildings and workshops in Latrobe, Pa., and Orlando.” Two thousand putters – and every one of them is a short putter because Palmer hates the long putter.

While few if any average golfers are close to his collection of 2,000, I would wager that there are millions of dedicated enthusiasts who own 10, 20, 50 or more – and who are constantly adding to their collection because they can. And the reason they can is because there are an infinite number of models of short putters, and because a player does not need to be specially fitted to try each one on the putting green.

All of this experimenting and searching works to the long term benefit of those manufacturers that we are so concerned about.

The long putter, in contrast, is seen as THE ANSWER to the putting challenged. A player who switches to one is not planning to keep changing until he finds the magic long putter. Besides, it is not so easy to switch because there are far fewer models to choose from, long putters are more standardized, and a player must be fitted for one before trying it out.

So, don’t worry about those manufacturers. In the not-so-long run they will make more money from golfers who continue their search for the perfect wand (like Palmer) than they will from players who buy a single long putter, and who then figure, from that point forward, that their poor putting is due to their deficiencies, and not those of the equipment!