KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. - If golf decides to ban long putters, U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson will be ready.
Simpson said Wednesday he ordered two Scotty Cameron putters that are conventional length and has been practicing with them at home in case the Royal & Ancient Golf Club and U.S. Golf Association decide later this year that anchoring a club to the body will not be allowed.
Neither organization has said which way they are leaning.
"I don't want to be surprised by it," Simpson said. "I'm almost kind of telling myself to expect it, and we'll see what happens."
Simpson has been using a belly putter for years, and when he won the U.S. Open at Olympic Club, he became one of three major champions to use such a belly putter in the last year. Keegan Bradley won the PGA Championship last year, and Ernie Els won the British Open last month. Els rallied from a six-shot deficit on the last day to beat Adam Scott, who also uses a long putter.
People are also reading…
R&A chief executive Peter Dawson said the day after the British Open that long putters were "firmly back on the radar" of the governing bodies, and that a decision is expected in "months rather than years." Dawson said discussions were centered on the rules of golf, instead of an equipment decision. If a change fell under the rules, it could not be enacted until 2016. The rules are changed every four years.
"This decision has not been taken," Dawson said. "Please don't think that it has."
Red Sox Nation
As the defending PGA champion, Keegan Bradley was responsible for hosting a dinner for past champions on Tuesday night. He also had to provide the champions a gift, and the New England native stayed true to his roots.
He got each of the champions a Boston Red Sox cap and a 100-year anniversary baseball.
The gift package was topped off by a personalized Red Sox jersey, with the player's name on the back. They were assigned numbers corresponding with the year they won the PGA Championship - 91 for John Daly, 97 for Davis Love, 5 for Phil Mickelson.
Tiger Woods didn't get four jerseys. He got No. 7, the year of his most recent PGA Championship.
Els and his caddies
Ernie Els has been using two caddies over the last couple of years - his regular looper, Ricci Roberts, and former NHL player Dan Quinn, who lives in south Florida and recently won a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada.
They split the earnings no matter who was on the bag, and they typically trade off majors.
But Roberts, the South African who has been on the bag for all four of Els' majors, is working again this week at Kiawah Island.
