Long putter ban won’t stop Scott: Senior
Defending Australian Open champion Peter Senior says the outlawing of putters anchored to the body may prove impossible to police.
And either way, Senior doesn’t believe the ban – to come into effect on January 1, 2016 – will stop the Adam Scott juggernaut.
While Scott has taken his golf to a new level since switching to a broomstick putter just before the 2011 Masters, the 2013 Augusta National champion won 18 tournaments worldwide before ditching the conventional flat stick.
Senior has been using a long wand for two decades and suspects the ban on putters anchored to the body will have little effect on Scott.
“Well, he was never a really bad putter with the short putter but I think this (form resurgence) will give him enough confidence,” he said ahead of Thursday’s first round of the Open at Royal Sydney.
“I don’t know whether he’s going to adapt to a different method with the long putter.
“We’ve still got two years to go and come up with a variety of different things.
“I think the ruling’s going to be very, very hard to police – the no anchoring rule – and you can’t have your forearm against your body.
“If I putt with a short putter, I’ve got both forearms against my body. Where do you go on the ruling there?
“I know there’s a lot of conjecture at the moment about how they’re going to police it.
“You get on a windy day where you’ve got a lot of clothes on and your wet weather gear, you could have it an inch from your body and all of a sudden your wet weather gear is there – who’s to know whether you’re anchoring it or not.
“There are a lot of grey areas.”
Senior’s more immediate focus is putting in a respectable title defence this weekend.
Last year, at 53, the Queenslander became the oldest Open champion by a decade – 23 years after first etching his name on the Stonehaven Cup.
“Yeah, well, I’m actually making a little bit of history around the place being the oldest of winning certain things,” Senior said.
“The oldest PGA (champion), the oldest Australian Open (champion) and I’m playing the Netbank (in South Africa) next week and they’ve got me down as the oldest player to ever qualify to play in it.
“I’m just really happy that I’m still competitive. I still enjoy playing the game.
“Winning back to back – if I have a good tournament, I’ll be very happy.
“The guys we’ve got here this week are exceptional players.”