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Adam Scott abandons long putter three months in advance of anchoring ban

October 05, 2015

Stories of interest you might have missed…

The ban on anchoring a putter takes effect on Jan. 1, but Adam Scott already has abandoned his long putter in favor of a conventional one and isn’t going back, Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press writes. “Scott used a conventional putter for a practice round Monday at the Presidents Cup…Scott spent the last five weeks practicing with the new putter and a cross-handed grip that feels as comfortable as the long putter he had used the last four years.”

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US PGA TOUR

Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee, like NBC’s Johnny Miller, can be a polarizing figure, but as Chamblee explains in this story at GolfChannel.com, it is “a difficult, often thankless job. We have to know something about every player in the field. We have to know when they’ve changed coaches, managers, world ranking, swings, shot shape, clubs and caddies. We have to know the course, weather, hole locations and breaks of the greens. And we have to be ready for every conceivable situation that a player might face from Thursday to Sunday and be able to spit all of that out in 10- to 30-second sound bites.”

“Ever wondered what it takes to become the best golfer in the world?” Chris Cutmore writes in the Daily Mail. “As well as possessing an extraordinary amount of natural talent, this might be the answer: hitting 16,500 golf balls, running 1,036 kilometers and straining through 6,800 press-ups. Oh, and here's the bad news: that's just one year’s work. These are the staggering statistics behind Rory McIlroy's last 12 months, compiled by the four-time major champion together with Santander Spendlytics.”

The Royal and Ancient has been widely criticized for taking coverage of the British Open away from the BBC and awarding it to cable entity Sky Sports. Aidan Smith in the Scotsman recounts how the BBC introduced him to the game as a kid and how a round at the Old Course at St. Andrews hooked him. “Now, this day and its golden memory wouldn’t have happened if the BBC hadn’t put golf on the goggle box. If I hadn’t had Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and Gary Player to inspire me on free-to-air TV…I would never have played that round, thus entering golf’s weird, one-glove world.”