Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - For golfers, it's all about the process.
The process of learning a new swing or the process of learning how to win the
big one.
Matt Kuchar won his fifth PGA Tour title on Sunday, and that victory was just
another step in the process toward winning his first major championship.
Kuchar's quest to become a major champion started as an amateur when he won
the 1997 U.S. Amateur Championship. Back in the day, that was considered a
major championship, but that stopped about 40 years before Kuchar was born.
The 34-year-old's next step toward winning a major happened 11 years ago at
this week's PGA Tour stop, the Honda Classic. That was where Kuchar picked up
his first tour victory.
As a brief aside, Kuchar collected $630,000 for that win. His fifth title
earned Kuchar a cool $1.5 million.
It took seven more years, but Kuchar finally won his second title in 2009, and
he has stopped winning. His third win was at 2010 The Barclays, one of the
FedExCup Playoff events.
From there, Kuchar took another big step along the way as he won last year's
Players Championship. Many consider that the "fifth" major because year in and
year out it has one of the best fields.
Being the Players Champion has many perks, including a three-year exemption
into three of the four majors, the PGA Championship being the only exception.
Not that he wasn't already qualified for this year's fourth major at Oak Hill,
but Kuchar clinched his spot in the field at the PGA Championship by fending
off fellow American Hunter Mahan in the final match Sunday at the World Golf
Championship - Accenture Match Play Championship.
Kuchar rolled through his six matches. He never played the 18th hole and played
the 17th hole only twice. Kuchar's big week raised his record at the event to
15-3.
The victory meant Kuchar joined Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Henrik Stenson and
Tiger Woods as the only five men to win both the Players Championship and a
World Golf Championship title.
Of that group, Mickelson and Woods are fellow U.S. Amateur champions. That's
some pretty heady company for Kuchar.
Kuchar's next step in the process? Joining Mickelson and Woods as major
champions.
PGA TOUR TO OPPOSE ANCHORING BAN
Over the past few weeks, the announcement seemed like it was coming at any
time. PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem finally met with the press on Sunday,
while Kuchar was winning the final match at The Golf Club at Dove Mountain.
Finchem announced that the PGA Tour will oppose the anchoring ban that the
United States Golf Association and Royal & Ancient proposed in late November.
The commissioner made it a point to say this isn't a "donnybrook" between the
tour and the USGA. And he's right. The tour was asked for its opinion and is
giving it.
Since the ban was proposed, the tour's players and board of directors had many
conversations about it and came to the same conclusion.
As Finchem stated on Sunday, "Essentially where the tour came down was that
they did not think that banning anchoring was in the best interest of golf or
the PGA Tour."
And he's right.
The ban seemed to be a rush to judgment after three of the last five major
champions used a long putter. Why, you ask, was it a rush to judgment?
Because long putters have been around since the 1960s. All of a sudden people
are winning majors with them, and now it's time to ban them?
The governing bodies of the USGA and R&A left a 90-day window for comments on
the proposed ban, and that window is closing shortly. After that, the two
bodies will reconvene to see if the language in the proposed rule change needs
to be tweaked.
The crux of the new rule, if the proposal goes unchanged, would be that a
player using a long putter cannot either anchor the putter in his stomach with
a belly putter, or anchor his arm and/or hand against his body while using a
long putter, and said long putter also cannot be anchored under one's chin.
One of the key points that commissioner Finchem brought up was that there is
an "absence of data or any basis to conclude that there is a competitive
advantage to be gained by using anchoring."
If the USGA or R&A can come up with said data, will the PGA Tour back off its
stance? Will those governing bodies agree with the PGA Tour and scrap the
proposed ban? Will the organizations battle over the plan until 2016, when the
ban was scheduled to go in effect?
There are dozens of questions like this. We won't have any concrete answers
until the USGA or R&A responds. I know this - the PGA Tour is using the most
salient argument there is.
Does anchoring give a competitive advantage? That should be the focus of this
debate until the USGA responds.
MINI-TIDBITS
* Beatriz Recari is on quite a roll on LPGA Tour. She has made the cut in 36
consecutive starts dating to late in the 2011 season.
* The PGA Tour finally heads to Florida this week as the West Coast swing came
to an end. Thank goodness, for that, because I swear the locusts were coming.
The tour had delays for fog, wind, rain and even snow.
The Sports Network