The Human Element
What an amazing day the Open Championship. Congratulations to Ernie Els on your great victory and 4th major championship.
It is heartbreaking to see how Adam Scott finished the tournament. Who would have ever guessed that a superstar golfer such as Adam would have struggled so greatly finishing his round? If you were paying attention, you would have noticed that his putter let him down on those last four holes. This was a bit surprising to me with Adam being one of the many tour players who yield a long putter on tour.
If you follow golf, you are very likely aware of the controversy of the long putter. The ruling bodies of golf (The R&A along with the USGA) are debating the use of the long putter and the advantages that they may have over a conventional length putter. For those of you who are unaware, the issue stems from the ability to “anchor” the club against your body. This could give a player an advantage in that they aren’t able to manipulate the club with their hands and arms as easily, and makes hitting putts an easier task.
Well, lets take a look at Mr. Scott. Regardless of the fact that he was using one of these great tools that allow a player to simplify the putting stroke, it is very apparent to me that nerves are still a huge factor in ones ability to make putts. On the final four holes of todays round, each and every putt that he missed was to the left of the hole. What you will typically find, for those of you who are also playing with a long putter, is that when the pressure is on the tendency will be for you to pull the putts with this style of putter, just as Adam did today.
Now even though the long putter is supposedly “an unfair advantage”, players are still capable of missing plenty of putts. Sure it helps a lot of players, but you still need to be in control of your body and your mind if you are going to make the putts when you need to. So I don’t know if this helps any of you with your decision-making on whether or not it is an advantage to use such a style of putter. But what it does for me is confirm that regardless of the equipment, the ball, the course…golf is very much controlled by the human element.
There are countless outside forces that come into play each and every time we take to the course. If you choose to blame these outside forces as resulting in poor shots remember, when you point your finger there are three more pointing right back at you. It is you, and you alone that are swinging the golf club. You put the greatest influence on where the ball is going to travel, so suck it up and be a man when you hit a bad shot. Your human, you make errors. What we all need to do is learn from our mistakes so that we don’t make them again.