An Intrusive Putting Process Has Trickled Down From Pros to Kids, and That's Awful for Golf

Alex Miceli appreciates the Drive, Chip and Putt but not how its young players are now straddling putting lines, a procedure that slows play.

The phenomenon that is Drive, Chip and Putt was on full display on Sunday at Augusta National Golf Club.

Started in 2013, the joint initiative between the Masters, the UGSA and the PGA of America has been highly successful in its goal of growing the game with kids and teens alike.

Watching kids hitting shots at Augusta National, one of the most hallowed courses in the world, is beyond positive for golf.

But as I started watching the competition on Sunday, I saw something I wish I hadn’t: AimPoint.

Kids aged 7 to 15 having learned to putt by walking along their line and the line of other players, all in the hope they will make a putt that otherwise might not go in is, in a word, unconscionable.

A 9-year-old golfer walks along his line before putting at the Drive Chip and Putt finals on Sunday at Augusta National :: Matt Slocum/AP

With this abomination on full display, all kids that are watching Sunday are learning to do something that just looks bad and it’s bad for golf.

Is it a look that you expect from golf?

That is exactly what the USGA said when they eliminated anchored putting strokes.

When the USGA banned anchoring on Feb. 2, 2013, then-USGA President Glen Nager said that the USGA’s determination to preserve and protect the game also was evident in the announcement of proposed rule to ban anchoring.

“The proposed ban aims to maintain one of the essential elements of this unique and enjoyable game of skill and challenge—the free swing of the club that is the essence of a golf stroke,” he said.

Have the golf governing bodies forgotten their responsibility to golf and its participants?

AimPoint is not exactly part of the putting stroke per se, but it is part of the putting process. It is an increasingly popular way for pros to read the slope of greens, using their fingers to aim but also straddling the line of a putt, sometimes multiple times along the path between the ball and hole.

Of course, while the process of tromping on a green and hovering over the putting line doesn’t look good, it’s part of a bigger problem: slow play.

When the R&A and USGA recently changed the Rules of Golf in regard to touching a putting line, they stated that no advantage is gained merely if a player or their caddie touches the surface of the putting green.

At the same time, eliminating the rule of touching the putting line should speed up play, but not if the rule change allows players to hover over the line like they are doing Golf Twister.

When a player feels the slope with their feet, not only does the process look bad, but it slows play down.

When a player uses their arm and finger to determine where to aim, it looks more like a priest in church then part of a process to make a putt in golf.

Yet, the process is still ongoing.

As the R&A and the USGA are now involved in trying to rein the ball in after years of investigation and research, to many observers, it's too little, too late.

The horse is out of the metaphorical barn and the governing bodies are hoping to look like they are doing their job protecting the game.

But AimPoint is a scourge on the game of golf. It looks bad, it slows play down and there is little proof that putting success is improved by the process.

And even if there was some minute evidence that the AimPoint creates a better percentage of putting success, we should fall back on the fact that the process is un-golf-like and should be banned.

It’s no time like the present for the R&A and USGA to get control of this before 7-year-olds become 20 and everyone is looking around and saying that the game is too slow and the AimPoint process, which clearly will be adapted by many more, is so embedded that it can’t be banned.

Kudos to the Masters, the USGA and PGA of America for maintaining Drive Chip and Putt, now let’s continue to create an example for golf that certain acts are not welcome in the game.