PGA Against "Belly Putting" Ban by Peyton Richardson

               There is a huge controversy in the professional golf world right now.  The administration of the PGA wants to put an end to "belly putting".  It says in the article I found on cnn.com that the PGA administration "wants "belly putting" to be completely outlawed in the professional golf game by the year 2016".   But the conflict is that Tiger Woods stated "I think I speak for the majority of the PGA players when I say I think that "belly putting" should not be outlawed in the game, it has been a part of the game for years and serves no unfair competitive advantage to the golfers." I think that if the whole PGA admin wants to instate a new rule, then they should just make it a new rule and not worry about what the players say.  This reminds me of when the Arkansas Triple A made the rule that High School Football teams around the state can only do "two a days" in August every other day of the week opposed to every day.  The coaches thought this was a bad idea because it wouldn't give us quite as much as time to practice anymore. But there were no serious exhaustion related injuries this year because of that rule.  Usually if the Admin wants to put a new rule in, it is for a good reason.

               The PGA is changing a lot, just like the NFL and other professional leagues.  The PGA administration said they just want "things to be as fair as possible".  This seems to be the case in the NFL as well, the NFL changed where you kicked the ball off from by moving it to the 30 yard line instead of the 25.  The NFL claims that by moving it up 5 yards it helps prevent injury which seems to be a problem late in the season.  The NFL is wanting to keep everyone healthy so they can find out who the best team really is.  The PGA is doing the same thing.  They want to find out who the best golfer truly is, they don't want a golfer to be successful by using little tricks other people don't know.  I think that is a good idea, keeping the sport as even as possible makes it all the more competitive.  I also think they should decide now though because it says in the article that the controversial technique, which involves anchoring the club to a part of the body, is favored by major winners Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson and Ernie Els.  I think these players should know in advance whether or not they need to start developing a new technique in advance. 

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/25/sport/golf/pga-tour-belly-putter-golf/index.html?hpt=isp_c1