MARANA, Ariz. (AP) a' Bruce Lietzke might have seen a banana inside the cover of his long club. One of many popular stories about Lietzke, a winner on the PGA Tour, is that he never touched a club when he wasn't on tour. His caddie did not consider him, so at the conclusion of the 1984 season, he put a strawberry inside the head cover of Lietzke's driver before zipping up the travel case. Some 15 weeks later at the Bob Hope Classic, the caddie desperately unzipped the travel bag. The smell should have been the first clue. "Sure enough, he pulled off that head cover and the banana... it was not yellow," Lietzke said Monday. "It was dark, awful, fungus. He said he'd never doubt me again." Lietzke confessed to when it came to the broom-handled putter he found at the Phoenix Open in 1991 and used the remainder of his career breaking his own rules. Even in his down-time, he'd tinker with along the club and practice with it. And he wonders what the conversation could have been like nowadays if that 1991 PGA Championship had turned out differently. Lietzke was the runner-up at Crooked Stick behind a big-hitting rookie named John Daly. Imagine if Lietzke had acquired that major. Would the USGA have banned the putter he anchored against his chest? "I feel so," Lietzke said. "Judging by their a reaction to important achievements, I guess they were just awaiting this to happen. The USGA should have made a record then. If I had won the PGA Championship, they may have tried to outlaw it. And if you look back on it, most people could have gone along side it." That was one of the arguments PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem help with Sunday when he explained the visit was against the proposed rule that would exclude the secured stroke mostly employed for long putters and belly putters. Without any scientific evidence an secured stroke now is easier, why bar it? And after all these years, why now? The faces in this discussion a' and that's all it's right now a are Keegan Bradley and Tim Clark, for significantly different reasons. It was Bradley's gain at the PGA Championship that prompted considerable speak about the future of secured strokes. Bradley now is lumped in with three of the last five main champions utilizing a belly putter, but he was the driver. European Tour leader George O'Grady said the conversations between golf's managers and the governing bodies about the future of the long putters began this past year at the Masters. That was before Webb Simpson won the U.S. Open and Ernie Els won the British Open, which ramped up the eye. For Clark? It had been his responsible talk at Torrey Pines that brought even the staunch opponents of long putters to look at them differently. As a game-changer multiple person in the space that evening has described his speech. That much was reflected in the overwhelming support from the Player Advisory Council and player-directors on the tour's policy board that the PGA Tour should oppose the USGA on this concept. The difficult part is finding out where this can cause. The PGA Tour sent the USGA a letter last week spelling out its opposition to Rule 14-1( t), and the PGA of America and its 27,000 membership benefits may also be contrary to the bar. One reason Finchem chose to discuss the letter a' a little diversion throughout the final of the Match Play Championship a was his concern that the conversation was being express as a series. Today, it is a matter of opinion. High noon isn't until the USGA and R&A decide whether to go ahead with the rule, when it becomes a showdown. And that choice won't come before the spring. It is a polarizing topic. If not, the governing bodies wouldn't have provided a 90-day comment period that ends on Thursday. They simply would have released a new rule and been done with it. For the time being, the trip hasn't said it'll go against the USGA. It has only said it disagrees with the USGA. Finchem decided to not show his hand when he brushed off questions about whether the trip could ever allow a secured stroke even when the governing bodies adopt a rule that prohibits it beginning in 2016. But he's made clear on at the least three instances that while slightly different rules might work for the PGA Tour, this rule wouldn't be one. This is not where tennis must go. The word appearing out of the USGA annual meeting earlier this month wasn't "bifurcation" but "unification." Go anywhere in the world and tennis successfully is performed by exactly the same set of rules. This is something that should not change. The USGA and R&A know they don't have evidence showing that having an secured stroke is simpler. Honestly, they don't need any evidence. This is not about gear, rather a fresh principle that attempts to establish the tennis stroke while the club moving freely. The error by the USGA was waiting until some body won a major before performing a' or thinking that winning a major should even make a difference. The majors are the biggest events to get. They determine careers. However if the belly club was a concern when Simpson won the U.S. Available, why was not it a problem when he won the Deutsche Bank Championship? Did the club work differently at Olympic? Lietzke can think of several occasions when nerves made him miss together with his long putter. And if the belly club may be the remedy, do not just look at Ernie Els getting that claret jug last summer at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. Look at these two putts Els badly missed on the last several holes of the Match Play Championship to get rid of in the opening round. If the USGA establishes that a ban on anchored strokes is best for the game, the PGA Tour should go along side it. And if the USGA was serious about that 90-day comment period, the hope is that it was serious about listening. Why? And why now?
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