Anchored Putter Ban: One Year Later How Five Players Affected

Keegan Bradley

Keegan Bradley was the first to win a major championship with an anchored putter.

Rule 14-1b never earned the nickname the “Keegan Bradley rule,” but maybe it should have. The PGA Tour rookie outlasted Jason Dufner’s collapse at Atlanta Athletic Club to win the 2011 PGA Championship. At his side, rather, his stomach, was his trusty long putter. A smattering of players had Tour wins using similar methods, but never a win on golf’s highest stage. Unintentionally, Bradley began a trend of major champions using a similar style.

It’s not like Bradley was setting the world on fire with his putter, though. He finished 105th on the PGA Tour in 2011 in strokes-gained (SG) putting. His two-win Rookie of the Year season was more a product of his distance off the tee (300.7 yards, 20th) and accuracy (.683 strokes-gained off the tee, 6th).

Bradley did have an improved putting week in Atlanta, but who doesn’t heat up at least a little bit on the greens in a major win?

His game hasn’t been the same since that fateful day. He’s won once since at the 2012 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and none since switching to a conventional putter.

Bradley’s Game After the Anchored Putter Ban

Bradley was among those who bit the bullet to make the switch before the calendar flipped to 2016. He tried to get out in front of the issue, but instead found himself looking back.

“It frustrated me,” Bradley told Golf Digest in the summer of 2016. “In the back of your mind you’re always thinking, ‘Man if I still had it.’”

Bradley tinkered with different grips and putters. He occasionally reverted back to his original anchored belly putter while he still could. Bradley was a modest 47th in SG putting and 26th in total putting in 2014. While in transition, Bradley was heckled and deemed a cheater by some fans while hanging on to the belly putter. Confidence issues from the equipment change were inevitable. Perhaps issues from his weakened public perception played a factor, too.

His ball-striking remained fairly intact starting in 2015, but his plummet outside of the world top 100 (from as high as 10th in his career) was a product of a balky putter. He finished 128th in SG putting in 2015 and 183rd in 2016 with a traditional flatstick.

Bradley continues to struggle in this department in 2017. Despite a T4 at the Farmers Insurance Open in January, he checks in at No. 110 in SG putting through 12 rounds.