Niemann sprints to fastest round at East Lake

While Matt Kuchar – the current FedExCup points leader — is the man behind the recent resurgence in the arm-lock putting method, a couple of amateurs named Spider and the Ace Man also deserve a little credit. Little did those two beer distributors know that a casual round in Florida could help create the PGA TOUR’s latest putting trend. Kuchar started running a putter shaft up his left arm back in 2011. He switched despite finishing second in the previous year’s FedExCup standings. His first exposure to the arm-lock came more than a decade earlier, though. That was at the 1999 Walker Cup, when he was amateur golf’s golden boy. His teammate, John “Spiderâ€� Miller, used a putter with a ski pole for a shaft. It was so long that it ran under his armpit. He had to unscrew the shaft so it could fit in his travel bag. Miller used the unique method for three decades, including his two U.S. Mid-Amateur victories and subsequent appearances at the Masters. Miller got the putter from his friend, Azy “Ace Manâ€� Stephens, who found the extra-long club during his desperate quest to cure the yips. Its length prevented the left wrist from breaking down — the same reason that golfers today are using putters whose shafts rest against their left arms. “The putter was made to go outside your arm, and you wrapped your arm around it. The Ace Man didn’t last long with it and he gave it to me,â€� Miller said. “I instinctively put it under my arm and ran it up my left arm. “Of course, all my friends laughed at me. … I would stand on my head to putt if I could make them. The making fun never bothered me. That was part of the fun of it. It would go from, ‘What’s that thing?’ to ‘Let me see that.’ I’m sure Kuch got the same reaction when he started using it.â€� Peer pressure may explain why the arm-lock method experienced slow growth in its early years. Most professional golfers are traditionalists by nature. But the method’s recent success has been too strong to ignore. Webb Simpson and Keegan Bradley used it to end lengthy victory droughts last season, while Bryson DeChambeau won four PGA TOUR titles with it in 2018. They combined to win three of the four FedExCup Playoffs events and THE PLAYERS Championship. Several more players – including Bubba Watson, Adam Scott, Lucas Glover and Jason Dufner – have been spotted tinkering with the method this season. Two World Golf Hall of Famers who famously battled the yips, Johnny Miller and Bernhard Langer, experimented with a similar method decades ago. Miller used a putter with an extended grip in the 1980s. Langer used his right hand to brace his putter against his left arm. He putted that way in his second Masters victory, in 1993. A few golfers copied Langer’s grip, but it didn’t gain much traction. When Kuchar started tinkering with the new method, he called Miller for advice. “I always thought it was important to hold it firmly against your (left) arm,â€� Miller said. “It takes your wrist out of the stroke.â€� Kuchar has won six times since making the switch, including the 2012 PLAYERS Championship and 2013 World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. For many years, it was simply called “the Kuchar methodâ€� because he was the only player using it. This year, he’s used it for two TOUR victories. Kuchar currently sits atop the FedExCup standings with 2,030 points, leading Xander Schauffele by 468 points. He has six top-10s in 13 starts, including victories at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and Sony Open in Hawaii. Those were his first wins since 2014. His success – and a change in the Rules of Golf – have helped the arm-lock spread. Simpson, Bradley and DeChambeau all switched to the arm-lock after their previous methods were declared illegal. Simpson and Bradley both won majors with the belly putter, before the USGA’s anchoring ban took effect on Jan. 1, 2016. DeChambeau’s side-saddle method was declared illegal in early 2017. Simpson’s improvement may have been the most dramatic. He was 177th in Strokes Gained: Putting in 2016. He finished fifth last season. Simpson gained 9.4 strokes on the greens during his record-setting performance in winning the 2018 PLAYERS. “I would have never done this as a junior golfer because you wanted to appear a certain way, but at this level I think guys are smart enough to try whatever gets it in the hole,â€� said Simpson, who switched in 2016. He added a claw grip at the 2017 PLAYERS, one year before he won at TPC Sawgrass. Bradley, who called Simpson “my idolâ€�, started using the method after seeing Simpson’s success. Bradley won last season’s BMW Championship, his first win in six years. Kuchar finished eighth in Strokes Gained: Putting in 2010, but he was still seeking more consistency on the greens. The unceasing quest for improvement is something golfers of all abilities can relate to. “The beauty about the game of golf … is there’s 1,000 different ways to get better,â€� Kuchar said. “No matter how good of a putter you are, how good of a chipper you are, no matter how good of a driver, you can be better. If I can get a little bit better, it’s worth a try.â€� He had a significant forward-press in his putting stroke during his stellar amateur career, which included a win at the 1997 U.S. Amateur and top-25s in two majors. In January 2011, Kuchar was giving a clinic at The Vintage Club in Indian Wells, California, when he realized that pressing the putter shaft against his left arm helped him recapture that feeling from his younger days. Dave Stockton, the 10-time TOUR winner who became one of the game’s top putting instructors, also was at the clinic. Stockton advocates for a forward press in the putting stroke. They started talking shop during some downtime that day. “At one point, I just gripped down on the putter so it went up to my wrist,â€� Kuchar said. “I had a big forward press but just started hitting beautiful putt after putt. It felt like how I was as a kid.â€� Scott used a similar drill during his college days at UNLV. That drill made him interested in the arm-lock method when he visited Scotty Cameron’s studio during the week of the Farmers Insurance Open. Scott finished second that week and then was seventh at the Genesis Open. He has since switched from the method, though, in his continued quest for a cure to his putting woes. For Kuchar, the early returns were promising, but he only adopted the new method on an experimental basis. “I told my wife, ‘I’m going to try this for a month,’â€� he said. “If it’s not better, and it’s only just as good as it was, remind me to not continue down this road, not to make a silly decision by changing my putting in a drastic way.â€� He finished in the top 10 in six of his first eight starts of 2011, though, and so the arm-lock was here to stay.

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Akshay Bhatia's coach in North Carolina, Chase Duncan, had his pupil running sprints before this PGA TOUR season began. Not as punishment, but as an opportunity for Bhatia to get better. Why spend time running instead of grinding on the putting green or driving range? To work on his breathing. He'd run down a fairway, get his heart-rate up, and the duo would see how long it took to slow down again to a normal average. RELATED: What’s in Bhatia’s bag? "I'm trying to understand how I can control myself and make myself feel as comfortable as possible," said Bhatia. After his most recent result at the Safeway Open, it's fair to say he's starting to feel more comfortable on TOUR, too. Bhatia turned professional in 2019 after becoming the youngest player to ever represent the United States in the Walker Cup. He made his pro debut on TOUR at the Sanderson Farms Championship last season. The debut came after he had reached No. 5 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. But despite his success on the junior and amateur circuit, it hadn't quite translated to the pro game until the Safeway Open. Bhatia finished T9 there and earned a spot in the field at this week's Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. He was the youngest player to finish in the top 10 of a stroke-play event on the PGA TOUR since Justin Rose finished fourth at the 1998 Open Championship. "It's always nice anytime you get a chance to play the PGA TOUR," Bhatia said. "It's a great way to enjoy things because this is the life I want to have and I have to get a taste of it. Earning my spot here was a different feeling for me and I'm just excited to get it going." It has certainly been a meaty stretch of learning for Bhatia. After putting a bow on an impressive junior golf career - he was on the winning Junior Presidents Cup team in 2017, the winning Junior Ryder Cup team in 2018 and the winning Walker Cup team last year - he hadn't made a cut on the PGA TOUR until the Safeway Open. He was 0-for-7 on TOUR to that point, although he did finish T42 at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour in April 2019 after Monday qualifying. "I've learned a lot more from failing than succeeding," Bhatia said. "Golf's such an up and down game and you can really let it take the best of you, but I've learned a lot. "Obviously it would have been great to get off to a good start, turning pro early, but the way it's worked out I've learned a lot about myself with the failures I've had and understanding a lot of things. I've taken a lot more from not playing my greatest golf and understanding what I can get better at." Bhatia said he's had his eyes opened to how many good players are on TOUR and how many could win on any given week. Patience is key, he said. During the COVID-19 break, he worked hard to add more shots to his repertoire and better understand how he feels under pressure - hence the sprints and the breathing exercises. He said he still feels like he's got momentum this week in Puntacana, despite the fact that his top-10 at the Safeway Open was two weeks ago. "Anytime you get to play competition, that's the greatest thing - to play against the best," he said. Bhatia spent last week recovering from the rigors of contending on the PGA TOUR. He watched the last few holes of the U.S. Open because runner-up Matthew Wolff is a fellow George Gankas student and Bhatia played with DeChambeau at a Monday qualifier a few years ago. "It's kind of crazy to see where he is now. At the time I thought he was hitting it so far," Bhatia said of DeChambeau. "He was carrying it and was taking these lines where I thought, ‘holy crap.' It must be just amazing what he's doing now." Still, Bhatia is taking things one step at a time as he tries to reach the same level on TOUR as DeChambeau and Wolff and the laundry list of other young stars in the game. He said this week at Corales is one of "the coolest places" he's been to play golf in his life, and, with a laugh, he said he'd of course rather be in the Dominican than at home or grinding at a Monday qualifier. "The biggest thing for me is just to try to go out and birdie every hole. That's all I'm aiming to do - just try to play golf. There's nothing really special to it. Adding pressure to it doesn't make you play better," said Bhatia. "I'm just going to have a good time, enjoy the views, and it's going to be a fun week."

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