Barely legal

It’s been described as a potato masher, a branding iron or a new-fangled musical instrument but, in the hands of Scott Hoch, it has now been used to win a major golf tournament.

It took three playoff holes, and an extra night to think about it, but in the end it all paid off with a victory for Scott Hoch at the Ford Championship over the Blue Monster course at the Doral resort in Florida.

Using the odd-looking Scotty Cameron Futura putter first unveiled on tour by Phil Mickelson, Hoch converted the putt that awaited him from Sunday’s delay due to darkness, and then birdied the third playoff hole for the win.

The victory was the 17th of the scratchy Hoch’s career and drew attention to a putter that only days before had come off the R&A’s banned list.

In an odd inversion of the row over illegal drivers the Futura putter was declared suitable for play in regions governed by the USGA but found to be unacceptable by the Royal and Ancient under a clause in the rules on design that “the club shall not be substantially different from the traditional and customary form and make.”

An appeal was launched by Titleist, who bring Scotty Cameron putters to the market, and the Futura, which is described as an “advanced multi-material, multi-weight design, that features a lightweight milled aluminum face and frame with a deep semi-circular steel back weight,” was approved just a week or so before Hoch’s victory.

I had seen Mickelson wielding this strange contraption, which contains some of the thinking to be found in Odyssey’s vogue Two-ball putter, on television and was therefore quite intrigued to come across one when one of my partners during the Ernie Invitational at Fancourt, American John Ashworth, pulled one out of his bag.

Ashworth, who lent his name to one of the most popular apparel lines in golf, was in South Africa to conclude Ernie’s new clothing deal and, as a close friend of Scotty Cameron, was in possession of one of the prototype Futuras.

Aptly named it certainly is futuristic in look with the principle being that the bent shaft keeps your hands ahead of the ball, the bar protruding back from the head helps with alignment while the heavy semi-circular tube not only gives you a visual impression of the hole and sweeping the ball into it but performs the function of weight pushing or catching up with the hitting area to prevent that dreaded “decel”.

That’s how it was explained to me, or rather what I understood it to be, and I have to admit I was quite impressed with the feel and ability to send the ball on line even though the initial impression is one of unwieldiness.

Thanks to Hoch the Futura has now arrived as yet another hot item in the Titleist stable to go with Ernie Els’s driver and ball that have the market abuzz.

With the win at the Ford Championship, Scotty Cameron putters had been used to put the finishing touches on a perfect 10-for-10 of winners on the 2003 PGA Tour; and the figure may well be 11 because Justin Leonard, the Honda Classic champion, has in the past been a Cameron man.

Ironically the Futura is Cameron’s first really different putter. Prior to its arrival the man who is said to know more about putting than almost anyone on the globe was jokingly referred to as Scotty Xerox because his putter tended to look like other famous designs.

Certainly, the most successful design of all time is Ping’s by-now classical Anser. It was also considered ugly and unusual when it first appeared but such was the genius of Karsten Solheim’s invention that it has been a partner to more champions than any club in history.

And now I must go… I have just realised the problem with my golf is I need a new putter… and a different ball… maybe a new driver…!