Bernhard Langer and his son Jason won the 2024 PNC Championship after a grueling sudden-death playoff with Tiger and Charlie Woods. Despite winning the event for the sixth time in his career, he has found himself at the center of a heated debate in the golf world.
A video shared by NUCLR Golf on X (formerly known as Twitter), shows the PGA Tour veteran using his signature putter with a long shaft. The caption accompanying the clip posed the question (via X @NUCLRGolf):
“#DISCUSSION: In your opinion, would you consider this anchoring?”
Anchoring involves bracing the club against the body to create a stable pivot point. However, the move was banned by the United States Golf Association (USGA) in Rule 14-1.
Here’s a look into the 67-year-old’s putting technique (via X @NUCLRGolf):
An X user took to the comments section of the post and wrote:
“It’s disappointing at a minimum that this is allowed to happen.”
Despite the ban, the USGA permits using long-shafted putters as long as they are not anchored to the body. However, one golf enthusiast criticized the move and said:
“I don’t care about the results from the PNC [Championship] but how can you possibly say this isn’t anchoring the putter, it’s textbook anchoring.”
Amid negative comments flooding the post, some fans came in support of Langer and claimed that the legendary golfer was not violating any rules, with one writing:
“The putter doesn’t touch his chest tho,” said the X user.
“I’m 99% certain that Langer’s results would not change if you gave him a random used putter before each competition. That being said: he’s 1,000% anchoring,” another wrote.
