What the Pros are Saying About Belly Putters
"Right now I'm glad they haven't banned it. As long as it's legal, I'll keep cheating like the rest of them." - Ernie Ells at 2011 Frys.com Open (Golf Magazine)
"It's not just people looking for a cure for their bad putting, good putters are going to it too -- [Jim] Furyk
It's clearly an easier, better way to putt." - James Driscoll
"It's like the two-handed backhand in tennis, twenty years ago, it was not the norm. Now it's the better way to go. The belly putter and the long putter are going to trend that way. Young kids are not going to be afraid to switch." - Brad Faxon
"If it was cheating you'd see every single person using it, I don't think it is the cure-all. You still have to be good to use it. But there's no doubt, you give a good putter a long putter and he's only going to get better." - Spencer Levin
Belly Putting in The News
What's hot in golf: Instant belly putter
(USA Today, Steve DiMeglio) - Clay Judice's past as a 2 handicapper and an engineer collided about three years ago when he missed a 1-foot putt for birdie.
It wasn't his only gagged short putt. Having put his clubs away years ago to concentrate on raising five sons, the Lafayette, La., native headed back to the golf course missing one key ingredient - he could no longer putt. The yips, it turns out, had taken over his putter.
Instead of being driven away from the game, he headed to the workshop and stuck a screwdriver into the end of his putter and started experimenting with belly-putting.
The yips disappeared.
And the Belly Putt was born.
Judice, inspired by one of his sons who said the contraption could be an invention, formulated the Belly Putt, an attachment that allows golfers to turn their own putters into a belly putter. The adjustable Belly Putt can add up to 8 inches to a standard putter by simply screwing the attachment into the handle-end of your putter.
As normally attached, the Belly Putt does not conform to USGA rules. But there are detailed instructions included in the Belly Putt kit that shows golfers how to use the product and conform to USGA rules.
"The key to the Belly Putt is you can adjust the length," Judice, 60, said. "You don't have to be stuck with however long the putter is in the store. You can determine the exact length of the belly putter you want."
This is Judice's third endeavor into the putting business. In his 20s, he designed and sold a putter called the Offset that Raymond Floyd endorsed. In the mid-1980s, he invented a putting aid that looked like a barbell and went by the name of Strokee.
Neither of the products took off.
This time, however, the Belly Putt could stay around awhile.
The long putter craze - ignited by the likes of PGA champion Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson, Bill Haas, Adam Scott and many others - doesn't seem to be fading. For Judice, he was able to hit the exact putting line he was aiming at with the new putter. Confidence rose, the yips melted away.
Judice's one-man shop is now eight strong. And he's upgrading the factory equipment. After selling about 1,000 in 2010 and about the same number in the first half of 2011, he sold 400 in one week after Bradley won the PGA Championship. The orders kept rolling in and he's recently passed the 20,000 threshold.
"It's been quite a ride," Judice said. "After what Bradley did, and what Webb Simpson and then Bill Haas were doing, it just took off.
"People are finding out that it's a good way to putt. Maybe it's the best way. With the Belly Putt, you can find out."
Read the article HERE on USA Today's website.
