Tom Lehman is bending over his putts a bit more these days.
The veteran PGA Tour player had experimented with a belly putter last season, but at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Lehman had a regular-length flat stick.
"That long putter statistically -- I mean it was no better than the short putter before -- and I just feel like I see the line better with the short putter," Lehman said.
Some players, including Vijay Singh in his win at last week's Mercedes-Benz Championship, have picked up the belly putter because it removes some of the moving parts of the putting stroke.
With the end of the grip against the stomach, the player can putt using a pendulum swing, reducing wrist action and a potential area for mistakes. Critics of the longer putters argue that using one reduces feel and actually is a disadvantage for putts of more than 20 feet.
Lehman made the cut in Honolulu, but went 76-75 for the weekend, finishing last in the tournament. He averaged 31.0 putts per round, a tie for 71st in the field.
"So it's going to take a little used to, I think, getting back to swinging it a bit shorter," Lehman said. "You know, it's -- the long putter was not the answer."
SECOND TIME'S THE CHARM: In a tournament where driver doesn't come out of the bag on too many holes, Jerry Kelly couldn't stop talking about his new Cleveland HiBore XL driver.
Similar to the one Singh used to win the Mercedes-Benz Championship last week, the driver helped Kelly led the Sony field in driving accuracy and a tie for 13th overall.
"You have got to be able to control your ball," he said. "The only way to do that is from the fairway. The new Cleveland driver is fantastic compared to the old one."
Kelly said he used the first-generation HiBore driver and would hit the ball high with lots of spin or low with little spin. Control was more difficult.
"The way they built (the original driver) was to lower the sweet spot and make it bigger," he said. "Well, something happened on the inside. That didn't work out."
But, he said, that got fixed with the new club.
"They built a club on the computer the first time and they built the club with me and Vijay telling them what it did in competition the next time. I think it's best for a company to, if you're going to launch new technology, to probably get some player input and see how it works in the real world. It's a fantastic idea, I think it's revolutionary and it's showing up now.
"All I care is that they got it right," he said. "They definitely got it right. It's a good stuff."
SAME LOOK, NEW NAME: David Toms made a switch this year to TaylorMade equipment, including a new putter. Since he's not a man who likes to change his putter style, his Corza putter closely resembles what he's used in the past.
"It seems like every company, whatever putter I've used, always made me something similar to the style that I used ever since I was in college," Toms said. "So you know, it's nothing out of the ordinary I guess. It's just a nice, solid putter."
The difference? Corza's insert. Toms said that he went through TaylorMade's putting studio and quickly became convinced that the insert would work for him.
"They made me a believer after about 30 minutes that I think it's something that's going to help me be more consistent with pace on the greens," he said. "I'm going to give it a shot for a while."
WARM AND FUZZY: Fuzzy Zoeller has signed a contract with PowerBilt to play the company's clubs, carry its bright orange bag and design clubs. He last played PowerBilt clubs 15 years ago.
"I had great success with PowerBilt," Zoeller said. "Heck, 10 of the 12 professional tournaments I won, including the Masters and U.S. Open, were with PowerBilt. We're going to work hard to resurrect that success."
Plans call for Zoeller to help design new PowerBilt Citation forged irons that he will then play. PowerBilt's research and development head, Mark Wilson, will work with Zoeller on that and projects for new utility woods, fairway woods and drivers for tour play.
