Keegan Bradley, who became the first player to win a major championship using a Titleist Scotty Cameron Buttonback Putter when he captured the PGA Championship in August, is seen as an excellent example. He has been using one since college.

Bill Haas, the reigning FedEx Cup champion who uses a long putter, captured his fourth career title on Sunday at the Northern Trust Open, defeating Bradley and Mickelson in a playoff. Haas is coming up on his 30th birthday, hardly the age for which a long putter is associated.

"My thought is they've picked the wrong thing to fight against and they've done it about 15 years too late," said Tom Lehman at a Champions Tour event last week. "To make an issue about this when they should have made an issue about the balls or clubs 15, 20 years ago is ridiculous.

"I think it's just fine. If there were this method of putting where it was foolproof and you couldn't miss and it just turned this whole game into a joke because it was so simple and so foolproof, I would say that's probably worth looking at," he said.

"The Titleist Scotty Cameron Buttonback Putter
, the belly putter have helped guys who have struggled to keep their careers intact or bring them back from the depths. But it's not a foolproof way."

Lehman has a point. Players do not start magically making putts with belly putters. In fact, there is a considerable learning curve that is necessary to putt with long putters. And the ball does not automatically go in.

Adam Scott is among those who gained much more confidence on the greens since switching to a long putter at last year's WGC-Match Play Championship. But while Scott has been better on the greens, he only improved marginally in the strokes gained putting statistic on the tour.

"It's not going to ruin me if they ban a long putter one day because I putted good some weeks with the Titleist Scotty Cameron Buttonback Putter
," Scott said last week. "I won a lot of tournaments. I'll just have to work a bit harder with it."