Akshay Bhatia<\/a> received huge criticism last week, and his answer was fascinating.<\/p>\nSome golf writers and fans alike claimed Bhatia was anchoring the butt of his putter grip to his chest, but he made it very clear that it was only touching his shirt.<\/p>\n
Spieth suggested that he would like to see a new rule on the PGA Tour whereby the putter has to be the shortest club in the bag.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, in the rules, you can\u2019t anchor,\u201c Spieth said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnchoring as if that if that putter was touching his (Bhatia\u2019s) sternum.<\/p>\n
![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/30a1e78df77fda155891cda31dfe5eef.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Photo by Tracy Wilcox\/PGA TOUR via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cOr you can do it on your arm, you can arm bar now, but you can\u2019t anchor it against your sternum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a skill to it, and, you know, if it were that easy to do and made everyone that much better, everybody would do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, it\u2019s a skill to do. He has been doing it for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like the putter to be the shortest club in your bag, because it is the shortest club in my bag, and I do believe that it forces more skill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt uses your hands more, which makes you have to be more kind of athletic and deal with the stuff that comes up a little bit more, but at the same time, you know, I could easily go do that if I thought that it was gonna make me better, and it would be a hard skill to go learn.\u201c<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Spieth is bang on the money right there.<\/p>\n
Golf\u2019s governing bodies made a big mistake by not setting a maximum length for putters, leaving the rule too open to interpretation.<\/p>\n
Akshay Bhatia responds to fan accusations of rule-breaking at Pebble Beach<\/p>\n
Back at Pebble Beach last month, Bhatia was accused of anchoring his putter to his chest by some golf fans.<\/p>\n
And the 24-year-old left-hander responded via his social media channels.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot anchoring. Literally 2 inches short of my chest haha,\u201d Bhatia insisted.<\/p>\n
Bhatia is clearly not cheating \u2013 he is simply not that way inclined.<\/p>\n
The R&A and the USGA are to blame here for implementing a rule that is open to interpretation.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
It would be fairer for everyone if a maximum length rule for putters was brought in. Or, as Spieth suggested, the putter should just be the shortest club in the bag.<\/p>\n
Whether the powers that be at the USGA and the R&A will make any changes in that regard anytime soon remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordan Spieth has struggled desperately with his putting on the PGA Tour over the past few years. Spieth\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[29446,2934,427,25860,3332,99],"class_list":["post-519136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-akshay-bhatia","tag-getty-images","tag-golf","tag-jordan-spieth","tag-pga-tour","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/cc9d88ff9e0085e1015937db4e15e4f0.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n