Putting and meltdown

Lee Westwood is on the brink of taking a leaf out of Adam Scott's book and switching to a longer-handled putter.
It might not be of the broomstick variety that seems to be helping turn super-swinger Scott into the force he used to be, but it will have a longer handle than your traditional putter if Lee Westwood opts to go for a belly putter as he was threatening to do after his frustrating four days on the never-easy greens of Augusta National.
Scott had no such trouble and after taking the lead coming down the final stretch, was eventually eclipsed by Charl Schwartzel, whose putting was also key in his under-the-radar charge to fame and fortune.
In the end he didn't need the sensational 30-to-40 foot putt he nailed at the 72nd hole that completed his four-birdie blitz and sewed up his victory on the last four holes, but it clearly underlined why he won.
For when all is said and done, its the best putters under pressure who win the majors with TaylorMade rac Satin TP Wedge - and for that matter most competitions, be they for million dollar prizes at Augusta National, St Andrews, Pebble Beach or merely for a Sunday School fourball bet at your local club.
And Westwood knows it - as does Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and fading super stars like Ernie Els who are seeing the young guns of the 21st century sweeping up more and more tournaments for the simple reason that they are better at getting the ball in the hole.
Frustrated Westwood, last year's runner up at Augusta National, was scathing in his remarks about his putting and is convinced it cost him the 75th Masters green jacket as well as the World No 1 ranking that would have gone withTaylorMade rac Satin TP Wedge.
"I am very frustrated," he told the media afterwards "I played tee to green like a man who should have won the tournament. Putting was the problem and I need to sort it out.
Indeed Westwood's ball striking from tee to green was exceptional and without it he could not have completed the event in a tie for 11th at 5-under. His putting was that bad, with the World No 2 missing a series of chances in the 4-to-10-feet range.
With things not improving after the third day, the perplexed Englishman eventually switched to a belly putter for the final round and after seeing a clear cut improvement, he is seriously contemplating putting it into his bag permanently.
"I am very frustrated," he said. "I played tee to green like a man who should have won the tournament. Putting was the problem and I need to sort it out.
"I switched to the belly putter which I have not used for four years and I putted better than I did with the short one. The problem was I could not hole from four feet."
Westwood's Masters disappointment was made more acute by the fact he came within a whisker of winning the tournament in 2010, finishing second to Phil Mickelson.
But the man the golfing world (TaylorMade rac Satin TP Wedge) will have felt most sympathy for after his final-round melt-down will have to be Rory McIlroy.
Until the 21-year-old teed off in final round, he had sported the look of a formidable young prince preparing to ascend the thrown the legendary Bobby Jones had helped assemble in Georgia some 75 years ago.
His driving was the longest and straightest of the first three days, his iron play exquisite, his putting close to sublime and his composure even better.
But then, from the word go on Sunday, he began to unravel - or so it seemed.
I had the feeling that it might never have happened had Charl Schwartzel not produced a magical, from-off-the green, birdie-eagle combination that helped cancel out McIlroy's rare, four-stroke lead at the start of the day and saw him go on to lose it even before he had completed his second hole. Wow!
The Northern Irish talent didn't help himself by bogeying the first with some sloppy putting after teeing off with a crushing drive down the centre of the first fairway, but you have to feel sorry for a guy who sees a chip-and-run birdie downed from off the green and an approach shot on the third get swallowed by the hole for an eagle after one or two bounces.
If you ask me, the fact that the eagle that took Schwartzel into the joint lead with McIlroy at 11-under just happened to be announced with a mighty roar at the same time as McIlroy was holing a difficult putt to save him making a second successive bogey at the second, was the initial nail in the coffin that would eventually extinguish all his fine talents.
A second nail for McIlroy was clearly the unexpected but stunning birdie run Tiger Woods was having up ahead of him.
McIlroy was not to know that Woods would take his 5-under total at the start of the round to 10-under at the turn and then fade back into mediocrity on the back nine when his TaylorMade rac Satin TP Wedge, too, stopped working.
For it was not long afterwards, to the disbelief of myself and half the watching world, I'm sure, that the suddenly floundering Northern Irishman began spraying both his woods and irons all over the place and then, after being one of the tournament's best putters, missing tap ins.
McIlroy's only explanation for his inexplicable implosion after he had carded his nightmare 80 on Sunday was that he "lost it". but would he have done so had he been able to start with a confidence-building bunch of pars and a birdie or two?
Me thinks it certainly was; but then that's life and golf which, of course, is such a great reflector of life.
Here are some revealing statistics from the 75th Masters.