Asked about AimPoint, Collin Morikawa throws shade on Lucas Glover for using a long putter

Posted by author February 12, 2025 Golf

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LA JOLLA, Calif. – Collin Morikawa heard the remarks made by veteran Lucas Glover that AimPoint should be banned on the PGA Tour and he fired back.

“I have nothing against Lucas, but if we’re banning AimPoint I think we should ban long putters as well,” he said on Tuesday during his pre-tournament press conference ahead of the Genesis Invitational. “I don’t know. I guess no one has said it, right?”

Shots fired at Glover and those such as Bernhard Langer who use the long putter — which has nothing to do with pace of play and everything to do with the USGA’s anchoring ban.

When asked specifically if he had any beef with the long putter, the style of putter used by Glover and several other Tour pros, Morikawa said, “I’m just throwing shade back… I’m protecting my AimPoint guys, right? There’s guys that long putt and have AimPoint. I don’t have any beef. I don’t have anything wrong with putting like that, I just had to protect my AimPoint guys.”

Morikawa has used AimPoint, a green-reading technique in which a player straddles his ball to try to figure out the tilt of the green with their feet, for several years. It’s been a growing trend on Tour but painful for spectators attending tournaments or watching at home to see pros try to figure out the break of even the shortest of putts.

“Statistically, [AimPoint] hasn’t helped anybody make more putts since its inception on the PGA Tour. Statistics have borne that out,” Glover said two weeks ago during an episode of the Lucas Glover Show on PGA Tour SiriusXm Radio in which he listed his eight fixes for the Tour’s pace-of-play problem. “It’s also kind of rude to be up near the hole, stomping around figuring out where the break is in your feet. It needs to be banned. It takes forever.”

Morikawa came to the defense of his AimPoint breathren, which include Max Homa, Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott, but conceded that it could contribute to slower play if not used properly.

“Look, AimPoint does take longer if you’re not doing it properly, right, if you’re not doing it when other players are reading their putts. I think there’s a respect issue. I think some players might get a little bit too close to the hole and I get that. When you get too close to the hole when someone else is putting, yeah, like I don’t want my line and my putt to go over someone else’s foot and their marks,” he said. “I mean, are you going to tell other players not to walk around the hole when we’re picking up putts?”

He added that AimPoint has helped his green reading and he intends to keep using it. “I listen to the announcers sometimes during play and they say why would you AimPoint this, this and that. It gets a basis of how I read a putt and how I start my lines. It’s just like reading something from behind the hole or behind the ball, that’s how I’m getting my general read for that. I don’t think people understand how AimPoint works to really say this is right or wrong. Does it slow down play? I think there are some players that maybe do it in the wrong spots. And sometimes, look, I’ll admit it, maybe I can’t get in when I want to so it adds a couple more seconds. But I know that and I’m aware of that. I think players need to be aware if they’re slow or not, right? Like let people know who is slow and do something about it, right?”

Many PGA Tour players favor more transparency about slow play

Morikawa and Glover can agree on one thing — both are in favor of greater transparency by the Tour to go public with stats that show who takes too long to play a shot.

“I’m all for it,” Morikawa said. “I think it would be great. And shoot, even if we only did get it in the Tour, someone’s bound to find it, right? Things leak. Yeah, how would it affect the Tour? I mean, some guys I’m sure would hear it out on the golf course. Make our game more exciting, you know?”

Morikawa may have strong feelings about AimPoint not being part of the problem, but he doesn’t have his head in the sand to the larger issue.

“By no means is it something that should be looked over. It should be solved,” he said. “Obviously you see what the LPGA’s doing. You need to start fining people. Look, if I got slapped on the wrist and got a fine like absolutely would I not want to be fined again? It’s just like the NBA, like the technicals, right? Some guys are OK with getting fined every week. If guys are OK getting technicals and getting penalties out here on Tour because they’re slow, so be it. Something needs to happen to say like – and no one wants to be that Guinea pig, that first guy to do it and to get it, but it has so start somewhere.”