Tony Finau misses cut with ‘Hockey Stick Putter’ as nightmare PGA Tour run continues

Tony Finau’s search for a putting solution has taken another unusual turn, but it did little to change his fortunes at the Bank of Utah Championship.

The six-time PGA Tour winner missed the cut at Black Desert Resort by a single shot, extending what has become a deeply frustrating stretch of form for the former world No. 9.

Finau has now played 23 PGA Tour events this season but has managed just one top-10 finish — a tie for sixth at The CJ Cup Byron Nelson in May. 

He arrived in Utah having made just one top-30 finish in his previous 15 starts and departed with another missed weekend.

The 37-year-old now sits outside the world's top 150, a remarkable slide for a player who has spent much of his career among the game's elite.

Putting has been at the heart of Finau's struggles, and he has spent years experimenting with different equipment in an attempt to find a reliable solution.

This week, that search took a particularly eye-catching direction.

As GolfWRX's Alistair Cameron highlights in his social media post below, Finau arrived at Black Desert Resort with a PING Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset fitted with a Caliber Golf hockey stick-style shaft. 

The unconventional setup features a grip that extends almost all the way down towards the putter head, giving Finau a completely different feel over the ball.

The experiment wasn't enough to get him into the weekend.

A troublesome opening 70 featured a double bogey and two further bogeys, leaving Finau with plenty of work to do. 

He responded impressively on Friday with a bogey-free 68, but couldn't quite produce the putting performance required to make further progress.

The cut fell at 6-under, with Finau finishing one shy at 5-under.

“I played really nicely today,” Finau told reporters on Friday.

“Just a couple little things and a couple putts go my way — I feel like I hit really good putts and they just didn't go in. Looks like I'm going to probably just miss the weekend, but some positives as I move into next week.”

Despite the disappointment, Finau clearly believes his latest putting experiment could have something to offer.

He first introduced the Caliber Golf hockey-style grip into his setup around a month ago after testing a similar putter in North Carolina. 

Speaking before the tournament, he explained why he had decided to stick with it.

“No secret I'm using a hockey stick to putt with,” Finau said. 

“If you saw me putt a couple weeks ago in North Carolina, I was trying out a kind of a hockey-stick-style putter, and I really liked it. So I'm going to stick with it.”

For Finau, the attraction isn't simply that the setup looks different. It is the way the grip encourages him to align the putter face.

“I really liked the basic math of it, or basically what it teaches is everything is pointing to target, everything is lined up with the face,” he explained.

The grip is completely flat rather than traditionally rounded, with Finau believing that design makes it easier to square everything up towards his intended target.

That is particularly important to him on shorter putts.

“I've always been really good from 20, 25-plus feet throughout the history of my PGA Tour career, and then as I got closer to the hole, not as good,” he said.

“Aiming to me is the most important thing. The closer you get to the hole, the better you have to aim. You don't have time to manipulate the face on a short putt.

“So it seems to help me aim better, and that's why I put it in the bag.”

Finau now moves on from Utah looking for answers rather than results. 

The missed cut is another setback, but his bogey-free second round and continued belief in the hockey-style putting setup at least provide something to build on.

With the next stop taking him to Japan, followed by a potential appearance at the Vidanta Mexico Open — a tournament he has won before — Finau won't have to wait long for another opportunity to turn his fortunes around.