Tuesday, May 21, 2013 was a great day in the long history of the game of golf.

The sport’s governing bodies – the United States Golf Association and the R&A in Europe – officially adopted Rule 14-1b which, simply, makes anchoring the club illegal while putting.

The rule has been on the table since just after Thanksgiving of last year, but the USGA and R&A allowed for a period of discourse since many players on the professional tours and members of the PGA of America voiced some heavy opposition to the rule.

Now that a cheater has been called a cheater, officially, members of the PGA Tour and the PGA of America are whining about it.

Here are two gems in a statement released from Ted Bishop, the President of the PGA of America:

• "We are disappointed with this outcome. As we have said publicly and repeatedly during the comment period, we do not believe 14-1b is in the best interest of recreational golfers and we are concerned about the negative impact it may have on both the enjoyment and growth of the game. Growing the game is one of the fundamental purposes of The PGA of America."
• "At this point in time, The PGA will digest the USGA and R&A's decision to proceed with Rule 14-1b and discuss this matter with our Board of Directors, PGA Sections and, of course, our 27,000 PGA Professionals throughout the country. Our Board will convene in late June during our PGA Professional National Championship and at that time, we will decide how best to proceed. In addition, we will continue to confer with the PGA Tour as they similarly digests this information."

This was part of the statement by the PGA Tour.

• "We will now begin our process to ascertain whether the various provisions of Rule 14-1b will be implemented in our competitions and, if so, examine the process for implementation."
• "In this regard, over the next month we will engage in discussions with our Player Advisory Council and Policy Board members."

These are ridiculous statements, and disappointing to hear.

First, I have to take issue with an organization that I absolutely love in the PGA of America. As far as growing, promoting and teaching the game, these people are the very best at it.

But let’s get right to it – this rule has nothing to do with protecting the best interests of recreational golfers.

Recreational golfers cheat all the time.

There are foot wedges and self-correcting golf balls and oversized drivers and bad math and gimme’s and free drops and breakfast balls and back nine mulligans. If Jimmy Weekender has a long putter and anchors it against his PBR-pack belly, he’s not dumping it in a couple years.

No, this is about protecting the very few high level playing members of the PGA of America that like to win section tournaments and compete for spots in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship.

That’s also at the root of the PGA Tour’s argument against the rule.

They have a handful of guys that use an anchored stroke – albeit some very high profile ones in recent major champions Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson, Ernie Els and Adam Scott – which has them wondering if they should play by their own set of rules.

Really, guys?

You play a sport of privilege, one Jimmy Weekender hardly recognizes anyway because he can’t afford those clubs or balls, and you’re going to go against the rules of the game to protect a handful of guys over not just the other current members of the PGA Tour, but every future member of the tour?

And then what happens when you go to the Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open? You’re going to suddenly have to switch your putting stroke (I’m assuming the PGA Championship would play under its own rules if the PGA of America did) and try to win a major championship?

It reeks of what the Major League Baseball Players Association did to its membership, and the game, in the late 1990s and early 2000s by refusing testing for performance enhancing drugs. The majority of the membership was clean and wanted testing, but the union was more interested in protecting a famous few.

Look what the game, and its players, have had to deal with since.

The PGA Tour and PGA of America should be leading examples of how to play the game at the highest level – not crying about a rule change three years in the making. These players will be the first to tell you golf is a gentleman’s game. Then they should look in the mirror and act like it.