With unique ball marker, Kevin Streelman contending at Valspar

PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Kevin Streelman was a birdie machine at Innisbrook Resort's Copperhead Course on Thursday. He made seven in all, and no bogeys, jumping out to the Round 1 lead at the Valspar Championship with a 64. Friday, he needed to stay a little more patient.

In much tougher conditions – morning winds gusted to 30 mph – Streelman did not find his first birdie until the final hole of his second round, converting a 6-footer, top edge, at the par-4 18th. He was fine with his score. He had battled hard, shot 1-over 72, and was very much in the thick of things at 6-under 136 as the tournament heads to the weekend.

Streelman’s putting did not stay as red-hot as one day earlier when he made 91 feet of putts, but Streelman continued to enjoy the use of a new ball maker he picked up recently, one with a directional alignment on top that has helped him to better focus on the greens, and get his putts started at a proper line.

He got it from a caddie, and was unsure of the ballmarker’s origin, though he thinks it may be traced to a member at his home club, Arizona’s Whisper Rock. More than a few players have asked him about it.

“I think they think it’s cool,” Streelman said. “It’s not rocket science, but it makes sense. You try and get the lines down close to where you want to roll it, and then you use the line to try and match ‘em up.”

He did his homework before it went into play this week at Copperhead, doublechecking with PGA TOUR rules officials to make sure that his new marker was legal. He had to make one slight physical adjustment, filing the “post” end to 1 inch, the maximum it can be – previously, it was about a half-inch too long, so he had his reps at Wilson Golf grind it down.

Once Streelman places the marker behind his ball, he does not fully push it into the ground. That allows him to see where he wants to start his putt, and then rotate the top to better reflect the line he wants to start on.

“Because this thing has a fixed point – the post going into the green is a fixed point – he is allowed to rotate it,” said Steve Rintoul, chief referee for PGA TOUR.

Rintoul did offer Streelman one key observation, and a word of advice to players everywhere. The “trap” of these ball markers that serve as alignment aids is this: when a player is trying to align a line on the ball with a line on the marker, sometimes he inadvertently fails to return the ball in its exact actual spot. So an equipment standards question for the United States Golf Association morphed into a Rules of Golf discussion.

Streelman already was aware of this, and was already on the lookout to not commit such a violation (which would be a two-stroke penalty).

“He’s using it the right way," Rintoul said. "It (the marker) has been approved and vetted ... Kevin understood that. He’s a Duke guy, right?”