KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson took issue Wednesday with the idea that the putter he and others have used to win major championships should be outlawed.

Golf's governing bodies are studying a revision to the rules that would not ban belly or long putters, but would make it much more difficult to use them because of language that would not allow anchoring the clubs to the body.

Webb Simpson said there is no statistical evidence that shows how long putters give players an advantage. AP Photo/Steve Helber

"Do I think they should be banned? No, and here's why," Simpson said at the Ocean Course, where the PGA Championship begins Thursday. "You take a wooden driver compared to a 460 cc titanium (the kind used today), and to me that's a lot bigger difference than a 35-inch putt to a 45-inch putter.

"Last year, the strokes-gained putting (a statistical category), nobody in the top 20 used a belly putter or a long putter. If anybody says it's an advantage, I think you've got to look at the stats and the facts."

Both the United States Golf Association and R&A -- the game's rules-making bodies -- have said they will come to some conclusion on the matter by the end of the year.

Peter Dawson, the R&A's CEO, said at last month's Open Championship that "we're seeing now people who can putt perfectly well in the conventional way thinking that an anchored stroke gives them an advantage. I think that's the fundamental change that we've witnessed in the last couple of years."

Three of the past four major champions -- Keegan Bradley at last year's PGA, Simpson at the U.S. Open and Ernie Els at the Open Championship -- used a belly putter to win. Adam Scott, the runner-up at the Open Championship, uses a long putter. With both putters, the hands typically are wedged into the stomach or the chest.

But no player in the current top 10 of the PGA Tour's strokes-gained putting category and just three in the top 20 use a long or belly putter. The strokes-gained stat measures players against the number of putts a PGA Tour player is expected to make from every distance.

"To me, to change something that big and cost manufacturers millions of dollars, you've got to have some pretty good facts," Simpson said. "I think just because some of us are winning majors or winning tournaments with the belly putter, I don't think that's a good reason to say, 'Hey, we're going to take them away.'"

Simpson is playing for the first time since the Greenbrier Classic because of the birth of his second child with wife Dowd on July 28.