Match Your Putter to Your Full Swing Shot Shape?

This is one of the most unusual putting tips I've ever heard, and it actually makes sense to me although it's a very unusual approach to fitting a putter.

Take a look at this video from Golf Magazine Top100 Instructor Jerry King on matching your putter to your full swing shot shape. I can't embed the video in this post so you'll have to pop over and watch it. It's short, less than 3 minutes. But I will summarize what he says.

In a nutshell, King says:

• If you draw the ball, you naturally have a putting stroke that makes an arc -- just like your draw swing -- so a toe-weighted putter allows you to take advantage of that natural motion.
• And if you fade the ball, you naturally stand so a straight back-and-through stroke is your natural putting stroke -- after all, your fade swing doesn't arc around you as much -- so a face-balanced putter allows you to take advantage of THAT natural motion.

What fascinates me about this is the idea that you're attempting to use a natural motion that you already have, which makes perfect sense. Why fight your natural tendencies if you can make them work for you? It means you need less practice to keep your stroke in shape.

The video tells you how to address the ball to make this work, so take a look and see if it helps you with the flat stick. Trust me, the less you think about mechanics when you putt, the better your putts are going to be.

More on Full Swing Putting Strokes

It's uncommon for the pros to use their full swing grips when they putt. When Tiger did so Friday he was inundated with questions, during which we learned that Steve Stricker does the same.

In yesterday's post I tried to explain why Tiger's interlocking grip helped reduce wrist action, not increase it as some analysts suggested. Since we now know that Stricker uses his regular Vardon grip when he putts, I decided to go into this in more detail. Some of you may think my views are something I created out of my imagination, but they aren't.

Let me take you briefly into the teachings of Ben Hogan. This will help you better understand what's happening.

First, let's make sure we understand the grips involved. This photo comes from golfgriptips.co.uk and shows the three most common full swing grips. The last two are the ones we'll focus on in this post.



You also need to understand that Tiger likes to hit his putts with his right hand, while Stricker prefers to feel his left hand is in control. Tiger mentioned both of these facts during his press conference Friday.

Now let's bring Hogan into the mix. In his book Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf Hogan wrote about the importance of a proper grip. This quote refers to the right (trailing) hand -- remember, Hogan is right-handed --  but it applies equally well to the left (lead) hand. He says that a major part of creating a proper grip involves:

...subduing the natural tendency of the right forefinger and thumb to take charge. If they do, they'll ruin you. The "pincer fingers," the forefinger and thumb, are wonderful for performing countless tasks in daily living such as opening doors and picking up coffee cups, but they are no good at all in helping you build a good grip and a good swing. The explanation behind this is that the muscles of the right forefinger and thumb connect with the very powerful set of muscles that run along the outside of the right arm and elbow to the right shoulder. If you work the tips of the thumb and forefinger together and apply any considerable amount of pressure, you automatically activate those muscles of the right arm and shoulder -- and those are not the muscles you want to use in the golf swing. Using them is what breeds so many golfers who never swing with both hands working together, who lurch back and then lurch into the ball, all right arm and right shoulder and all wrong." (pp 24-25, emphasis mine)

Hogan says that the two middle fingers of the right hand are the "pressure" fingers in the grip. He also stresses that the last three fingers of the left hand should apply pressure -- again, not the thumb and forefinger.

Why is gripping with the thumb and forefinger so bad in the full swing? Because they minimize wrist action, which is necessary to generate power. After stressing a left-hand (lead) grip that doesn't interfere with the left wrist, Hogan specifically points out that the right (trailing) hand will then "take over" if you "pinch" the club with the right thumb and forefinger.

But that's in a full swing. What happens when this knowledge is transferred to a putting grip?

Well, if the trailing hand "takes over" in the putting grip, the lead wrist will likely cup at impact. (I talked about that in yesterday's post. That cupping is the problem.) In a full swing we need for the lead wrist to remain flexible so it can create power, but in a putting stroke we don't need power. Because of that, in our putting stroke we'd like the lead wrist to be a bit firmer. Are you with me so far?

The easiest way to do this is to lightly "pinch" the club with the thumb and forefinger of the trailing hand. And the key word here is lightly. Rather than focusing the grip in the last three fingers of the trailing hand, all we have to do is grip evenly with all five fingers. That allows us to use a very light grip that still firms up the wrist.

Now let's see how this works for each player. We'll start with Steve Stricker.

In a traditional reverse-overlap putting grip (in case you missed it, there was a picture in yesterday's post) all of the fingers of the trailing hand are on the club but only three from the lead hand -- notably, that means the lead forefinger is off the club. Since Stricker prefers to control the club with his lead (left) hand, it makes sense that he would want to reverse that -- which is just what his full swing Vardon grip does! With the forefinger of his lead hand now on the club, that wrist automatically firms up while the trailing hand's grip (which is now only three fingers) is lessened. His trailing hand doesn't have to grip the club at all. He can just lay it along the club's handle and push lightly. Such a light grip allows for a good sense of touch.

But Tiger prefers to control the club with his trailing (right) hand, so it's no surprise that he's used the reverse-overlap grip for years. Now that he's experimenting a bit, he could certainly use a Vardon grip like Stricks... but it would feel more like his lead hand was in control. So he compromised and tried his interlocking grip, which feels very familiar. It took his trailing hand pinky finger off the club but, since it interlocks with his lead hand, his trailing hand grip feels just as solid. And while his lead hand grip feels roughly the same -- there are still only three fingers on the club -- the interlocked forefinger helps firm up his trailing wrist slightly. It's not a huge change, but it's enough to keep him from cupping his wrist when he strokes the putt.

So that's the more technical explanation of yesterday's post. And if you're thinking ahead and wondering if that means the ten-finger grip -- the third grip in the photo above -- would reduce wrist movement even more because both forefingers and thumbs are on the club, you're absolutely correct. I wrote about that in Ruthless Putting over two years ago, and it's just as true now. And a split grip -- separating the hands slightly -- firms the wrists up even more.

I hope this helps you struggling putters out there. Just look how quickly it helped Tiger!

Tiger's Putting Change

Tiger got a lot of attention Friday, but not so much for his play as for his putting grip. Normally he uses a reverse-overlap grip, where the forefinger of his lead hand (left hand for a righty, right hand for a lefty) overlaps the last couple of fingers on his trailing hand. Friday he used the interlock grip he normally uses in his full swing.

Here are pictures of the two grips. The first photo of the reverse-overlap grip comes from this page at thesandtrap.com and the second photo of the interlocking grip comes from 1st-beginners-golf-swing-tips.com.



Tiger said simply that Steve Stricker does it, and that was good enough for him to experiment with it.

On Golf Central Charlie Rymer tried to explain why Tiger might find this change useful. (Charlie called the original grip a "double reverse-overlap," but that just refers to how many fingers Tiger's forefinger overlaps.) He said that the interlocking grip gave Tiger a bit more flexibility in the wrists, which allowed him to release the clubhead more easily.

Unfortunately, he was completely wrong. In Charlie's defense, he gave the explanation that most teachers would have probably given.

In this post I'm going to tell you why Tiger -- and apparently Steve Stricker -- are using the interlocking grip with their putter.

First, let's get this whole "releasing" thing straight. "Releasing the putterhead" is how many people describe the toe of the putter passing the heel during the stroke. But too many teachers and players are giving the impression that you have to twist your wrists and forearms in order to "release" the putterhead. This is completely wrong, and I suspect it's part of the reason that so many people have trouble squaring the putter at impact.

Here's a diagram I used in my book Ruthless Putting. It shows the putterhead moving as it strokes the ball -- the top one is a straight-line stroke (a la Dave Pelz) and the bottom one an arc stroke (a la Stan Utley). In each case, the little squares in front of the putterhead indicate that the putterface is always at a right angle to the path of the stroke.


Now, the putterhead is clearly "releasing" in that bottom stroke -- that is, the toe of the putter passes the heel of the putter. But if you imagine the triangle formed by your shoulders and hands as a flat iron triangle that can't be bent, and you welded the putter shaft to it so the putterface was square at address (the middle position on the diagram), you could make the stroke shown by merely turning around your spine. Your wrists and forearms don't have to twist at all to release the putterhead. If you do, you're just making the game harder than necessary.

The problem many players have is that their lead wrist cups as they hit the ball. That just means the lead wrist bends backward. In fact, the photo of the reverse-overlap grip at the beginning of this post actually shows this player's left (lead) wrist in a cupped position. Many players cup their wrist even more at the moment they hit the putt, and that causes the putterhead to suddenly move upward. As a result, they don't hit the ball solidly.

The reverse-overlap grip doesn't firm up the wrists. In fact, it's the most flexible of any putting grip you can use. It was developed many decades ago, back when greens were slower and players wanted more wrist action so they could "pop" the ball and get it up on top of the grass.

However, if you grip your putter with an interlocking grip, you'll actually reduce the amount of flex in your wrists. There are other grips that also do this, but the interlocking grip lets you get a firmer hold on the club without tightening your grip as much. The interlocking fingers form a mechanical bond between the hands that is reinforced by the shaft, almost as if the shaft was wedged into your hands.

Try it yourself. You'll find that you don't cup your wrist as much with the interlocking grip because you don't have to hold the club as tightly. Or to put it another way, since your wrists are more relaxed, the weight of the club keeps them straighter. The pull of gravity actually keeps you from cupping your wrist.

A light grip is one of the two most important components of a consistent putting stroke. That's why Steve Stricker uses this grip and why Tiger is copying him. And I agree with Tiger -- Stricks hits it pretty good, so he's a good player to copy.

And that, as Paul Harvey would have said, is the rest of the story. ;-)

UPDATE: I finally got to hear some of Tiger's after-round comments in the media center and he said that Stricker's putting grip is essentially a Vardon grip and that he (Stricker) feels as if his left hand controls the putter. Since Stricks is using the same grip for both long and short game, it makes sense that he would recommend Tiger do the same.