I want to talk about how important the grip is to this Straight-Back-Straight-Through technique that’s the swing part we’re going to talk about. Straight-Back-Straight-Through is best demonstrated with a couple of clubs down by, on the ground, on line for the hole with the ball centered in between. If I set up and I take the club straight back and straight through in between those two holes goes straight back and straight through, the ball will go straight and it will go into the hole in theory. So what sort of Putter green will allow me to do that? We need a neutral Putter grip, so for you to go Straight-Back-Straight-Through there’s a huge thing that you need to concentrate but on the grip you want to tackle.

If you find – if your right hand tends to be too much on the top like this, this is what’s called a Weak Right Hand. Now you might think well it doesn’t look so bad, but watch what happens with the shoulders. Here’s my shoulders in the right position, and if I bring my right hand over too much, watch what happens to the shoulders now? You can see that – you can now see clearly my right shoulder, so my shoulders are now aiming to the left of the target this way, because they are aiming to the left of the target it means that my swing is now going to follow the direction of my body which would allow me to hit across the ball, so that would create a pull if the clubface was square to that swing path or if the clubface was actually open and I came across, I would impart a little bit of a spin, not so much a slice, but I would be cutting the ball away from the hole.

And if you imagine the completely opposite, I thought my left hand on and over and my right hand under all of a sudden can you see my right shoulder? No it’s hidden and that’s going to make me swing the club inside this way over that line and if you’ve got two shots down on the ground you’re about to – you’ll feel yourself hit it and then from here I would come back and either hit the ball to the right and push it, if my club was aiming that way or from this position, going inside, to straight-through you can just imagine it’s not really going to get in line for that hole it’s almost impossible.

So getting a neutral grip is very important. So what I demonstrated there is two positions, one with the right hand over, you saw the shoulders that were aiming to the left hand side, and you saw the other one where the left hand over, the right hand under which brought my shoulders round to the right hand side. So what sort of grip is good? Very simple, let’s put the left hand on the top with the thumb down the center, nice and balanced, not tight, not squeezing, not trying to kill the grip just nice and light. Then from here, a grip that I like to use, put your hand underneath, put your other thumb down the center, put this forefinger down the back and this one down the other side so we’ve got a nice symmetrical grip.

Now that is sitting the club right in the middle of my palms in both hands, and by putting it into the palm of my hands will encourage my shoulders to go backwards and forwards and I’ll be swinging it like a pendulum. So if I put that Putter it down now, I put it into practice, I put those hands-on everything could just swing from my shoulders so I’ve got more chance now of actually swinging that Putter straight back, straight through and into the hole. So you can see the importance of this nice grip which I call a neutral grip, into the palm of your hands, and we’ve explained the reason why it’s so vital, a Straight-Back-Straight-Through swing has got to be the way forward for everybody. Let’s get those Putts reduced in your round of golf and hopefully that’s going to reduce not just your scores, but your handicap, go ahead and put it into practice for me.