Benefits And Drawbacks Of The Claw Golf Putting Grip (Video) - by Pete Styles
Benefits And Drawbacks Of The Claw Golf Putting Grip (Video) - by Pete Styles

If we're looking about making a change to the way we hold the club we've decided to go away from the conventional grip. We’re going to try the saw or the penholder method. We need to understand why we're making that change, what the pros and the cons are. The biggest pro, the biggest benefit for a lot of golfers is it will take out the power of the right hand and stop them yipping and hitting the putt too much with the right hand. So we change to a saw method, we get more stroking and less hitting.

But that hitting element could also be a negative thing particularly from long range. A lot of golfers report that from long range, particularly on relatively slow greens they can struggle to hit the ball far enough. Because in this position they don't really feel like they have got any element of releasing the club like they would have in a standard putter grip. So the fact there's a bit less hit actually reduces the distance or the ability to hit the ball distance when they're a long way from the flag particularly on slow greens. And the other element that you might feel with this new saw position or this claw position is the fact that you lose a bit of distance control. And that's really as much as anything, just lack of ability to practice the new method. So when you've practiced your old putting method you are probably got really good distance control. You now changed to this method, the distance control can be a little bit missing and it can be a little bit inconsistent. So go ahead if you are going to make this change, make that change and really focus on your distance control particularly distance control from long range. And hopefully then you'll get over the negatives of this change, and you'll be left with the positives that you not yipping your putts any more.
2016-07-15

If we're looking about making a change to the way we hold the club we've decided to go away from the conventional grip. We’re going to try the saw or the penholder method. We need to understand why we're making that change, what the pros and the cons are. The biggest pro, the biggest benefit for a lot of golfers is it will take out the power of the right hand and stop them yipping and hitting the putt too much with the right hand. So we change to a saw method, we get more stroking and less hitting.

But that hitting element could also be a negative thing particularly from long range. A lot of golfers report that from long range, particularly on relatively slow greens they can struggle to hit the ball far enough. Because in this position they don't really feel like they have got any element of releasing the club like they would have in a standard putter grip. So the fact there's a bit less hit actually reduces the distance or the ability to hit the ball distance when they're a long way from the flag particularly on slow greens.

And the other element that you might feel with this new saw position or this claw position is the fact that you lose a bit of distance control. And that's really as much as anything, just lack of ability to practice the new method. So when you've practiced your old putting method you are probably got really good distance control. You now changed to this method, the distance control can be a little bit missing and it can be a little bit inconsistent. So go ahead if you are going to make this change, make that change and really focus on your distance control particularly distance control from long range. And hopefully then you'll get over the negatives of this change, and you'll be left with the positives that you not yipping your putts any more.