Different Golf Grip Styles for Putting (Video) - by Rick Shiels
Different Golf Grip Styles for Putting (Video) - by Rick Shiels

So there are loads of different putting styles and how to hold the putter, it comes down to personal preference and whether you've had much success with your old style of putting grip. And there are loads and loads out there you've got the ones, left hand load, right hand load, hands level claw grip, if I'm going to explain two or three of them here today. Just to give you a bit of an idea of next time you practice you can try a few I would practice on the putting grip first before you go out in the golf course but here's a couple of different alternatives to the standard putting grip let's say. So first one is left hand below right so almost the reverse grips to how we would normally hold it. And it's exactly what it says it’s the reverse way of how we hold it so as before we'd normally hold the left hand first we're going to put the right hand on top, index finger almost down the side, left hand in the palm, fingers around first. And all we are going to do is just place the index fingers down the side and then the thumbs down the front this is quite frankly a left-handed putting grip for a right handed golfer. So this way the idea is it keeps your left wrist nice and straight so it keeps its angle here and left wrist nice and straight. And you almost lead that left arm a little bit more. So that's a way that lots of golfers out there that have putted that style. Another one is the hands level with each other, now you'd normally want probably a slightly thicker grip for this but you can still do it on a normal standard grip. What you want to take is your hands down the side first, fingers almost round the back of the club so they are almost into lock with each other. Like if they interlock or overlap with each other but your hands are practically perfectly leveled, your thumbs are down the middle and your index fingers are down the side. So that way your hands are leveled and the idea of that is to keep your shoulders more at level with each other so that when you put you keep more of a regular stroke of a rocking and backward movement. And that's also another good one to try. The next one this is the claw grip so this is probably not as commonly used or not as commonly known but very successful certainly successful players who struggle with shot puts. So this time we take the left turn as we would normally, hold it in the palm fingers around first and index finger down the side. But your right hand we take this on in a completely different way. We no longer put the palm on, we only hold it with three fingers so your index finger, your middle finger and your thumb. You put your index and middle on the front and your thumb on your back and you simply almost claw it on the side there so you are only using those fingers. You are not using any of the back of the fingers at all. So left hand go first as you would do normally, you are using these two fingers and your thumb just to almost grasp the club there and that way you are taking out any unnecessary hand movement of your right hand. All these are designed to keep the club faced straighter and squarer through impact that's the only thing it's designed for. You need to discover which is the best putting grip for you and which one is going to help you hold more puts.

2013-06-25

So there are loads of different putting styles and how to hold the putter, it comes down to personal preference and whether you've had much success with your old style of putting grip. And there are loads and loads out there you've got the ones, left hand load, right hand load, hands level claw grip, if I'm going to explain two or three of them here today. Just to give you a bit of an idea of next time you practice you can try a few I would practice on the putting grip first before you go out in the golf course but here's a couple of different alternatives to the standard putting grip let's say. So first one is left hand below right so almost the reverse grips to how we would normally hold it. And it's exactly what it says it’s the reverse way of how we hold it so as before we'd normally hold the left hand first we're going to put the right hand on top, index finger almost down the side, left hand in the palm, fingers around first. And all we are going to do is just place the index fingers down the side and then the thumbs down the front this is quite frankly a left-handed putting grip for a right handed golfer. So this way the idea is it keeps your left wrist nice and straight so it keeps its angle here and left wrist nice and straight. And you almost lead that left arm a little bit more. So that's a way that lots of golfers out there that have putted that style. Another one is the hands level with each other, now you'd normally want probably a slightly thicker grip for this but you can still do it on a normal standard grip. What you want to take is your hands down the side first, fingers almost round the back of the club so they are almost into lock with each other. Like if they interlock or overlap with each other but your hands are practically perfectly leveled, your thumbs are down the middle and your index fingers are down the side. So that way your hands are leveled and the idea of that is to keep your shoulders more at level with each other so that when you put you keep more of a regular stroke of a rocking and backward movement. And that's also another good one to try. The next one this is the claw grip so this is probably not as commonly used or not as commonly known but very successful certainly successful players who struggle with shot puts. So this time we take the left turn as we would normally, hold it in the palm fingers around first and index finger down the side. But your right hand we take this on in a completely different way. We no longer put the palm on, we only hold it with three fingers so your index finger, your middle finger and your thumb. You put your index and middle on the front and your thumb on your back and you simply almost claw it on the side there so you are only using those fingers. You are not using any of the back of the fingers at all. So left hand go first as you would do normally, you are using these two fingers and your thumb just to almost grasp the club there and that way you are taking out any unnecessary hand movement of your right hand. All these are designed to keep the club faced straighter and squarer through impact that's the only thing it's designed for. You need to discover which is the best putting grip for you and which one is going to help you hold more puts.