Making More Short Golf Putts With The Claw Grip (Video) - by Pete Styles
Making More Short Golf Putts With The Claw Grip (Video) - by Pete Styles

When you're practicing with your new putting grip, one of the key elements is going to be holing out distances, this sort of 3, 4, 5 feet distance. Because if you start to miss a few of these with your new putting grip, your confidence is going to dip quite considerably. And you are going to consider changing back to your old grip position. It might not necessarily be something you want to mess around with. So from this distance we've got to work on good holing out. And one of the keys to holing out is to make sure you keep your backswing quite short.

We don't want to have too big a backstroke. It doesn't matter what you gripping is like, if you have too big a backstroke you'll feel like you are going to hit the ball too hard. So then you'll decelerate and it's that decelerate that can twist the club off line and cause you problems with missing these short putt. So short putt, nice short backstroke. And then hit the putt with a good deal of confidence. I really feel like when you’ve got confidence, you are going to accelerate the putter into the back of the ball. You are going to knock that ball in quite firmly. And then the last of the three things that I want you to consider is how you are actually going to align the putt up so it breaks in to the hole. It’s quite important that we don’t aim the putt from short range anyway, outside the line of the hole. If I had a putt of let's say 3, 4 feet unless I'm on a very, very severely sloped green, I wouldn't want to hit the putt outside the line of the hole. Because if I do and then I hit the putt too hard, it's never going to curve. It's never going to break in. So I’d often suggest that from this range I want to keep the ball inside the line of the hole. Yes I can aim at the lip. I can aim not at the middle of the hole but not outside the line of the hole. We talk about trying to not give the hole away, try and aim inside the line of the hole with a short backstroke, nice and confident. And those three things should help you hole out your shot putts even with your new grip. 2016-07-15

When you're practicing with your new putting grip, one of the key elements is going to be holing out distances, this sort of 3, 4, 5 feet distance. Because if you start to miss a few of these with your new putting grip, your confidence is going to dip quite considerably. And you are going to consider changing back to your old grip position. It might not necessarily be something you want to mess around with. So from this distance we've got to work on good holing out. And one of the keys to holing out is to make sure you keep your backswing quite short.

We don't want to have too big a backstroke. It doesn't matter what you gripping is like, if you have too big a backstroke you'll feel like you are going to hit the ball too hard. So then you'll decelerate and it's that decelerate that can twist the club off line and cause you problems with missing these short putt. So short putt, nice short backstroke. And then hit the putt with a good deal of confidence. I really feel like when you’ve got confidence, you are going to accelerate the putter into the back of the ball.

You are going to knock that ball in quite firmly. And then the last of the three things that I want you to consider is how you are actually going to align the putt up so it breaks in to the hole. It’s quite important that we don’t aim the putt from short range anyway, outside the line of the hole. If I had a putt of let's say 3, 4 feet unless I'm on a very, very severely sloped green, I wouldn't want to hit the putt outside the line of the hole. Because if I do and then I hit the putt too hard, it's never going to curve. It's never going to break in. So I’d often suggest that from this range I want to keep the ball inside the line of the hole.

Yes I can aim at the lip. I can aim not at the middle of the hole but not outside the line of the hole. We talk about trying to not give the hole away, try and aim inside the line of the hole with a short backstroke, nice and confident. And those three things should help you hole out your shot putts even with your new grip.