Claw Putting Grip, Should I Use It (Video) - by Pete Styles
Claw Putting Grip, Should I Use It (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think firstly to answer this question about whether you should use the claw putting grip. We got to define exactly what the claw is, so sometimes called the saw grip actually as well, because it’s slightly kind of similar to the way you will hold a saw. The way the right hand or the bottom hand works in this putting stroke, is it sits this way around. So the finger sit flat to the front face of the putter, the thump sits flat to the back, and therefore the bottom hand works in a backwards and forwards sawing or claw grip action. Now the benefit of using that because it would feel strange if you try this and you have tried it before, the benefit of using this is it stops your bottom hand hinging in its conventional fashion. So if we understand that we don’t want too much wrist hinge or too much wrist action in a putting stroke, but we look at the way the bottom hand is sitting, it’s perfectly positioned to provide loads of hinging.

Now we don’t want that so if you are lining up to putt, and then you are hinging the bottom hand you could hit way too hard, way too soft, hit it left hit it right all caused by that bottom hand. So by turning the putter, sorry by turning the putter grip with the bottom hand into the saw or the claw action we completely change the hinging mechanisms of this hand, it’s very difficult to hinge that bottom hand upwards, it could hinge this way, but it’s never going to that holding the putter so actually makes that bottom hand rock in a much more neutral fashion and it makes the hand push through rather than hinge under. So that now takes away that bottom hand hinging or flicking, so if you feel that your bottom hand gets too active when you hit hard and soft putts left and right putts consider changing to the claw putting grip or the saw action, that provides a neutral rocking action that hand can’t hinge. It will take some time to get used to it so you probably got to go to the putting green maybe two or three different sessions spending 15, 20 minutes each session practicing with that before you could even give it a fair run. You’d see a lot of people try this hit one putt miss it, no that’s not for me and they walk away from it. Maybe a technique that will actually benefit them, so consider you have got flicking action consider changing to the saw or the claw putting grip.
2014-10-07

I think firstly to answer this question about whether you should use the claw putting grip. We got to define exactly what the claw is, so sometimes called the saw grip actually as well, because it’s slightly kind of similar to the way you will hold a saw. The way the right hand or the bottom hand works in this putting stroke, is it sits this way around. So the finger sit flat to the front face of the putter, the thump sits flat to the back, and therefore the bottom hand works in a backwards and forwards sawing or claw grip action. Now the benefit of using that because it would feel strange if you try this and you have tried it before, the benefit of using this is it stops your bottom hand hinging in its conventional fashion. So if we understand that we don’t want too much wrist hinge or too much wrist action in a putting stroke, but we look at the way the bottom hand is sitting, it’s perfectly positioned to provide loads of hinging.

Now we don’t want that so if you are lining up to putt, and then you are hinging the bottom hand you could hit way too hard, way too soft, hit it left hit it right all caused by that bottom hand. So by turning the putter, sorry by turning the putter grip with the bottom hand into the saw or the claw action we completely change the hinging mechanisms of this hand, it’s very difficult to hinge that bottom hand upwards, it could hinge this way, but it’s never going to that holding the putter so actually makes that bottom hand rock in a much more neutral fashion and it makes the hand push through rather than hinge under.

So that now takes away that bottom hand hinging or flicking, so if you feel that your bottom hand gets too active when you hit hard and soft putts left and right putts consider changing to the claw putting grip or the saw action, that provides a neutral rocking action that hand can’t hinge. It will take some time to get used to it so you probably got to go to the putting green maybe two or three different sessions spending 15, 20 minutes each session practicing with that before you could even give it a fair run. You’d see a lot of people try this hit one putt miss it, no that’s not for me and they walk away from it. Maybe a technique that will actually benefit them, so consider you have got flicking action consider changing to the saw or the claw putting grip.