Will a cross handed grip improve my putting? (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Will a cross handed grip improve my putting? (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

I always think the more time I watch golf on the TV the more I see another different style of putting, or I see more golfers going away from the traditional style of putting. So this question about cross handed putting grips and should you use one? Well absolutely you can use one, if you feel like when you are putting normally, your hands aren’t working correctly, they are fighting particularly if you are too wristy with your bottom hand.

Going to a cross handed putting method will definitely help and I speak from personal experience because I actually putt cross handed when I play, I have my right hand at the top, I have my left hand down at the bottom and I feel in that fashion my right hand which is my dominant hand cant have too much influence and I actually feel from there that my bottom hand has more control and I have a nice rocking action backwards and through. Whereas this way I sometimes feel my right hand gets a bit twitchy its hits the ball too hard, sometimes it also closes the phase at times, so the right hand gets too twitchy particularly under pressure. The cross handed method works for me. Now if you want to make that change because you feel your too fickly and you are not getting good results with a standard putting grip, what I would stress is you try and make this change, try and make it out of season ideally so you haven’t got a big important game the very next day, so try and make the change out of season, practice hard with it, it wont be instantly comfortable and familiar to you, it is going to feel quite a big change particularly if you’ve putted with the standard method for a while, so swap your hands over and do lots and lots of practice strokes in the house, on the carpet, on the practice green before you go out and play. And one thing to be aware of when you go and play is a few people might make comments about it. Oh you’ve changed to that dodgy putting stroke, that cack handed putting stroke and all that sort of thing. Don’t listen to them, they’ll soon shut up when you start holing more putts than they do and your scores come down. So if you want to change your putting stroke I would advocate changing initially to a cross handed putting stroke and see if that helps you hold a few more putts. 2015-03-26

I always think the more time I watch golf on the TV the more I see another different style of putting, or I see more golfers going away from the traditional style of putting. So this question about cross handed putting grips and should you use one? Well absolutely you can use one, if you feel like when you are putting normally, your hands aren’t working correctly, they are fighting particularly if you are too wristy with your bottom hand.

Going to a cross handed putting method will definitely help and I speak from personal experience because I actually putt cross handed when I play, I have my right hand at the top, I have my left hand down at the bottom and I feel in that fashion my right hand which is my dominant hand cant have too much influence and I actually feel from there that my bottom hand has more control and I have a nice rocking action backwards and through. Whereas this way I sometimes feel my right hand gets a bit twitchy its hits the ball too hard, sometimes it also closes the phase at times, so the right hand gets too twitchy particularly under pressure. The cross handed method works for me.

Now if you want to make that change because you feel your too fickly and you are not getting good results with a standard putting grip, what I would stress is you try and make this change, try and make it out of season ideally so you haven’t got a big important game the very next day, so try and make the change out of season, practice hard with it, it wont be instantly comfortable and familiar to you, it is going to feel quite a big change particularly if you’ve putted with the standard method for a while, so swap your hands over and do lots and lots of practice strokes in the house, on the carpet, on the practice green before you go out and play.

And one thing to be aware of when you go and play is a few people might make comments about it. Oh you’ve changed to that dodgy putting stroke, that cack handed putting stroke and all that sort of thing. Don’t listen to them, they’ll soon shut up when you start holing more putts than they do and your scores come down. So if you want to change your putting stroke I would advocate changing initially to a cross handed putting stroke and see if that helps you hold a few more putts.