How To Use The Claw Putting Grip

Katie Dawkins explains the Claw Putting grip

Transcript

00:00Hello, I'm Katie Dawkins. I'm an advanced PGA professional and I'm here at West Hill

00:09Golf Club on their lovely greens to talk to you about the claw putter grip and how it works.

00:15Made famous in 2003 by Mark O'Meara who adopted the claw putting grip to help to save his putting

00:22game and he won in Dubai. It's since become quite popular as other players have watched

00:27successes of other players who've had a go at it, it seems to be working and the recent Ryder Cup

00:32saw Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood all putting with the claw grip. So why does it work

00:40so well? The claw grip puts the shoulders in control taking out that bottom hand and stopping any sort

00:47of handsy action so anyone who suffers from the yips or suffers from missed short putts may well

00:53need to have a little go at this. Here's how we do it. So to actually apply the claw grip in your

00:58putting setup you need to take your top hand and stick the butt of the putter almost up into your

01:05lifeline and hold it very softly. The other hand comes in and almost like creating a little nodule

01:12in this area here or a little shelf you hook that shelf in and underneath and these hands just rest

01:20very softly on the flat edge of the top of your putter grip. What you'll find from there is that

01:25this arm is kind of out of control you're really putting just with this side and all you're going

01:31to do is rock the shoulders back and through and give yourself a nice smooth action. The feeling of the

01:38stroke is light and really smooth. The roll on the ball is going to be much better than if you were

01:43holding it for dear life like this and getting a bit twitchy with it. It's definitely worth having a go.

01:48So what you'll find on the longer putts especially on greens as beautiful as these ones at West Hill

01:54is it's fine if the greens are nice and smooth and they're quite speedy. On greens that are a little

02:03bit shaggier and a little bit slower you will struggle. The other thing to bear in mind is that

02:08the claw grip is a big decision to make. In your golf game once you go claw you never go back. It's very

02:15hard to make the change back to a traditional putting grip if you like. So if your putting isn't

02:21a problem don't change it but perhaps the claw is the grip for you. Give it a whirl see how it goes

02:27and hopefully you'll start to save shots on that green with that lovely loose free-flowing stroke.