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

00:15works.

00:16Made famous in 2003 by Marco Mirra who adopted the Claw Putting Grip to help to save his

00:22putting game and he won in Dubai, it's since become quite popular as other players have

00:27watched successes of other players who've had a go at it, it seems to be working.

00:31And the recent Ryder Cup saw Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood all putting with

00:38the Claw Grip.

00:39So why does it work so well?

00:41The Claw Grip puts the shoulders in control, taking out that bottom hand and stopping any

00:47sort of handsy action.

00:48So anyone who suffers from the yips or suffers from missed short putts may well need to have

00:53a little go at this.

00:55Here's how we do it.

00:56To actually apply the Claw Grip in your putting setup, you need to take your top hand and

01:02stick the butt of the putter almost up into your lifeline and hold it very softly.

01:08The other hand comes in and almost like creating a little nodule in this area here or a little

01:14shelf, you hook that shelf in and underneath and these hands just rest very softly on the

01:21flat edge of the top of your putter grip.

01:24What you'll find from there is that this arm is kind of out of control.

01:27You're really putting just with this side and all you're going to do is rock the shoulders

01:32back and through and give yourself a nice smooth action.

01:38The feeling of the stroke is light and really smooth.

01:41The roll on the ball is going to be much better than if you were holding it for dear life

01:44like this and getting a bit twitchy with it.

01:47It's definitely worth having a go.

01:49So what you'll find on the longer putts, especially on greens as beautiful as these ones at West

01:53Hill, is it's fine if the greens are nice and smooth and they're quite speedy.

02:02On greens that are a little bit shaggier and a little bit slower, you will struggle.

02:07The other thing to bear in mind is that the claw grip is a big decision to make.

02:11In your golf game, once you go claw, you never go back.

02:15It's very hard to make the change back to a traditional putting grip if you like.

02:20If your putting isn't a problem, don't change it, but perhaps the claw is the grip for you.

02:25Give it a whirl, see how it goes and hopefully you'll start to save shots on that green with

02:30that lovely, loose, free-flowing stroke.