Stan Utley in 2004.
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There’s conventional.
And cross-hand.
And claw.
And wrist anchor.
And on and on. Putting grips are bountiful, and every has its benefit.
But Stan Utley needs you to find out about his, too.
Utley? He’s an authority. A GOLF Magazine Top 100 Teacher. One-time professional. Short-game whisperer. Charles Barkley swing-fixer. That’s a resume. And his grip, he says on a video he posted to social media this week, places a placing stroke on aircraft, which ought to be the finish recreation of any grip.
It’s the reverse overlap, and you’ll watch Utley expound on its virtues in his video here. Below are a few phrases.
In the video, Utley supplied this instruction:
— “I’m trying to get the lifeline in my left hand to go right down the left-center of my grip.” (Confused at the place your lifeline is? This website here has a image.)
— “The left thumb is going right on top of the grip.”
— “My forearm, my wrist and my hand are all on the shaft plane.”
Now to the proper hand.
— “I’m going to put my right-hand lifeline on the last knuckle of my (left) middle finger so that it sits square to the face of the club, but it matches up with the left hand.”
— “I put all my fingers on the grip except my left-index finger.”
The consequence?
“You can see that now my forearms are level and in line with the shaft when I tilt over to the ball,” Utley stated. “That makes it easy to swing on plane.”
Luke Kerr-Dineen
Some notes. This reporter, a 14-handicap who putts cross-handed, tried it after watching the video a few instances, and there was each consolation and stability. It’s value a go.
That stated, should you’re happy together with your present grip, don’t stray from it.
Notably, too, GOLF.com additionally wrote about the reverse-overlap in 2019, and that story might be learn right here, or beneath.
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I used to be having a dialog with a buddy of mine the different day when — shocker — the topic of golf got here up. Putting, particularly. We had been speaking about various kinds of placing grips, and I discussed that I’ve been utilizing a textbook, typical, reverse-overlap grip for mainly my total life.
“What’s that?” he stated.
I used to be stunned, so I requested a few others and the response was the similar. I even put the query to Twitter and the outcomes instructed a related story. Turns out I’d developed a little bit of a blind spot. Despite it being the mostly used placing grip on Tour, the reverse-overlap grip isn’t one thing that each one too many golfers find out about.
So, what’s the reverse overlap? It’s the conventionally normal grip used for placing that’s because it sounds: reversing the overlap grip that so many golfers use on their full swing. Rather than your pinky finger resting simply on high of your index finger, it’s your index finger that strikes to overlap your pinky and index fingers.
What’s the level of this? Well, the concept is that the interlocking and overlapping grips are designed, above all else, to assist the arms work collectively to launch the membership as you swing. The reverse-overlap grip helps forestall the potential rolling of the arms and retains the grip extra in every palm for elevated management.
It’s develop into the typical normal, largely as a result of it’s been round for thus lengthy, and it’s utilized by execs far and broad, from Tiger Woods to Rory McIlroy and everybody in between.
If you’re studying this and now questioning should you ought to change to a reverse-overlap placing grip, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it — particularly should you’re already a good putter. There’s a number of variance in placing approach as a result of it’s a deceptively easy artwork. When it comes to choosing a sure grip, abide by David Orr’s golden rule: The primary factor they want to resolve is which grip type makes them really feel the most coordinated.
