Geoff,

Would like your take on grip size and its overall effect on putting. (path,control-direction and distance, comfort, etc)

The reason for inquiring is I'm a big guy (6'4") with rather large hands and currently use a midsize putter grip. I have been using midsizes for a very long time as anything smaller truly makes it impossible to get my hands comfortably on the club(the hands look like a birds nest with a regular size grip-it's just awful). I was at my local golf shop today where there was a used putter with Golf Pride Jumbo grip. My hands felt so comfortable when I gripped it. Trying to place the grip in the palm of my right hand is usually a very awkward and uncomfortable experience but this was so easy to place my hands on the putter. After talking with one of the guys at the shop he showed me the Tiger Shark oversized putter grip which was almost as big but felt significantly lighter. So I purchased this grip but have yet to install it. I fully understand how these larger grips will change the balance point of the putter so no need to address that aspect. Also did a couple of searches on your site and there seems to be very little on "grip size" so any light you can shed on this subject will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ron

P.s. Now I'm looking at the 2 Thumb Grip and PurePendulum grip!

Dear Ron,

There are a number of different points to make about grip size on putters.

1. The "open hand" is a relaxed hand, and a "closed hand" holding a tool handle is not relaxed but held in place by muscle tension. Consequently, to the extent the grip of a putter requires the golfer to close the hand onto it, the grip is requiring tension. A too-small grip usually is held with a more cramped hand. A "just-right" grip size is one that calls for the right degree of closing of the hand so that the resulting usual pressure is good for you. This will vary a bit from golfer to golfer depending on a number of factors in their patterns of hand use and their devlopmental history (car mechanics versus pianists).

2. The grip size affects the degree of contact between the hand and the handle. Usually, the putter is used most effectively when the handle is held in the palm, not the fingers as in the full shot. If you simply close your hand by ftouching your fingertips to the palm and look at the palm and fingers, the fingertips form a diagonal line from the heel pad nearest the wrist (little finger) to the base of the thumb (index finger). There is a small tube of air running beneath the fingers. A putter handle ought to fill this tube with handle material without there being a lot of air left between the handle and the skin. Typically, with conventional flat-top putter grips, there is some air between the back of the grip and underside of the fingers at the first knuckle, for the normal adult male hand. It would probably be better is this air were not there, but that is debatable.

3. The grip form of the hand "potentiates" certain patterns of use of the hand (sets the hand on track to be used ceratin ways, and increases the likelihood that one of these usual uses will affect the stroke in certain ways). The most common potentiation occurs when the golfer's hand on the grip approximates the form used on screw drivers. The "precision grip" on a screw driver features very well defined thumbtip-to-side-of-index-finger pressure for precise rotational control. Sort of a turn-the-key action. This grip form promotes thumb-to-index pressure at the expense of attention and pressure to the last three fingers, which then tend to free float. This form is naturally opposed to a straight-thru-impact stroke, as it promotes pronation / supination of the hands thru the hitting area. A lighter thumb-tip pressure and more conscious attention to the same pressure evenly distribnuted throughout the hand tends to tighten up the last three fingers on the underside of the handle, lessen the "precision grip" tendency to use the handle like a screw driver of key, quietn the hands altogether, and promote a straighter stroke thru the impact area.

4. Hand tension is not separated from arm tension. Hand tension is managed by muscles and tendons in the forearm. Just squeeze your hand a few times while feeling your forearm. It is very difficult to use ONLY the muscles in your hand, leaving the muscles in the forearm unaffected. So the notion in conventional golf instruction to set a steady grip pressure in the hands is not quite accurate. The setting of the grip pressure is done in the hands and arms as a unit. I teach that the setup muscle tone needs to be uniformly the same in the hands, arms, shoulders, and perhaps even across the top of the back.

5. Tension blocks the form of movement the way a stone interferes with the flow of a stream. In a sense, isolated tension is worse than uniform tension across connected body parts. So the pattern of tension and the dgree of tension for good putting need to be explored and decided upon. My "firing solution" (as tank gunners might say) is a level of muscle tone in the hands, arms, and shoulders that is about what I would use to greet a nice lady coming into my house or business -- comfortable, genteel perhaps, but certainly not aggressive.

6. The material that the grip is made with and its thickness affects the way vibrations in the putter shaft from impact are transmitted into the hands. The vibrational frequency will be damped by any grip material. the issue is matching the vibrational frequency to a speed that is effectively sensed by the hands. The hands' pressure sensors are probably able to sense about 10 hits each second, resetting in between. Sensation depends on an area's sensors all firing in coordination to transmit a big enough signal to get noticed ("felt"). Frequencies of vibration that are high get wasted. This is a pretty under-explored area in golf science.

7. The handle gives the golfer setup feedback 1) as to the form of his aim and the readiness for the stroke; 2) as to the speed pattern of moving the handle (inertial forces) during the stroke; 3) as to the orientation of the putter during the stroke; and 4) as to vibrational feedback after impact. The flat-top grip form addresses the first and third of these. If the thumbs fit flatly onto the top of the handle, the golfer by feel knows where the putter face is aimed and can build his setup using the top surface of the handle as his guide. A blind person uses this to setup, or should, and so should a sighted golfer. During the stroke, when the handle for any reason twists independently out of where the hands would otherwise send it (from inertial forces such as abruptness in the stroke), the edges of the flat top interact with the palms and fingers, and the surface of the thumb tips experience a shearing force sideways or extra pressure to one side of the thumb tip more than the other. During the stroke, if there is abruptness in the stroke instead of a calm even tempo in the movement, the handle waggles sideways and the top of the handle presses harder against one side of the hands or the other and so does the bottom of ther handle in the opposite direction. The grip size and form ought to encourage noticing these changes, as a good stroke promotes "no changes" in the feeling of the hands on the handle. You can be as sensitive as you want to be in the hands on the putter, but your desire is to make a stroke that makes you feel "nothing" in the hands.

All that said, big hands need big handles. The objective is to get the hand to a comfort level that infuses itself up into the upper arms and that does not encourage a differential pressure between the thumb and the last three fingers and that signals the golfer when things are not the way they should be (during the stroke or afterwards in vibrational feedback). I can't really advise you personally, except to say that you should explore different grips with the above points in mind.

I hope this helps.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced putting instruction -- you're either in the PuttingZone, or not.

Geoff,

Thanks for the info. As always your response is very complete.

My adversion to going to any grip larger than a midsize was a loss of feel and now after reading your response I'm not so sure this should be a concern. Here is my thought, if the right hand is able to be placed on the grip with a lighter pressure/less tension then the sensory perception of the hands will be increased therefore having more feel. What do you think?

The flat side of the putter grip is usually placed up for the thumbs as you described. It would seem if the flat section was in the palm (parallel with the face of the club) the hands would again have more information. ANy thoughts?

Lastly, are there any reverse taper putter grips? I was messing around with a grip holding it upside down and with the flat section in the palm and the feeling was quite nice. If not is there anything saying that a grip could not be installed this way? Obviously the true top of the grip would have to have a hole put in it and the other end capped off.

Thanks

Ron

Hi Geoff
Your information on the grip size made for interesting reading with regard to the feeling in your hands. I have experimented with a two-thumb grip on Harold Swash's C-Groove Amy putter (centre-shafted 33"). However I am very conscious of the heavy sensation of the grip to the extent that you can't feel the putter head. In one respect it is great to be able to position both hands on the putter alongside of each other and so level and square your shoulders, but on the other hand I think the grip weight has knocked out the balance of the putter. I have now fitted a Lamkin jumbo putter grip. I would imagine that a putter designer would strive to balance the weight of the putter head, with the shaft and the grip in an optimum way. I know shortening a putter shaft changes its swingweight and I presume a heavy grip will do the same. I don't know the exact weight of the 2-thumb grip, but the pure pendulum X1 grip is supposedly 160gm.
I would appreciate your views on these oversize grips from a perspective of the extra weight they add to the putter handle.
Kind regards
Neville Walker
Perth, Oz

Weight & size considerations apart, I don't believe a square stroke can be made from the hands position (set-up) required by the physical embodiements of these grips types.

Can you please explain why you think a two thumb grip prohibts you to make a square stroke?

Best REgrds
Christer

I mean that a square stroke is better avoided when using a two thumbs set-up as this stroke from that set-up requires a higher level of skill to control the manipulation required for consistant putting success.

From a conventional set-up( hands placement)the non-dominant forearm must be slightly manipulated ( rotated in the direction of the target) to keep the putter face square throughout the stroke action; with the thumbs joined side by side (on the same level at the top center of the grip) as is required by the design of the Two Thumbs grip together with greater reliance on a more horizontal shoulder turn, the manipulation necessary for a square stroke is more pronounced; it requires not only increased rotation of the non-dominant forearm but also slight inversion of the non-dominant wrist and a following flexation of the dominant wrist in order to maintain the two thumbs position. The two thumbs may well be a superior technique when the goal of the golfer is to keep the putter face "square to the arc" and not always square to the line of the putt. Playing the percentages.... not many would choose the former.

The trick of course is to execute a always square stroke with out manipulating the non-dominant forearm. But that is another subject.

Dear Dick,

If the movement in the stroke is ONLY the lead shoulder pushing the arms as a whole unit back from the ball, and the shoulder moves in a plane that parallels the aim of the putter, there is NO forearm or hand rotation of any sort. Try it holding a business card in your left hand between thumb and forefinger, watching to see whether the edge of the card stays the same or rotates with the forearm and hand. If you really use only the shoulder to move the shoulder in plane, there is NO manipulation at all.

The only time the forearms rotate or the hands "manipulate" the putter is when there is independent movement of the arm (or hand / wrist) farther than where a shove of the shoulder would alone send the arm and hand. The forearms appear to rotate also when the shoulder motion is not in a plane parallel to the aim of the putter face, and that usually occurs when the golfer doesn't know where he is moving his shoulder.

Anyone CAN make a straight shoulder stroke without hand / arm manipulation, and it is odd to deny this without seeing for yourself first. If you can get it done, it can be done. The issue of whether your body and your ability is compatible with this movement, or whether this is best for you, is altogether another story.

There is WAY too much confusion about how the body works in movement.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced putting instruction -- you're either in the PuttingZone, or not.

The discussion is about the manipulation necessary to achieve a square stroke with the parallel hands set-up required by the Two Thumbs putter. If you putt right handed put the card you describe between your thumbs and I think you will find a square putter face requires rolling the left forearm.

I do not see any arm nor hand rotation while executing a square stroke, it is all shoulder and chest crunch. The card remains all square without any arm manipulation.