Dear Jer,
I personally like what I call the "Two Pistoleros" grip form, since it is a) left-hand on mostly and first; b) right hand neutralized, and c) level shoulders for a bottom of the stroke more centered between the feet.
This photo shows a grip similar to mine, with the last two fingers of the right / rear hand overlapping the last two fingers of the left / lead hand. In my preferred form, there is more of the same height of each hand and less tilting out of level of the shoulders with the last three fingers overlapping, the right fingers offset one-half finger lower to seat in the valleys between the left fingers (right pinky rests between left pinky and left ring finger). And in my form, the right thumb is deliberately NOT engaged positively with the handle, as this promotes use of the right hand the same way a "precision grip" of thumb pressed to side of index finger is overly associated with tool use like hammers and screw drivers. My left thumb (and left under-fingers have a little more pressure, perhaps, than the right fingers and the left thumb flat to the plane of the handle is used in the sense of spatial-orientation awareness to make sure the putter face is square coming thru impact.
But in general the grip form is not nearly as important as commonly supposed so long as you don't use the hands to make the stroke. The whole "fad" of the reverse overlap grip form strikes me as weird. Why would a professional golfer worry about "left wrist breakdown", which is the raison d'etre for this grip form? Perhaps it tends to neutralize the right hand to avoid its taking over too much thru impact, in the same way the "claw grip" neutralizes the right hand and returns the golfer to a shoulder stroke. I say: "Just learn a shoulder stroke." What could be simpler as a way to get the hands under control, without the band-aid of a grip form?
One certainly does not want a grip form that promotes handsiness or changes in the hand, wrist or arm muscles during the stroke. So one should seek a grip that is securely on the handle with a muscle tone that can withstand the reactive forces of the impending stroke (like a seawall forbidding the raging surf from invading the quiet harbor). Other than this, the touch and accuracy of the stroke proceeds almost entirely from the shoulder frame and the biomechanics established by the setup.
BUT .... if you WANT to be handsy for some reason, then there are two sorts: back of lead hand, and palm of rear hand. If the back of the lead hand is the main actor in the stroke, then the back of the lead hand needs to aim parallel with the putter face at address and at impact and should stay "square" this way for a bit thru impact. This is Dave Stockton Jr.'s sort of handsiness. If the rear hand is the main actor, then the action is similar to rolling a ball at the target, which gives priority to touch over line. (I've never been convinced that rolling a ball underhanded is a good and accurate way to roll the ball on an exact line -- it's pretty sloppy really and very prone to streakiness with intermittent streaks of fabulous touch, as with John Daly.) This requires that the rear palm square up to the target line just before impact and then stay that way a little thru impact. if the forearm rotates the hand open and closed in the back-stroke and coming into impact, the golfer needs a sense of where the hand and how the hand re-squares before impact. This is pretty elusive, but is helped a bit by how the two elbows re-achieve neutral symmetry at the bottom of the stroke along with the thumbs aiming straight down also at the bottom of the stroke. This sort of mindfulness reduces the potential for line error in the rear-hand sort of handsiness.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
Geoff Mangum's
PuttingZone
PuttingZone Clinics
Flatstick Forum
PuttingZone Channel on YouTube
PuttingZone Picasweb Image Gallery
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction -- you're either in the PuttingZone, or not.
Over 2 million visits -- 100,000 monthly from 50+ countries -- and growing strong.