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Notebook: An Eye for Design Clubmaker to the stars Tom StitesBy Jaime Diaz
About this time last year, conventional wisdom held that use of the
cross-handed -- or left-hand-low -- putting grip was about to make a quantum
leap among tour pros. Vijay Singh went left hand low to win the Masters. Karrie
Webb switched to the grip, and so did her chief rival, Annika Sorenstam.
Lifelong cross-hander Jim Furyk put on a great display of clutch putting to win
at Doral, and the playoff participants in Houston, Robert Allenby and Craig
Stadler, both used the grip. All this led putting guru Dave Pelz to proclaim,
"The question is not if the majority of pros will putt left hand
low, it's
when."
That was then. This year, with the proliferation of the 45-inch-long belly button putters, which a player braces in his midsection, and more esoteric grips, such as Mark Calcavecchia's Claw, the cross-handed grip has lost its cachet. Singh has switched to the belly button putter, and Furyk is experimenting with it. Sorenstam abandoned the cross-handed grip during the off-season and this year has grabbed the headlines from Webb with a 59 and three straight victories. Pelz remains a believer. "Left hand low is more instinctive," he says. "If you take two groups of beginners and train one in the left-hand-low method and the other in the conventional, the left-hand-low group does better." Pelz admits that left-hand-low putting is less in vogue this year. "These things go in cycles," he says. "I still believe you'll see more left hand low, only now we're in a cycle of experimentation." Noted instructor Jim McLean disagrees. The left-hand-low grip reduces the influence of the power hand, or the right hand of a right-handed player, and makes the stroke more of a pull than a push. McLean says that the great putters -- Isao Aoki, Seve Ballesteros, Ben Crenshaw, Brad Faxon and Bobby Locke -- had one thing in common: "They relied on the feel and rhythm they got from their right hands. Left hand low is fine for less gifted players who need more consistency on short putts, but the artists rely on their right hands, the way a painter does. "There has never been a truly great putter who has putted cross-handed. If left hand low were truly better, the best players would have switched by now. At a place like Augusta, where so much feel is involved, cross-handed doesn't work as well."
Byron Nelson's
Secrets
On Thursday 89-year-old Byron Nelson was to hit his last ceremonial opening drive at the Masters, a task he has performed for 20 years. Much will be written about Nelson and his legendary career this week, but here are five things that may be missed. 1. Nelson celebrates the anniversary of his second marriage, to Peggy, every month instead of every year because, he says, "there's never enough time to tell her how much she means to me." 2. Nelson played in the British Open only twice (and just once before retiring from the Tour in 1946) because he feared boats, the preferred method of traveling from the U.S. to Britain at the time. He says not attending was the lone regret of his career. 3. Nelson has had an accident in his woodworking shop in each of the last two years, slicing off a portion of his left hand both times. He also had a pacemaker inserted in 1999. 4. Nelson plays once a month at Riverhill Country Club in Kerrville, Texas, to prepare for his one swing at the Masters. (He fears he will top the ball off the 1st tee.) 5. After good friend and U.S. captain Ken Venturi invited him to the Presidents Cup, Nelson was crushed last year when no one followed up to make arrangements. -- Art Stricklinb
Issue date: April 9, 2001
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