We really fooled with our putters a lot, too, moving lead tape or solder around, shortening and lengthening, tinkering with grips and so on. The putting grip I'm demonstrating in these photos is known today as the double-reverse overlap. I'm proud of that grip, because as far as I know, I invented it for putting. From the time I started using it, in the mid-1950s, it has always seemed to knit my hands together just right. As for the skinny putter with the slip-on leather grip I'm holding, I built that myself around 1955. With that putter and subsequent models, I did all kinds of things to promote feel, including running the wire from a coat hanger under the grip to serve as a reminder where my thumbs should go. The thumbs, incidentally, are a bigger source of feel than the fingers. I also used hacksaw blades under my putter grips for a while. They were nice and flat, and just the right width. This goes to show how hard players will look for the secret that'll lock in their feel.
"I never tried to grip the club lightly." --Arnold Palmer
Photo By Walter Iooss Jr.
My sense of feel came a bit by accident. When my father handed me my first club, when I was 3, he showed me the proper grip and said, "Don't you ever change that!" I'm sure Pap wanted me to have a grip that worked from a mechanical standpoint, but the way he set my hands on that club also gave me great sensitivity. I never tried to grip the club lightly. Sam Snead told me on more than one occasion I should hold it like I was holding a baby bird, but I never went along with that. I think a firm grip helps you control the club and prevents it from turning in your hands. Another thing about feel is, if you make a change in your grip, it takes time for your brain to adapt. My left-hand position got too strong when I was a teenager at Wake Forest, which some-times caused a hook, so I weakened it and vowed to play through the change. I still have that weak left-hand grip today, though my right hand is what you'd call neutral. It helps that I have very large hands, although my hands aren't as large as Byron Nelson's -- he had the biggest hands for a great player I ever saw. I'm not tall, but my glove size is extra large.
The material used for the grip itself is important, too. I always liked leather grips and still do, because I don't like the vibration that comes up the shaft at impact to be dampened too much. Jack Nicklaus feels the same way. But I'm trying rubber more often, and I suppose I'm getting used to it.
So, the search goes on. Right now I'm feeling, at age 79, like I'm one of those rare guys who discovers more feel the older he gets. But I wouldn't be surprised if it suddenly left me. As my friend Gary Player says, "Golf is a puzzle without an answer."
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