Opinion & Analysis

Phil Kenyon: Tapered grips could be holding you back

Published

6 months ago

Oct 16, 2023

If there was a simple equipment change you could use to add control and responsive feel to your putting stroke, you’d try it, right? Well, perhaps the most practical and innovative design benefit in putter grip technology has been around for years, just hiding in plain sight. When many people look at a SuperStroke putter grip, they tend to apply terms like “oversized,” “wide,” or “fat” when, in reality, the success formula is in the fact that the grips don’t taper.

SuperStroke refers to its patented No Taper Technology and describes the design as a “uniform grip profile to minimize grip pressure and maintain putter head path for a more consistent stroke.” As a putting teacher, it’s easy for me to appreciate anything that quiets a golfer’s hands in his putting stroke. Let me explain why reduced-taper putter grips work better for most golfers.

LESS TAPER, MORE CONTROL

I see a lot of amateurs who are too handsy and wristy in their strokes rotate the putter head too much. A tapered putter grip can be partly blamed for a wristy stroke. When a putter grip is tapered and it’s thinner in the trail-hand position, golfers sacrifice even more control and consistency. They will fidget and start to make compensations to try to get comfortable. That can lead to too much hand and wrist involvement in the putting stroke.

I’ve done studies that reveal the size of the putter grip and reduced tapering clearly influence the kinematics of wrist movement in the putting stroke. The study basically showed how the no-taper, larger grips like SuperStroke grip could help a lot of golfers. We’ve found that when the grip is thicker and easier to place the hands on, golfers find the proper hand position a lot more easily. The feedback that you get from the consumer and in fittings matches the empirical evidence we found.

When you give a golfer an increased amount of grip to hold on to in the trail hand, you’re adding stability to the control hand. You’re giving them the ability to better control their stroke without excess hand or wrist motion. They generally feel more comfortable over the ball, too, and make fewer adjustments when the trail hand feels comfortable and stable.

In our study with biomechanist Mark Bull, we saw positive effects of a larger putter grip size, particularly in the width of the grip (including the reduced-tapering design) across a sample group of golfers. We found the bigger the grip (with less tapering in the trail-hand area), the slower the rate of rotation and the lower amount of overall rotation of the putter head. It also reduced flexion extension of the wrist, as well as promoting more ulnar deviation in the wrist; more towards ulnar means higher hands through the stroke and less stroke breakdown.

EVEN TOUR PROS BENEFIT

When I first started to work with Gary Woodland, it was at The U.S. Open in 2018 where he finished T36. He had a particular excessive wrist action as he would start his stroke, so we kind of altered his grip just to try and help modify that. He was struggling a bit with the grip change, so we switched the putter grip at the PGA Championship from the stock tapered putter grip to a non-tapered SuperStroke Pistol Tour and it made a significant difference. Gary could place his hands on the club correctly without thinking about it, and he finished T6 that week.

With a non-tapered grip, Gary could take the putter away with less hinge in the wrist. His problem was that his lead wrist would flex immediately as he was taking the putter away and when we got him into the Pistol Tour, it reduced that flexion. It mirrors what our study showed regarding grip size and shape influencing and reducing wrist movement.

Anytime someone’s got overactive hand action or over-active wrist sequences, that’s where I think experimenting with different sized grips is helpful. In a SuperStroke grip, that size is consistent throughout the grip so it’s easier to make a synchronized putting motion.

EXPERIMENT TO FIND YOUR FIT

The other aspect SuperStroke excels at is in offering a variety of grip models that accommodate the different ways golfers grip the putter. Whether they use a claw putting style or lock in the wrists or however they prefer to find that individualized feel and the sensation in the hands and on the club, SuperStroke’s versatility on their product line is very beneficial. It matters which grip gives you the most tactile response, so having different shapes and different options helps personalize the fit a lot more.

Testing and experimenting with a variety of grip designs can be a big benefit to your putting, so it’s something we make a part of our putting fittings. Some people like a more rounded feel while others like to feel a more defined edge in the hands. Whatever gives you quality feedback and a better awareness of where the club face is, that’s the best set-up for you. I also like the new texture and the Spyne technology SuperStroke’s latest Zenergy line. It helps your proprioception and awareness of where that clubface is.

I encourage you to try a grip style that gives you the confidence that putting stroke is stable, consistent and pure with as few compensations or moving parts in your putting stroke. Check out SuperStrokeUSA.com to learn more about the full array of putter grip options that might not only improve the feel of your putting stroke, but also your effectiveness on the greens.

Phil Kenyon is one of golf’s leading putter instructors. Trusted by players like Justin Rose, Max Homa, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood, Keegan Bradley, Gary Woodland and Francesco Molinari, Kenyon travels with the professional tours and also helms his namesake golf academies. Phil Kenyon Putting has studios located in both Southport and Greater Manchester in the UK, and at Sea Island Resort in Sea Island, GA. Learn more about Kenyon’s online putting academy here.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview

Published

3 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.

TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.

Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.

However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.

Past Winners at TPC Louisiana

2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)

2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks

Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)

Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.

This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.

McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.

Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)

Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.

Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.

Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)

Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.

NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under

Published

3 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.

For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.

The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.

The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.

*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*

Past Winners at LIV Adelaide

2023: Talor Gooch (-19)

Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami

Green in Regulation

Richard Bland
Jon Rahm
Paul Casey

Fairways Hit

Abraham Ancer
Graeme McDowell
Henrik Stenson

Driving Distance

Bryson DeChambeau
Joaquin Niemann
Dean Burmester

Putting

Cameron Smith
Louis Oosthuizen
Matt Jones

2024 LIV Adelaide Picks

Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)

When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.

At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.

The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.

Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)

Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.

In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.

For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.

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Opinion & Analysis

The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1

Published

7 days ago

Apr 18, 2024

Terry Koehler

Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.

Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.

But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.

To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.

Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.

If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.

In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.

Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.

While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.

So, what about grooves and face texture?

Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.

Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.

But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?

The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.

So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.

And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.

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