Golf is a Crazy Game — Why we should Embrace the Unusual

This past week on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, we had one winner chipping left-hand-low and another putting with one hand. Golf is a crazy game, and most pros understand the simple truth: it doesn’t matter what you look like out there — all that matters is getting the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible.

Take Matt Fitzpatrick. A few years ago, after hitting balls left-hand-low as a practice drill for his full swing, he began using it in tournaments for chips out of the rough because the ball came out more consistently. It worked so well he started doing it for regular chip shots and has never gone back. A U.S. Open, three DP World Tour Championships, and a stack of other wins certainly suggest it was a pretty good idea.

Then there’s Adam Schenk — a surname a little too close for comfort to a certain swing mishap, but we’ll leave that one alone. In Bermuda, the second-to-last event on the PGA Tour’s Fall Series, he putted one-handed whenever the moment called for it, mixing in a few two-handed variations along the way. The thoughts he wrestled with on the greens over four days would normally send someone to a therapist’s couch… yet he walked away with a one-shot victory. His first win in 243 starts.

So, what does all this tell us? The ball doesn’t know how it’s being struck.

The last couple of years I lived in the U.S., I worked with a young American pro, Austen Truslow. We’ve stayed in touch, and these days I mentor him as he plays the Asian Tour. Austen has one unusual habit — he chips one-handed.

When I first started with him, I wondered if I could “fix” that and get him chipping two-handed like a “normal” golfer. We tried it in a mini-tour event. He couldn’t even take the club back. One-handed? No problem. And he’s genuinely good at it. We eventually concluded he doesn’t need to be a great chipper — just a good one — because his ball-striking is world-class. Jack Nicklaus wasn’t a great chipper either. Good, not great. Didn’t seem to hold him back.

The moral of the story?

Don’t be afraid to try something completely outside the box if it helps you shoot lower scores. I’m a lefty who putts right-handed. Do I care? Not in the slightest. If the ball’s going in the hole, I couldn’t care less how it gets there.

And who knows — what feels strange today might be tomorrow’s standard.

Hello, claw grips. 😉