BOSS OF THE MOSS
Inside the London Putting Academy
Matthew Johns has been the head professional at Royal Blackheath for 12 years, and prior to playing the course, I had a look round his state-of-the-art studio, the London Putting Academy. I explained that since migrating to a new Callaway Stroke Lab 7 putter late last year, which otherwise I love, I had been struggling with mid- to long-range putts. I felt I was having to hit rather than stroke them, which had led to an almost yip-like action which fired the ball off in something of a scattergun fashion. Matt set me up to hit a few putts using his hi-tech laser system, which revealed the error of my ways.
As suspected, the computer data, combined with Matt’s expert eye, indicated that my right hand was dominating; effectively overwhelming any subtle attempts by my left hand to set the ball off on the right line and at the correct pace. His suggestion, after 40 years of me using the same set-up, was to try the claw grip. Five putts in the lab later and my ‘smoothness consistency’ had shot up from 3% to 55%, while my ‘face rotation consistency’ had risen from a lamentable 0% to 44%.
It was now time to put the advice into practice with GM colleague Jeremy Ellwood and our genial host from Royal Blackheath, Mark Palmer. Believe it or not, and despite everything feeling new and different, I holed several putts from 8 to 20 feet in the course of the round, and so have been using the claw ever since. This was the perfect example of teaching an old dog new tricks, and a brilliant testimony to the benefit we can all gain from taking the advice of experts and utilising the latest technology. Thanks Matt.