After 36-holes of The 153rd Open Championship, it's World No.1 Scottie Scheffler who leads, with the American ranking second in terms of Strokes Gained: Putting for the week.
Usually, it's Scheffler's long game that wins him tournaments but, this week at Royal Portrush, it's the flatstick that is doing the damage, with the three-time Major winner gaining +6.39 shots on the field via the putter.
Last year, Scheffler switched from a blade-putter to a mallet-putter, but another change the World No.1 made to his game can be seen in his putting grip, with Scheffler moving from a conventional grip to a claw.
For those who don't know, the claw works by having the putter grip resting on the palm of your left hand, with the back of it pointing towards the target. With your right hand, you make a claw/pincer shape using the space between your thumb and your index finger.
Back at the 2024 Hero World Challenge, working alongside recognized putting coach Phil Kenyon, Scheffler was seen trialing the claw grip, explaining that it's primarily for putts that are "inside the 15-foot range."
Speaking at the time, Scheffler stated: "I’m always looking for little ways to improve. It’s something that Phil had mentioned to me last year when we first started working together.
"Over the last couple of months it’s something that we fiddled around with and figured this is a good week for me to kind of try things out."
In fact, on the debut of the claw grip at the 2024 Hero World Challenge, Scheffler went on to win via a 25-under-par total, earning a six stroke victory in the process.
As of writing, three of the world's top 10 use the claw - Scheffler, Russell Henley and Collin Morikawa - while Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Tony Finau and Matt Wallace also implement the grip in their games.
In terms of the pros and cons of using the claw grip, the advantage is that it puts the shoulders in charge and encourages a hands-free action. By doing this, it creates a smooth stroke and, importantly, prevent the right hand from becoming too active and negatively impacting the control of the putter face.
However, although there's a big advantage, the negative is that it can cause problems on slower greens, due to the fact that there's no way of releasing the hands with this technique. This might explain why Scheffler primarily uses it on the shorter putts.
In 2025, the claw putter grip has yielded six victories on the PGA Tour, with Henley winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Scheffler registering three victories, William Mouw claiming the ISCO Championship, while Nick Taylor added a fifth PGA Tour title to his CV at the Sony Open in Hawaii.
