Sometimes the best ideas come from the most unexpected places. Phil Jaffe’s Palm Bird golf grip is a good example. A long-time PGA professional in Orlando, Fl., Jaffe one day was cutting back the Bird of Paradise after a hard winter freeze when he noticed how the oblong shape of the stalk felt in his palm.
The Palm Bird Grip
It wasn’t long before Jaffe was practicing his putting stroke with the Bird of Paradise stalk in his hands, practicing his putting motion. The fluid motion of the stroke with the Bird of Paradise led to his design of the Palm Bird grip, which has a non-tapered body and a beveled bottom.
The Palm Bird design looks a bit unusual at first glance, but it makes perfect sense, because it eliminates the flat-surface found on the front of most putter grips and replaces it with a contour that fits naturally into the groove of your palms.
“Basically what happens when have a flat side on a grip is you’re pressing your thumbs into that flat side and pressing your fingers against it, so your thumbs are pressing toward body and fingers away from body and you’re trying to create a lateral stroke,” Jaffe said.
But with the Palm Bird grip ($19.95 each), the pressure is in the palms and not the fingers and thumbs. The result is a fluid backstroke and a more effortless follow-through due to decreased finger, hand, wrist and arm tension.
In other words, the back of the palm of the left hand (for a right-handed stroke) better leads the club head toward the target.
It’s worked for me the past couple of weeks. It could work for you, too. Check it out at www.palmbirdputtergrips.com.
