Playing Right Handed but Putting Left Handed (Or Vice Versa)

[Darkfrog]

I was watching Phil Mickelson putt this morning, and for some reason it reminded me of group I played with a couple years ago. One of the guys played left handed, but putted right handed. The other played right handed and putted left handed. I asked them why at the time, but I don't remember the details, but the gist was that they putted much better opposite handed.

I've also heard Tron from NLU mention a couple times that when he switches to righty, he still plans to play lefty wedges.

Anyone know of anyone else who does this or have their been any high profile/tour players that did this? It seems like there can be benefits if a player is struggling, but not sure why from a physiological or psychological perspective. I'm not planning on making a switch, as I am okay playing everything right handed. Plus the only thing I can do ambidextrously with any skill is kick a soccer ball.

[billchao]

9 minutes ago, Darkfrog said:

It seems like there can be benefits if a player is struggling, but not sure why from a physiological or psychological perspective.

It’s like a bit of a reset. If you’ve ingrained some problem you just can’t get out of your stroke, it can help to learn a new one from the opposite side.

Some people can also benefit from taking their dominant hand and putting it into a position where it affects the stroke less. That’s kind of the reasoning behind the lead hand low grip.

[Darkfrog]

7 minutes ago, billchao said:

It’s like a bit of a reset. If you’ve ingrained some problem you just can’t get out of your stroke, it can help to learn a new one from the opposite side.

Some people can also benefit from taking their dominant hand and putting it into a position where it affects the stroke less. That’s kind of the reasoning behind the lead hand low grip.

That makes sense, especially for the short game/putting stroke issues. Now that I think about it, I hold the putter with much lighter grip pressure with my right hand compared to my left, which helped control my urge to push with my right hand, but I was never struggling so much that I felt the need for a total reset.

Seems like making the change would require some stick-to-itiveness to learn the move opposite handed. 

[jlbos83]

I played with a decent player that did it, it was I while before I noticed, I must have been in my own world.  My recollection is that he putted his "natural" way, and had changed to playing "opposite" due to an injury.  His swing looked a little "off", but it was pretty effective.

[Sandy Divot]

My father plays left/putts right.

[darthweasel]

have seen two. One was a random lady we got paired with who had a unique to me round putter...she would putt leftie or righty based on which way her shadow covered the ball. Was neither particularly good nor particularly bad, she was a mediocre putter either way.

 

the second was guy I took lessons from. He used to use a belly putter, when they were ruled illegal, could not find putter he liked so he flipped to putting left handed. Worked for him pretty well.

[pganapathy]

After reading this topic earlier in the week, I tried putting left handed a hole or two over the weekend when golfing with my parents.  I was able to do that because I have a double sided putter.  Seemed to work reasonably well, but I think it would take a reasonable amount of practice for me to get to putting well that way.  Was struggling a bit with distance control on the longer putts as it was the first time.  Shorter putts was better