Bobby Jones Putting Secrets
Randy Jensen February 5, 2019
Of course, Robert T. Jones, Jr., commonly referred to as “Bobby Jones,” was the greatest hickory shaft golfer of the hickory golf era (with Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, and Tommy Armour spurring him on). Bobby Jones culminated his career with his four 1930 “Grand Slam” victories: US & British Opens, US & British Amateurs. Jones was only 28 years old when he retired after this amazing feat; he opened Augusta National with the first Masters golf tournament in 1934.
Bobby Jones described himself as being very nervous before tournaments and yet, his contemporaries described Jones’ putting, and especially his putting under pressure, as simply unmatched in his era. Many people attribute Jones’ amazing putting to a putting lesson with Walter Travis who told Jones to putt with his feet close together. Putting with your feet close together generally tightens the margin of error for a number of variables including: eye position, ball position, and positioning of body weight. However, there is more to Bobby Jones’ putting success than just that.
The rest of the story is actually two-fold, with one part being equipment and the second part being technique. Bobby Jones’ “Calamity Jane” putter was originally from the forge of St. Andrews clubmaker Robert Condie---a light (about 275-gram head) blade putter with a Willie Park-style offset. When Jones wore this club out, he had Spalding clubmaker J. Victor East meticulously recreate this putter right down to the three strands of whipping that supported the cracked hickory shaft of his original putter. (You can see the historic recreated Bobby Jones putter used in 1930 at the USGA Museum in Far Hills NJ; the original Calamity Jane resides at Augusta National in Georgia.)It was the cracked hickory shaft that was one of the keys to Jones’s putting success. The cracked hickory shaft in Jones’s Calamity Jane was VERY flexible.
Isaac Newton’s third law of motion states that when one object applies a force on a second object, the second one simultaneously applies a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first object. Or to paraphrase this phenomenon, “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The application of Newton’s law to Bobby Jones’ putting stroke is that with such a whippy shaft, Jones putter would spring back perfectly on plane during the transition between backswing and forward swing. This will not happen with a stiffer shaft. So, with the Jones’ stroke, the forward swing starts exactly the opposite direction as the backswing due to the extremely flexible shaft reversing direction as the hands stop. With a normal putter, the player must move his hands exactly on plane to start the forward motion---Jones could let the shaft rebound on perfect plane; a huge advantage. Just the flexible shaft won’t get you the Jones’ putting stroke, unfortunately.
Bobby Jones had a very idiosyncratic move in his full golf swing where he loosened his left hand at the top of his backswing before squeezing his left hand little fingers to start the downswing. Today, this is considered an error in swing technique. There are no Tour players who currently do this. Jones’ habit of squeezing the little finger of his left hand to start the downswing carried over to his putting stroke. Today, any tendency on the part of Tour players to “squeeze” the hands during the putting stroke is generally considered to be the “yips” and reason to consider the claw grip or the long putter. But this was not the case for Bobby Jones who could get away with this move because he applied no pressure with any of his other fingers, especially any pressure from his right hand. This created a simple swinging hinge at the left hand little finger. Bobby Jones could squeeze his left hand pinkie hard or easy, too soon or too late and all his putts would go straight with this brilliant technique. Totally foolproof.
Watch Jones describe his putting stroke on video, mentioning that he starts the club away with his LEFT hand and has “a nice light grip on the club.” Jones combined this hand action with his narrow, shoulders-open stance and whippy putter shaft to win 13 major golf championships by age 28 and become one of sports’ greatest legends!
