He puts with one hand and just won a PGA Tour event. What’s going on?
Are you the top dog on the green?
You know who else?
The latest winner on the PGA Tour.
“I should write down all my putting thoughts so I can look back on them in 10 years and laugh at myself,” 33-year-old Adam Schenk said Sunday after winning his first PGA Tour title in 243 attempts. “Most of the time it’s one-handed putting.”
Yes, you read that right: At the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, Schenck dominated a field of 120 players in winds as high as 40 mph, at least in some places, holding the grip putter with just his right hand.
Even if his left hand does join the party, it’s mostly just for show.
“When we were out of the wind, I could hit a lot of nice putts with one hand,” Schenck said after a third-round 67 on Saturday that left him tied for the 54-hole lead. “A couple of stand-up moments. I think I didn’t make any moves with one hand today, but I would put my left hand on it, so basically it was like putting it with my right hand.”
On Sunday, in conditions more suitable for kitesurfing, Schenck had composure, hitting a 5-iron 130 yards into the breeze for an even-par 71, moving to 12 under for the week, better than Chandler Phillips.
But back to the one-handed putter. Schenk has long believed that he is not as talented as most of his peers, so he must compete by (1) starting as many starts as possible and (2) using his intelligence. “There’s a lot of guys here who are better physically than me at golf, and I’ve got to try to outsmart them and get any little advantage I can, not give anything up, and that’s how I play golf,” Schenck said in 2023. “And then make the putt. If I do that, that’s great. If I make the putt, I’ll have a chance. If I don’t make the putt, I don’t have a chance. “A chance. “
At Port Royal, where Schenck called the windy conditions “ridiculous at times,” he made the putt. The Tour didn’t install ShotLink last week, but it tracked putts per green in regulation, and Schenck ranked 22nd in that category this week with a 1.73 average.
Schenk was inspired to try a one-handed putter after talking to 67-year-old Mike Hulbert in July. Mike Hulbert has won three times on tour, and no matter what, a one-handed putt is a one-handed putt.
Hulbert first demonstrated this technology at the 1995 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. “My one putt wasn’t enough,” he said, explaining the transformation, which began on the greens with Professor David Leadbetter. Hulbert had immediate success with the new approach, saying, “I was able to get a good rhythm and the ball was flowing to the hole. When I putt with two hands, I tend to get too mechanical.”
Schenck said he spoke with Herbert at the 3M Open and said he was interested, if not entirely convinced, in Herbert’s suggestion. “Can you do that in front of people? That’s the big question,” Schenk said of his thought process. “Like, can you do that on tour? That’s another big question.”
But then another inspiration came from the most relevant source.
“I saw something on Instagram about a day or two later,” Schenck said, “and it was like the left hand was messing up a lot of things in the short game, especially the way the club releases on the putter stroke and on chipping or pitching, and the way your left hand releases here.”
Solution: Take your left hand away from the process.
The results weren’t great, and Schenck’s other go-to putting technique (pressing the shaft where the grip meets the metal) wasn’t great either. But the bottom line is that, for now at least, the unconventional approach is working for him — and it looks damn good. As Arnold Palmer always said, swing. The same goes for putting: hitting the ball.
“I could tell you 10 different methods, theories and techniques that I used in my hotel room this week, just trying to figure this out,” Schenck said Sunday amid victory. “I think the answer I came to is there are no answers, only what works for you will work for you.”
