The surprising key to Tony Finau’s improved putting? What he didn’t do
Tony Finau messed around with all sorts of putting grips. Then he kept things simple.
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After winning the Mexico Open on Sunday, his fourth victory in his last 18 starts, Tony Finau appears to have a bit more pep in his step these days — and for good reason. Not only has Finau risen up the world golf rankings (currently 11th), but he looks like someone who’s truly enjoying himself on the course.
Sure, winning helps, but seeing Finau caddying for his kids just hours after the victory at Vidanta Vallarta looked like further evidence that he’s in a good place.
So what’s been the key to Finau’s golfing success? In his own words, it’s been all about the flatstick.
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“My putting has been, I think, my Achilles heel in the past,” he said Tuesday from the Wells Fargo Championship. “Where my ball-striking has gotten better, and I’ve hit it well enough to win more tournaments than I have, I haven’t been able to execute with the putter.
“But that’s changed over these last couple years, and that would be the main reasons.”
Finau isn’t wrong with his self-assessment, as he currently ranks 25th in SG: Putting. For context, he finished 85th last season and 91st in 2020-21 — so the 33-year-old is making big gains.
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Is there a secret pill that Finau took to get to this point? Hardly. In fact, instead of messing with grip, shaft and head changes, he focused on the holy grail of golf: keeping things simple.
“At the beginning of last year, my No. 1 goal on my goal sheet was don’t change your putter grip this year and see what happens. That literally was my first and only goal; not only goals, my first goal, which was just the priority.
“Anytime I was in a putting rut, I seemed to switch grips or switch putting heads. It was a quick fix, it wasn’t an overall [solution]. I’d have a great week or two, and then I’d be back in the same mess — if not even a deeper hole with my putting further down the stretch.
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“So I decided that I was going to commit to putting conventionally for a full season. No matter how I was putting, just figure it out.”
The commitment to putter has paid dividends. Not only is Finau competing more — he has five top-10s this season — but he’s also giving himself a chance each tournament by sticking to a familiar putting routine. The overthinking is gone, and better results are coming in.
“I think I’m enjoying the success of what that looks like for me, on just being able to dissect the same putting stroke with the same putter, the same putting grip style,” he said. “I think I would say that that’s where most of my success has come.”
After the improvement he has enjoyed on the greens, Finau had this message for other golfers who may be overthinking things or experimenting with too many changes in different parts of their own games.
“It’s a lot better to be great at one thing than tinker around with 10,000 different techniques and trying to figure it out,” he said. “I think Bruce Lee has a saying about something like that. He’s more scared of the guy who practices one punch 10,000 times than someone who practices 10,000 things one time. I’d say I agree with that.”
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