Chris DiMarco has been clawing around for five years. Mark O’Meara, long one of the best putters on Tour, won this year in Dubai using a claw variant. Briny Baird has a stance so closed it looks like he’s trying to sneak up on the ball. Any day now I expect to see a Tour pro start putting one-legged, like a flamingo.

Throw in the belly putter and cross-handed grips and the conventional is starting to seem unconventional. (Quick prediction: Don’t be surprised to see Vijay Singh, who used a belly putter for three years, someday abandon the conventional putter and grip he used to win the Buick Open, PGA Championship and Deutsche Bank Championship. His mindset: If he finds something he thinks will help him, he does it.) Not long ago I saw a guy use a claw grip on a belly putter! And to him I say, Good for you. The game is about getting the ball in the hole—period. At a time when swings have become less like fingerprints than photocopies, golf needs all the quirks it can get.

Crunch Time
Golf is best played in the moment. That’s harder than it sounds. Most amateurs dream of career rounds after an opening birdie. Pros get ahead of themselves too, especially those fighting to keep their PGA Tour cards. Thursday they’re thinking about making the cut on Friday. Saturday they’re thinking about where they need to finish on Sunday to escape the drop zone.

That’s human nature—and it’s self-defeating. About 75 percent of PGA Tour pros make 75 percent of their season earnings in a stretch of six weeks or less. The lesson: Unless you’re an elite player, you need to ride a hot streak into the ground. But teeing it up every week when you’re struggling is a panic move. It takes guts to stay home and recharge the batteries when your professional life is in danger, but that’s what I tell students stuck in that miserable situation. The minitours are full of guys who tried to play and play and play their way into the top 125 on the money list.

This logic applies to the average golfer as well. When your game is in a funk, don’t be afraid to push the ejector button. Instead of struggling through that regular Saturday game with your buddies, take a week off and seek out a pro who can help with the part of your game that’s hurting you. Or work on the problem yourself. Either way, it’s a good idea to give up some playing time for valuable practice time. You’ll find that tip to be as good as money in the bank.

Peter Kostis is a GOLF MAGAZINE contributing writer and a golf commentator for CBS Sports.