Golf: Waite happy with left-hand progress

Grant Waite has started putting left-handed in a bid to revive his career. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand golfer Grant Waite has a spring in his step again after successfully launching an experiment he hopes will save an ailing career.

Waite has taken extreme action to cure deep seated-problems with his putting, using the New Zealand PGA Championship at Clearwater Resort in Christchurch to come out of the closet as a left-hander on the greens.

While still early days, the 45-year-old likes what he sees after four days of his new putting action in the heat of battle.

Waite, whose success in the 1993 Kemper Open leaves him as one of only seven New Zealanders to win a title on the PGA Tour in the United States, finished tied for 10th yesterday, four shots outside of a playoff won by Australian Mitchell Brown over compatriot Ashley Hall.

Waite's tournament's card of three-under 285 included a fine 68 on the final day yesterday, which was good enough to earn him a cheque worth $2900.

That is chump change compared to what is on offer elsewhere, but Waite, originally from Palmerston North, had other statistics to comfort himself with.

He was almost proud to report that he survived 72 holes of tournament golf with only one three-putt against his name.

"I had only one three-putt in four rounds. That saves me four-five shots from the word go," said Waite, who now heads to Queenstown and the New Zealand Open starting on Thursday with his confidence restored.

"I can't remember the last time I did that but I do know that I only played nine rounds in total last year without a three-putt."

Waite feels he has arrived at the Last Chance Saloon as he bids to revive a career which has become mired in mediocrity on the secondary Nationwide Tour in the United States where his faulty putting stroke has seriously limited the impact he is able to make.

Noted for his pure ball striking tee to green, he has long explored myriad remedies varying from a belly putter to a broomstick putter, to an assortment of grip changes.

It has all been to no avail, until potentially now.

"I had a little bit of trepidation teeing off at the start of the week just because of the unknown," Waite admitted yesterday.

"I was a little unsure how it was going to work but I started feeling a little better as each hole went by. I soon settled to the stage where it was no longer a thought in my mind and it was all a matter of trying to make the putts.

"There is a tremendous upside because it is still early in the process."

He was privately chuffed to have kept his putting demons at bay in Christchurch.

"I feel there is a chance now that it can be a strength of my game.

"It (the stroke) felt natural. It is still a little mechanical but it doesn't feel strange," said Waite, a natural left-hander, who took up golf as a right-hander because of the shortage of equipment during his formative years in provincial New Zealand.
While Waite advanced his cause last week at Clearwater, the biggest winner was Brown, 25, of Sydney, who earned his first tournament title in his fourth season in the professional ranks.

He, Hall and New Zealanders Grant Moorhead and Gareth Paddison all shared the lead at seven-under after 11 holes on the final afternoon but Hall and the two locals all shelled strokes coming home.

Hall bogeyed the 18th to fall into the playoff, while Moorhead dropped shots at the 17th and 18th to finish alone in third place, one stroke outside the playoff.

Paddison bettered that, wayward drives on 17 and 18 collectively costing him seven shots as he tumbled to a 76 and a share of 14th place on 286.

- NZPA