December 1, 2014 – On the 2015 European Tour we’re going to enjoy a player that’ll cause sensation. We’re talking about the English golfer Jason Palmer, the big bet of Crest Link – the Asian golf apparel brand that sponsors him -, who after going through the 2013 Alps Tour and 2014 Challenge Tour, is now coming to the European Tour with an original way of playing golf, with a single hand.
The 30-year-old golfer, from Leicestershire, England, has one of this year’s most inspiring stories in our sport. In order to become one of the 15 graduates of the 2014 Challenge Tour, with a direct card for the 2015 European Tour without going through the Q-School, Jason has had a fantastic season end with a victory at The Open Foshan (China) and a second place in the National Bank of Oman Golf Classic, entering the Tour classified eighth – just behind the Spanish player Jordi Garcia Pinto.
Jason, the Nº 266 golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking, knows that chipping with one hand looks funny and brings a smile to the faces of many people, but it is what has assured him the European Tour card for 2015. He had always been a promising golfer, but his game would go to pieces around the greens. It’s a key area for the final score, which was poor Palmer’s nightmare.
Palmer suffered the dreaded chipping yips, a condition which deprived him of any feel when trying to play the simplest two-handed strokes. But who’d imagine playing at the highest level without the ability to chip well? Finally he discovered the technique that worked for him. When he is within 50 yards of a green, he plays his wedge using just his right hand. As he justifies:
“I can remember the point when I decided to switch very well,” said Jason Palmer in an interview to BBC Sport. “I had qualified for the Alps Tour through their Q-School in 2009, but it was impossible to score well as every time I missed a Green in Regulation it resulted in a bogey… Sometimes it was even worse. My short game was so destructive, that I could hit every shot imaginable: fat, thin, even the odd double hits!”
“I was practicing with my friend Neil Chaudhuri and told him I’d had enough as my short game was diabolical. I then showed him that I was fine with one hand. The strike was there. It was crisp, and the ball reached the green every time, and it consistently went where I wanted it to go. He said the decision to go one-handed was a ‘no brainer’.”
Palmer’s morale was very low, and as things couldn’t get any worse, he decided to take a chance, which liberated him instantly. Suddenly he no longer suffered from losing greens, and began to enjoy the challenge of chipping the ball. “I embarked on a great run of form and finished second on the Alps Tour that season.”
This unorthodox way of chipping is now an integral part of his game, despite cause amazement amongst his match fellows. “It certainly takes a few guys by surprise,” confesses Jason Palmer. “Particularly at first, when nobody knew about it. I find it worse in pro-ams as I feel like the amateurs think I’m not taking it seriously. But these days I pre-warn them that I’m about to chip with one hand.”
According to his statistics Jason Palmer considers the efficiency figures around the greens are acceptable, and hopes that his example might help alleviate many other players, who suffer from the same game difficulty in a similar way.
“I know that a lot of golfers over years have struggled with the yips, either in chipping or putting, and hopefully my story can prove to them that there is a way around it, no matter how radical it may seem,” says Jason Palmer.
If different forms of holding the grip when putting are so well accepted, why shouldn’t chipping be able to be done with one hand even, if it seems a bit odd? We’ll see him in next season’s European Tour, where Jason Palmer will fulfil the dream he’s had since he turned professional in 2009.
And he’ll be dressed with polo shirts and clothing by Crest Link, the brand that has accompanied him to victory in the Challenge Tour. Congratulations to Jason on a fantastic 2014 season so far, and the very best of luck for his European Tour campaign in 2015.
More information at www.crestlink.net, tel. (+34) 619 80 55 77, crestlinkeurope@gmail.com or cduffy@oryxevents.com.
