Left Handed Golf - Do Left-Handers Play Golf Left-Handed


by Keith Milsom - Date: 2006-12-07 - Word Count: 502 Share This!

I am a natural left-hander and I write with my left and play one handed sports such as tennis, badminton etc. left-handed. But when it comes to swinging a bat or club with two hands, I turn into a rightie (or, at least, I play the same way as most right-handers do!).

It may be that when I first started to play there were no left-handed clubs to borrow or use, but I think there is more to it than that. It just feels natural to me to play that way.

Left-handed golfer Phil Mickelson, who won the US Masters at Augusta in 2004, is a natural right-hander who plays golf very successfully left-handed. What he says is that you just stand over the ball with a club and decide which way you would hit the ball most comfortably - to your left or to your right. That tells you what your natural handedness is for playing golf.

I may also have a lot do do with which is your dominant eye. If you look through a telescope, which eye would you use? In the survey done by Anything Left-handed, analyzing results from over 2,000 left-handers, 75% of them said they would look through a telescope with their left eye (see link at the bottom for the full results).

If you are left handed and left eye dominant, it seems natural to look to your left for your target line and to turn towards your left side with your left hand and arm leading.

What confused me is why right-handers play this way! It is likely that the majority of them are right-eye dominant and they really should play what is called "left handed". I have similar problems over eating left handed, but that is another story!

It is very rare for left-handed golfers to reach the top levels of the game. Only three left-handed players have ever won Major Championships - New Zealand's Bob Charles in the 1963 British Open, 32 year old Canadian Mike Weir at the 2003 US Masters and Phil Mickelson at the Masters in 2004.

Mike Weir is one of six left-handed players currently on The Tour, but a record four of them took part in the 2005 US Masters (the others are Phil Mickelson, Steve Flesch, Russ Cochran, Kevin Wentworth and Australian Greg Chalmers).

Top left-handed lady golfers are still very rare though and there are none currently on the LPGA Tour.

I will continue to enjoy my golf playing "right-handed". Many of the people I play with know that my business is left handed products and rib me about being a fraud as I play golf right handed, so I had some baseball caps specially designed with the slogan "lefties do it right" on the front as an explanation for why a left-hander plays right handed golf.

Maybe one day I will try to play left-handed to see how I get on - it would certainly help in some of the positions I have ended up in behind the trees where it is not possible to swing right-handed!


Related Tags: golf, left handed golf, lefthanders, left-handed, keith milsom, phil mickelson, left hand golf clubs

Keith Milsom is the owner of www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk, the specialist online shop and website for left-handers and runs the left-handed article directory at www.lefthandworld.com. His wife and son are also left-handed and he has run numerous surveys among the more than 50,000 members of their Left-Handers Club. He also runs specialist websites for left handers at www.lefthandedchildren.org and www.lefthandersday.com

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