The defender avoids a stick attack and strikes the attacker with a claw grip to the throat.

Sure Bernhard Langer was a champion for a while and Chris DiMarco's claw grip ran Tiger close in the Masters.

But after taking a lesson on the claw grip from the Tour pro Skip Kendall, DiMarco's confidence soared, and more players have begun to try it.

I changed to the claw grip in the middle of last year, and I can putt again.

Sluman, who is eight-under-par 136 after shooting a 71 in the second round, uses a claw grip designed to keep his right hand from overpowering his left hand when he putts.

In using a claw grip, a player usually turns his right hand upside-down to stabilize the stroke.

Woods's best friend, Mark O'Meara, uses a variation of the claw grip called the saw grip.

Andrade, in his third tournament using the claw grip, said: "Sluman copied me.

Kendall does not use the claw grip himself, a grip in which DiMarco separates his hands the way one holds a long putter.

Each time, before the train had stopped, the crane was already swinging, another length of steel balanced in its claw grip.