Let's Go Diegeling

via xroads.virginia.edu

A couple days ago we pointed out the very wide putting stance of onetime LPGA star Ruth Jessen. Here's another odd putting stance, and it belongs to World Golf Hall of Famer Leo Diegel.

Diegel's stance was so well know in its time that it even became an adjective: "Diegeling." As in, "Hey, check out Stu's stance, he's Diegeling."

His World Golf Hall of Fame profile notes that Diegel - who won the 1928 and 1929 PGA Championships, and is credited with 30 tour victories total - had a knack for, well, choking. He may have been one of the first golfers to employ a psychologist. And one of the ways he tried to combat nerves was with that putting stance:

The biggest compensation Diegel made was his putting stance. Exasperated with missing short putts, Diegel in 1924 devised a stiff -wristed, bent over, elbows-out style that was so distinctive it became known as "Diegeling."

The odd angles of Diegel's posture provided an unending source of good-natured ribbing all his life, and even after: "How they gonna fit him in the box?" deadpanned Walter Hagen at Diegel's funeral.

I guess it worked, because his two majors came after he began "Diegeling."

Hmmm, wonder what would happen if you tried to combine Diegeling with Jessening? Quite possibly a hernia.