PGA teachers and tournament players line up in dutiful respect to extol the importance of the grip as a Gibraltar-sized, rock-solid PRINCIPLE around which to build a golf swing. Grip does make a difference! Golf begins with a GOOD GRIP!
What is a good grip? It is the one which lets the player hit the most good shots! More specifically, it maximizes the number of shots that meet the criteria for distance and direction. Since solving the problem of distance and direction is golf’s ultimate and absolute challenge, then whatever combination of PREFERENCES a player utilizes to accomplish that objective, becomes a “good grip”.
General conclusion on the Grip:
1. When the club is placed in the hands of a beginner, he/she invariably holds it in a position which will either fail to consistently return the face to square, or will not provide for the greatest clubhead speed. Therefore, the grip must be LEARNED!
2. If a golfer learns the grip incorrectly from the beginning, he/she can always change his/her grip, but it will take longer than he/she realized for it to feel natural. In addition, he/she can expect that during stressful situations, he/she will instinctively want to return to the former grip. Whatever discomfort or repetitive practice one must experience in achieving a proper grip, it is worth the effort.
3. The palms of the hands for most players should basically face each other or be turned slightly inward because that is the way most arms hang, but there are exceptions. When the palms are not aligned close to, or in, a parallel fashion, “they work against each other”.
4. Grip pressure should be light enough to encourage clubhead speed without losing directional control; it should be firm enough to keep the club from turning in the hands on contact, yet not so firm that it destroys feel or speed.
5. The placement of the hands should facilitate their working together as one unit, with no slippage or repositioning.
6. Ultimately, the player should become comfortable with his/her grip and confident about the position of the clubface during the swing.
7. The grip in the left hand should be one where the last three fingers of the left hand capture the club handle against “the butt portion” of the palm, the grip in the right hand cradles the club handle more in the fingers.
PLACEMENT
Placement is the location of the hands on the grip in a vertical axis. The choice of grip placement will be affected by the size of the player’s hands, their strength and suppleness. For example, the Vardon overlapping grip has been passed down from one of the game’s early great players, Harry Vardon, a man with large fingers and strong hands. The interlocking grip is unquestionably useful for some players. However, be certain that the locking of the right little finger and left index finger do not get so deep as to force the right hand grip on the club into the palm rather than the fingers. This would tend to limit wrist joint mobility.
The ten finger grip, sometimes called a “baseball grip”, is natural for most new players. They seek to cover more of the grip surface in an effort to use the right hand and exert pressure against the shaft so as to square the face and provide power. Obviously one gets more right hand leverage in a ten finger grip, since more of the grip surface on the lower portion of the shaft is covered. That’s why this grip is often recommended to young golfers and to ladies whose smaller hands occupy less area on the grip. These are the players who can not generate sufficient speed through centrifugal force using their large muscles. But additional emphasis on the right hand by putting more of it on the grip could be a disadvantage if the player still hasn’t trained his/her left side to be an equal partner in the swing. The tendency to put early leverage pressure on the shaft by the right hand when using a ten finger grip is why it is generally recommended only for those groups previously mentioned. The is why it is important to understand the relative advantages and disadvantages of the three grips: overlapping, interlocking and ten finger. Golf is neither a right sided nor left sided game. Golf is a two sided (bi-lateral) game. What we strive for is the correct balance of each side, left and right, to produce a swing that is timed properly and produces maximum power. But we do know that is timed properly and produces maximum power. But we do know that the left side is the leader (if you are right handed); IT MUST ARRIVE FIRST!
POSITIONING
Positioning in the grip is the amount of rotation of the hands clockwise or counterclockwise, generally referred to as “strong” or “weak”. The positioning is dependent upon the size and strength of the players hands. Traditionally, a strong grip is one in which the hands are rotated clockwise on the shaft so the left hand shows more knuckles (three or four) and the right hand will have the V pointing to the right shoulder, or even farther to the right. In this text this grip positioning will be called a “closed face grip”, a grip position that encourages a hook. A physically gifted player may move his/her grip counterclockwise into a “weaker” position. He/she shows fewer knuckles of the left hand, so the back of the left hand faces the target more squarely. If the pupil sees fewer than two knuckles we’ll refer to that position as an “open face grip”.
PRESSURE
Pressure is not difficult to describe, it’s simply how hard one is squeezing the club. It is extremely difficult, however, to explain the proper amount of grip pressure and to communicate that feel verbally. Because of the importance of achieving the correct feel, it’s good practice for a student when working on a grip change to do so in the presence of a professional instructor who can see and hear the swing to determine whether the correct pressure is being applied. You are exerting the right amount of pressure if the weight of the clubhead can actually be sensed as though it were a rock on the end of a rope that is about to be swung. Or imagine the grip portion of the club is a tube of toothpaste. Don’t squeeze so hard as to squirt the paste all over the bathroom, but do apply enough pressure to let it come out gradually and evenly.
PRECISION
The last of the four points under discussion is simple, yet critically important. It deals with PRECISION; it’s an either or situatuion. That is, either one grips the club in a precise fashion (the same way each time), or is careless about the grip so that it is seldom the same. Altering the rotational positioning of the hands a half inch in either direction from one swing to the next can result in a tee shot that travels 30 to 40 yards of line. Subtle changes in a grip can be the difference between driving the ball in the fairway or into the water, hitting the green or the bunker, making the putt or lipping it out. Golf is a game of consistency. The foundation for consistency is a repeating swing that must start with a repeating grip. Hogan, in further commenting on the subject said, “In golf there are certain things you must do quite precisely, where being half right accomplishes nothing. This certainly applies to grip.”