The grip is the most important part of your golf game to have correct, as your hands are the only contact with the golf club you have. There positioning is very important in producing results. Professionals check their grips periodically, as they tend to change a little bit, day by day.
The Three Types of Grips
Baseball Grip or Ten Finger Grip: This grip is common for beginners, children and seniors. Players who have arthritis, joint pain or have small weak hands usually benefit from using this type of grip.
Interlocking Grip:
This grip is the most common style of grip, it is used by many of the top players throughout the world, including Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. Players with weak wrist and forarms, prefer this style of grip.
Over-lapping Grip:
This grip is also known as the Vardon Grip, as Harry Vardon made it popular around the turn of the 20th Century. This grip works best with better players, or players with larger hands.
Hand Positioning
1)To grip the club properly the grip should be in the fingers not in the palm of your hands. Having the grip in the palm of your hands reduces wrist movements through impact, often leaving the face open.
2)The left hand wraps around the the club, and the thumb points directly down the shaft.
3)The right hand fits on snugly below the left hand. The left thumb sits in the lifeline of the right palm, as the left thumb points down the shaft.
Grip Positioning
The strong, weak and neutral grip have nothing to do with grip pressure, it is the way the hands are positioned on the club!
Neutral Grip – This is the grip you want to emulate, it gives you the best starting position to hit straight shots. The club is positioned in my fingers, and not in my palms. The webbing between the thumb and index finger of both hands will make small V’s that will point to your right shoulder. The thumb of the left hand will be in the lifeline of the right palm. Grip pressure on a scale of 1-10, is a 5.
Finding The Neutral Grip
• Grip the club in your normal golf posture.
• Without changing the position of your hands, open them on the club so your palms are the only part of your hand touching the club.
• With your index fingers point in the direction your hands are aiming.
• If your index finger point at the clubhead, your grip is neutral, if it points to the left, you grip is weak, to the right, your grip is strong.
Strong Grip:
Notice how the hands are rotated under the club to the right, this is a very common grip for hockey players. This leads to many hooked shots, because as the hands come into impact, they will move to the most neutral position (see above), this results in the clubface closing and the ball going left. These type of players also tend to grip the club too tightly, which leads to less power.
Weak Grip:Notice how the hands are rotated on top of the club, or to the left of the neutral position. This leads to many sliced shots, because as the hands come into impact, they will move to the most neutral position (see above), this results in the clubface opening, and the ball going right.
Grip Pressure
On a scale of 1- 10, 1 being the loosest and 10 being the strongest, your grip pressure should around 4-6.
If you grip the club too loosely, you will lose control of the club throughout the swing.
If you grip the club too tightly, you will reduce wrist, hand and forearm movement, resulting in less distance.
Mental Image: Grip the club with as much pressure as you would when squeezing a tube of toothpaste.
My recommendations:
Putting: Use a looser grip, it helped to take away any extra movements in your putting stroke, and also reduces the ability for a player to ’steer’ their putts.
Short game: Normal grip pressure.
Long game & woods: Normal grip pressure.
Deep rough & buried lies in the sand: Grip the club tighly, as the grass and sand tends to grab the club and close it into impact.