How your left wrist (for right-handed golfers) controls the club face right off the ball is very important. What Scott Hamilton talks about in this video can not only creep into a pro’s swing, but it can cause the everyday golfer a lot of issues as the swing continues back.
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Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
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My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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Meiko
Dec 4, 2017 at 5:47 am
Hi, does this apply to driver, as well?
don
Dec 4, 2017 at 8:58 pm
No, it’s entirely different for the driver because of the longer shaft and bigger swing arc.
Dan Jones
Dec 1, 2017 at 9:53 pm
Good Tip, although a bit too simplistic. Most people can relate to the position of the wrist through kinesthetic feel, in other words, a tactile learning or feel. In reality it is actually the two forearm bones, the Ulna and Radius, that are turning the wrist into position, the wrist itself should move very little other than a slight tilting towards the palm side to extend fully and prepare for forces generated during the downswing, as a fully extended wrist needs less energy to maintain position.
One key that amateurs usually don’t understand. As humans we do everything with our hands and wrists, so we have very good awareness of them. But the hands and wrists are the biggest destroyers of good swings (I’m as guilty too, usually with short shots when I haven’t played in a while). Let the big muscles do all the work for you, the muscles in your hands and wrists are just powerful enough to destroy the rest of a good swing. Use them to hold the club and nothing else.
If you don’t believe, try this. Go to the range and put your arms in a static position. Without the use of your arms, see how far and how accurately you can hit a ball with just your hands. Remember, the arms have to feel locked in concrete when you try it, they absolutely cannot move.
Good Luck!
Dan Jones, PGA
SK
Dec 3, 2017 at 1:54 am
Scott Hamilton only explains the orientation of the clubface in the takeaway and to club approaching vertical on plane. The point he makes is the left lead wrist flex is maintained until the left arm is at horizontal and only then the left wrist flattens out. Nothing more.
There is good reason to maintain a flexed left wrist until then and it’s to control the change of leverages of the club handle.
Neil
Nov 29, 2017 at 2:10 pm
It’s a lie angle tool, not a “face aimer.”
Dan Jones
Dec 1, 2017 at 10:01 pm
Give us Pro’s a break every now and again. Hell, one day I forgot how to write my own name, was it i before e? Or e before i? I hadn’t wrote Daniel in so long I had to stop and think about it a minute. I’m sure he knows, but in the middle of recording the video, which he did a good job mind you, it can be a little stressful. Been there, done that!