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The Wedge Guy: More on learning – the grip

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I’m a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper grip and learn how to put your body in the starting position that promotes a sound golf swing. Today, I want to talk about the grip only.

As you can imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. One of the universal truths of golf is that it is very rare to see a good player with a bad grip! There are some, 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.

But if you want to make the swing easier to learn and repeat, a sound and fundamental hold on the club is mandatory. Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock, or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. A proper hold on the club allows it to function in the swing in a correct manner, and a bad grip will completely prevent improvement and consistency.

Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency.

Too tight

Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, and it tenses up everything. You must feel that the club is controlled in the last three fingers of the left (upper) hand, and the middle two fingers of the right (lower). If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself.  Hold the club in your left hand, 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.

Too much right hand on the club

Almost all golfers have the club too far into the palm of the right hand, probably because they are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not a hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club — so the proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. If you will slide the grip down into your fingers, so that you feel “weak” with the right hand, you will experience increased clubhead speed immediately.

The position of the grip in the left hand

I observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the pad of the left hand. 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 in each of the pictured positions. Make that simple little change and you’ll get the club square through impact much easier.

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 grip the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain old wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align together, and shows you how this feels. If you will grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.

So, those are the four fundamentals of a good grip that anyone can learn in their home or office very quickly. A good grip will help any golfer make an immediate improvement to his/her swing!

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Terry Koehler is a fourth generation Texan and a graduate of Texas A&M University. Over his 40-year career in the golf industry, he has created over 100 putter designs, sets of irons and drivers, and in 2014, he put together the team that reintroduced the Ben Hogan brand to the golf equipment industry. Since the early 2000s, Terry has been a prolific writer, sharing his knowledge as “The Wedge Guy”.   But his most compelling work is in the wedge category. Since he first patented his “Koehler Sole” in the early 1990s, he has been challenging “conventional wisdom” reflected in ‘tour design’ wedges. The performance of his wedge designs have stimulated other companies to move slightly more mass toward the top of the blade in their wedges, but none approach the dramatic design of his Edison Forged wedges, which have been robotically proven to significantly raise the bar for wedge performance. Terry serves as Chairman and Director of Innovation for Edison Golf – check it out at www.EdisonWedges.com.

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Pingback: The Wedge Guy: Size does matter (with your grips) – GolfWRX

  2. geohogan

    Sep 29, 2021 at 10:23 am

    No two winners of Major tournaments have or had identical grips.
    ie there is no fundamentally correct grip
    As long as there can be an efficient exchange of arcs in BS and DS
    the hold on the club is good.

  3. Robert Johansson

    Sep 28, 2021 at 7:33 am

    My grip fixes all golf issues you guys teach golfers.
    120 years now you been teaching bad grips

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQjoDX32Jqg&t=1s

  4. Jeff

    Sep 22, 2021 at 1:31 pm

    Get yourself a copy of John Jacob’s PRACTICAL GOLF. Goes into more detail than this article on the grip and the golf swing. A book the number one teacher in golf, Butch Harmon, recommends! A must read!!

  5. Tanner

    Sep 22, 2021 at 6:22 am

    Picture please: 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.

  6. Dana Horton

    Sep 10, 2021 at 10:00 am

    You mentioned ‘pictures’ in the paragraph on positioning the grip in the left hand. I do not see any pictures except the single one at the top. Is there another link?

    Separately, great insights, as always.

  7. Ac strong

    Sep 10, 2021 at 8:52 am

    Great article

  8. Greg V

    Sep 8, 2021 at 10:01 am

    IN the picture above, it looks to me as though the right hand thumb is too much on top of the club. In my experience, there is more of a gap between the right hand thumb and forefinger, and the thumb is more on the left hand side of the club.

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Instruction

Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?

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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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The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic

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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.

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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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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