How to Properly Hold a Golf Club

Even the professionals can struggle with their grips from time to time. I was told the story a few days ago of a professional player who had been nowhere in competitions until a new coach convinced him to change his grip ever so slightly. Since then, he has started winning.

And why was I being told this story? Well, it was the exact same grip change as I had been coached into the previous week, with the same results.

I am assuming that you are reading this with at least a basic knowledge of a grip and have settled into one of the accepted grips. So, I will just look at tweaks that will allow you to improve the grip.

How to Properly Hold a Golf Club

And that should be the first clue - 'grip'. It is not 'hold on for dear life to the club', you grip the club. Grasp it with all your might if you must, but it will not help and will hinder.

There are two main aims of the grip. The first is, obviously, steady control of the club. The second is that it should allow you to correctly manipulate the club during the swing motion. If you are holding the club too tightly, your hand will not be able to rotate through the swing properly.

Next, the actual positioning of the club. For about 18 months I have practiced with a grip trainer to mold a nice 'two knuckle' grip (back to that in a minute!). This was my downfall. The change was to strengthen then left hand and use a three knuckle grip. Trying this with the swing trainer leaves the club head pointing in totally the wrong direction, but with a driver (and irons), the ball flies straight and true.

So what about these? Well, look at the V shape between your thumb and first finger on both hands. Where is this pointing to? As we are always told, they should both be pointing towards the right hand shoulder (left for left handed players).

Usually this will mean that when you look down at your left hand you should just be able to see the first two knuckles of that hand. Hence the two knuckle grip. But, if like me you have a tendency to slice the ball, it could be that you are not rotating the club fully in the downswing. There are motions to correct this whereby you rotate the right hand over the left as you pass the ball, but this is very subjective and sometimes you get it right, other times it goes badly wrong.

But by making your left hand stronger, you rotate your left hand over the top of the club slightly more so that you now see the first three knuckles. It feels horrible at first, but it can really help to square the club at impact and produce the shot you want.

Get it right, and it is wonderful. And holding the golf club properly is the start of a good round of golf.

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