A Couple of Grip questions

Hello everyone. I had a couple of questions concerning my grip. I have been stuggling with a cupped left wrist at impact lately and recently have tried moving my right hand more on top of the club. The result is that I find it easier to get my right elbow into my right side on the downswing and make better contact. Does this make sense at all? The V between the thumb and index point more toward the left of my chin at address.

The second question deals with the left hand grip. All of the pictures I see show the left index finger and the thumb are tight together. When I look at my grip there is a gap. How important is it to keep the left thumb close to the base of the left index finger together?

Thanks in advance for all of the help.

if the grip in the rear hand is too strong it will help to encourage a flat backswing, whcih will encourage taking the elbow behind your, getting it stuck, and coming over the top on the down swing, which will encourage a flip into impact. ALso, the right hand being that way will make it harder to set the hands correctly. So yes a better grip does make sense to fix those issues. However if you are right handed and have it pointing at left ear, I would tend to think that is a little too weak. Hogan had a weak right hand grip and it pointed about at his nose.

On the gap or no gap, you said it yourself that all the pictures you see etc........
you answered your own question on that one. The right hand fits onto the left hand thumb and its positon is critical to the right hand grip

Hi bill.
If you are setting up with anything other than a neutral grip then you are automatically having to make compensations for this during your swing to make sure that your cublface is square at impact . you may find that you have some success with this for a while , but eventually your swing will fall apart.
your set up is the basis for a solid swing and if you find that you have to alter your grip at set up, then there is a fault with your swing , and this must be addressed.
sorry to Shootin if i have repeated anything you have suggested, we replied at the same time
cheers
aft

__________________
the dog wags the tail....the tail dosn't wag the dog

Thanks for the quick replies. Shootin, I think you hit it head on when you said that too strong of a right hand grip will put the elbow too far behind the body and get it stuck on the way down. I haven't been coming over the top, I just get the right elbow stuck behind the right hip at impact. It seems that the right hand more on the top of the club for me at least keeps the elbows closer together at the top and throughout the swing.

I asked these questions because I want to see if I am fixing a poor grip to begin with, and not just compensating for another fault with my grip. It sounds like I may be making a better grip here based on your reply. I should mention that at address I always try to show only two knuckles on the left hand. Thanks again.

no worries mate

Hi Bill

You said that your original problem was a cupped left wrist at impact, I guess this was creating a closed clubface and promoting hooks?

Making adjustments with the strength of your grip will open or close the face thus offsetting the original problem but it does not fix the original problem.

I would suggest that your problem is probably bowing your wrist upwards in the backswing, check it at the top of the backswing and see if it is bent upwards, if so then this will be the problem, work on keeping it flat. A simple aid is to place something like a comb through your watch strap so that it lies flat on your wrist, you will feel a tension if you start bending your wrist.

Hope this helps
Brian

Im probably in a minority here but I believe most amateurs would benefit from a strong grip. If you can learn to hook the ball with a strong grip you are halfway towards learning how to hit a nice draw if you straighten out your swing path going back. A strong grip also encourages a natural forearm release through impact

Most high handicappers I play with ALL have weak grips and slice the long clubs. They then subconciously understand they have to square the clubface somehow to stop the ball going right so they come OTT and try and swing hard left

This is all very individual though. Some people will have more conscious forearm rotation through the ball and so a weak/neutral would be better for them. I play with a guy who hooks and he has a very strong grip and a very handsy release. He's trying hard to work on what I did a few years back - less hand action through impact and more of a body turn through the ball, relying on the strong grip to rotate the foreaems and release the hands i.e.

http://www.golfdigest.com/instructio...davenport.html

But as I know, learning to trust your grip and get your hands out of it is real difficult. I'm now experimenting with more arm speed through impact (even though my grip is still strong) which is giving me a nice draw and a slightly weaker grip for cuts/fades

Hi Pnearn,

I have mixed views on changing your grip. Ideally you should have a neutral grip, this is where the hands, arms and wrists lie naturally, strengthening your grip to me is a way of counteracting a flaw in your swing (a "Frig")

In the case of this thread he seems to be looking to strengthen his grip to get over a flaw in his wrist position, I would suggest that the best thing to do is fix the original problem, not counteract it.

But! I guess strengthening or weakening a grip it is an easy fix for an open or closed clubface at impact. What these high handicappers need to learn is the correct release of the wrists and forearms through impact though.

Best Regards
Brian

Good points Brian. A lot of teachning this days favours a strong grip since it used by most of the leading players today (Tiger, Vijay etc). My pro certainly encourages it

My own view is that if you have a strong grip the left forearm will rotate naturally through the ball at impact and you can learn to draw. Given you 'trust' that the hands and arms will release naturally you can then work on the right swing path (i.e in to square to in) without having to manipulate the clubhead through impact. And once you learn all that you then work on building up speed

The major breaktrhough I had in the game was learning to let the release happen naturally - taking the hands out of it

But as you say everyone is different !

Thanks for all the help and replies on this issue. I really want to stress that I am not trying to change my grip to compensate for a swing error. I am trying to make sure that I have a sound grip to begin with and take it from there.

I have decided to start back with the fundamentals and the grip is the firts place to start. When I started looking at pictures online I saw that most people had their left thumb tight to their left index finger when on the club, I on the other hand had a gap. I find that when I close this gap, and with a neutral grip I seem to be able to get my hands in a better position at impact, and especially drop the right shoulder a bit more and not get the right elbow stuck. This is what I have mainly been struggling with, getting that right elbow behind my right hip and flipping the hands to get to the ball.

Any of this make sense? thanks again.

Brian,
the grip he described in his opening post sounded like it needed to be changed, fixing that is not a band aid, it is essential especially concerning the release. the root of so many swing flaws start at set up. Also, in the first post he had an extremelly strong right hand so he is not strengthening it but rather weakening it. His right hand position would have made it very difficult to fix his impact position, by coming more on top it will make it easier to fix some of these things. He seems to be on the right path by chaning the grip
but then again that is my .interpertation of what he describes
neil

Hi shootin, thanks for the reply. You definetely understand where I am coming from with this. I am probably like most people, a trial and error golfer. I've been playing for 3 years and have a 11 handicap that I know will go lower once I get my fundamentals back in order. I spent so much time working on downswing movements and backswing positions that I lost track of the basics, setup and grip. I don't count the time spent on the movements as lost time, I think I learned a lot from that. I'll keep at it and hopefully be able to contribute around here more I see you do so much. Thanks again, I'll keep you posted with how it goes.
Regards,
Bill

good luck with it bill
neil

aftford mentions a good point I have heard mentioned before. If you have a bad grip or at least a grip that doesn't quite follow the basic rules, you have to have an unconventional swing to make up for the grip. Conversely a perfect grip with a bad swing brings similar inconsistencies. Grip is probably one of the things that I have considered least in my swing. I have had two series of five lessons from the same pro and not once has he mentioned my grip. The link below gives an excellent explantion of how to grip the club. Among the things I've noted is that I do not nearly grip the club with the fingers as much as is sugggested nor have I considered how the grip lies on the fingers as shown in the illustrations. The second link has good pictures of a neutral, weak and strong grip.

So I figure, since my striking the ball has not been consistent enough to improve my scores, it would not hurt me to pay more attention to the grip. It may change the way I have to swing but it cannot be a bad thing at this point. I mean if I had a "bad grip" but had grooved my swing to it in such a way that I struck the ball consistenly and scored well, I might not mess with it. But that is not the case. I would appreciate more opinions on the grip.

http://golf.about.com/od/golftips/ss/golfgrip_lead.htm

http://www.pga.com/improve/tips/setu...ajar100504.cfm

By the way, on that first link follow the links under the heading "The Lead Hand (Top Hand) Grip" to see the illustrations. After you finish those illustrations look under the heading "Related Articles" to get the "Trailing" or "Bottom" Hand illustrations.

Hi Jambalaya,

I posted a discussion item detailing my view on the grip recently. have a look I and see if it may help you?

http://www.golf-tuition-online.com/g...view-grip.html (A view on the Grip)