Improve Your Golf Grip: The Basics

Improve Your Golf Grip: The Basics

The 3 Primary Grips

When looking to improve your golf grip, you must first understand the fundamentals. There are 3 primary grips you could use.

Interlock: The pinky finger on the right hand will lock between the index and middle fingers of the left hand.

Overlap: The pinky finger on the right hand will sit on top of and between the index and middle finger on the left hand.

Baseball: All four fingers on the left/lead hand will grip the butt end of the club with the thumb sitting on top of the grip. This grip is good for little kids, as it’s easy to teach and the natural way they will grip the club.

Principles of a Neutral Grip

Next, you must understand the principles of a neutral grip. For your lead hand, you should aim to grip the butt end of the club in your last three fingers. Firm enough that someone wouldn’t be able to pull the club out of your hand, but not so tight that you feel any tension in your forearm.

Watch out: Gripping in the palm of your hand as opposed to the fingers creates instability and incorrect grip pressures.

Pay attention to where the ‘V’ created between the index finger and thumb points. The aim here is to point the ‘V’ between your left shoulder and collar bone.

For your trail hand, your grip pressure should be softer than the lead hand to avoid it taking over through impact. Maintain control in the lead side through correct grip pressure. The ‘V’ in the right index finger and thumb should point between the right collarbone and shoulder. The index finger and thumb should pinch together to create a ‘hook’ around the bottom of the grip.

Strong vs Weak Grip

Finally, you must learn how to measure the strength of your grip. A grip that’s too strong or too weak will impact your shot in different ways. In a strong grip you’ll see too much or all the back of your lead hand, if the right hand is too far underneath the grip at setup. This will enhance club face rotation through the impact zone. The result is often a shot curving too much from right to left (draw) for a right hander. Generally, a draw means more distance. But what you pick up in distance you lose in control on your approach shots into the green. The ball will tend to roll more making it often difficult to stop.

A weak grip is where the left hand gets too far around or under the grip and you fail to see any knuckles at all. The right hand will be too far over the top of the grip, exposing the knuckles when set up over the ball. This causes an inability to release the clubhead through impact. The result is a left to right (fade) ball flight. Although a fade will stop faster when it lands, as opposed to a draw, it will typically lose distance through the air.

Follow these steps to improve your golf grip!. You can also view my video on gripping the club for left handed players here.