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The golf grip is your ONLY connection to the golf club, yet I see many golfers neglecting to practice it.
What if your swing isn't the problem?
What if instead, your club head is twisting mid-swing because your grip is not secure enough?
In today's issue of The Saturday Golfer, I'm going to be talking about 3 common mistakes that I see golfers make with their grips.
Golf Grip Mistake #1: Interlocking too tight
The interlock golf grip is a very common grip. Used by Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Rory Mcilroy, many more tour players, and yours truly, the interlock grip is a great choice.
That said, many golfers interlock too tightly.
Take a look at the photo below.
There is no space between the pinkie and index fingers. This may feel like the right thing to do, but in reality, you should be feeling the grip more in the fingers of the right hand rather than the palm of your right hand.
Here's the opposite problem:
The proper way to interlock looks like this:
A great way to learn how to feel this correctly is to practice holding the club with just your right hand (a drill from Hogan's 5 Fundamentals):
Golf Grip Mistake #2: Dominant hand too strong
The second problem I see with golfers is too strong of a dominant hand.
Golfers feel like if they put that right hand under the golf club, they won't slice the ball.
While this may help slightly, it promotes very poor habits in the swing as a compensation for this poor grip.
This is what we would call a "strong right hand grip":
The opposite mistake is too weak of a right hand grip. I don't see this very often with amateur golfers, but provides us a good contrasting view.
And to round things off, here is a neutral right hand grip, which is what I always recommend. While I'm generally okay with a strong left hand grip (just take a look at Dustin Johnson or Ryan Palmer), there is almost never a good reason for a strong right hand grip.
Here's where you should be:
Golf Grip Mistake #3: Not using a grip trainer
While a grip trainer is not going to give you a perfect grip, for the average golfer, it can help a TON.
Even to this day, I practice with this weighted grip trainer to make sure I'm holding the club correctly.
Important note: This grip trainer will teach you a perfectly neutral golf grip. Some golfers might prefer a slightly strong or weak grip, in which case, this grip trainer won't help too much. But for most golfers, I recommend training your grip to be as neutral as possible to avoid compensations in your golf swing.
Concluding thoughts
While there are plenty more mistakes golfers make with their grip, these are the most common ones I see. If you want to learn more or brush up on your grip fundamentals, check out my post on how to grip a golf club. In that post, I walk through everything you need to know about the golf grip including:
- Strong vs weak grips
- Power variations
- Long and short thumb positions
- Grip types