The grip is the foundation of your golf swing and affects the distance as well as the direction of your shot. A poor grip can cause improper actions in your swing as you to try to compensate. You should choose the one that produces the best results from a few recommended grips.
Ten-finger Grip
This is the basic grip that most beginners use. The thumb of your top hand (left hand if you are right-handed) extends along the shaft under the palm of your bottom hand. Unfortunately, this grip usually causes you to hold the club with the palms of your hands instead of your fingers, and each hand tends to move independently. Also, maintaining a secure hold may require enough tension that your hands and wrists can't move freely during the swing.
Overlapping (Vardon)
A better grip is the overlapping, or Vardon, grip with the little finger of your bottom hand covering the forefinger of your top hand on the underside of the club. This is the grip that most golfers use. It allows your hands to work together throughout the swing for more club head speed and encourages you to grip with your fingers rather than your palm, which provides better control.
Interlocking
A slight modification of the Vardon grip is the interlocking grip. Instead of the little finger of the bottom hand overlapping the index finger of the top hand, the two fingers interlock. This grip further increases the unification of the hands, and some golfers with smaller hands prefer it.
Reverse Overlap
Another modified version of the Vardon grip is the reverse overlap grip in which the forefinger of the top hand sits on top of the little finger of the bottom hand, instead of the other way around. This variation puts all the fingers of your bottom hand on the club and encourages it to be more active in the swing.
Weak vs. Strong
With any grip, there can be some variation in the position of the hands clockwise or counterclockwise, known as strengthening or weakening the grip. At the neutral position, you should see two knuckles of the top hand at address. With fewer knuckles showing, the grip is weaker, and with more knuckles showing, it is stronger. A strong grip promotes more hand rotation at contact and encourages a hook while a weaker grip inhibits hand action, which can induce a slice.
Putting
For putting, you can use any of the grips described above or one of the additional grips that are unique to putting. The claw grip has the lower hand turned upside down and grasping the club like a claw; with the cross-handed grip, the hands are reversed on the club (left-handed grip for a right-handed stroke); and the split-hands grip moves the hands several inches apart. The objective of these unorthodox grips is to stabilize your hands for a repeatable putting stroke.
References
- The Washington Post Online: Golf: Tips and Tricks (April 15, 2005)
- "The New Golf"; P. A. Vaile; 1916.
- "Total Shotmaking"; Fred Couples; 1994
- "Golf Digest"; Try My No-slice Grip; Steve Jones; June 1997.
- Golf Tips A2Z: Golf Swing Grip Tips
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