The way you hold the club might be costing you a lot of distance
There is never a bad time to review how you hold the club. This might be one of the toughest adjustments to work on but necessary if you’re making this common mistake with your grip.
Take a look at this golf glove that I’ve drawn some lines on to illustrate the problem [below image]. Many golfers hold the club with the handle mostly in the palm of their gloved hand, across the red lines. When you hold the club predominantly in your palm, you can’t release it properly in the downswing. Not only does that make it much harder to square the clubface at impact, it also restricts your ability to give the shot some ‘pop’ because you don’t have enough energy to release at the bottom of the swing.
A telltale sign that you’re gripping the club too much in the palm is the condition of your golf glove. If it’s frayed or worn in the pad below your pinky finger, or if you tend to tear them in that spot, you need to adjust how you’re holding your clubs.
Although this might feel really strange, perhaps even weak, you should grip the club more across the fingers of your gloved hand – see the black lines [featured image]. This position gives you much more freedom to hinge, unhinge and rehinge the club as you swing back and through. Your hands and wrists are able to act like a lever, and the more levers you have in your swing, the more power you can generate for your shots.
David Leadbetter is one Golf Digest’s Legends of Golf Instruction
Photos: J.D. Cuban
