Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "I Wish Someone Had Told Me THIS About My Grip | Crazy Detail"

And there’s a specific piece of advice about the lead hand and your grip in the golf swing…

…that might be the best advice you’ve ever heard…

…or, it might be causing you all sorts of problems in your golf swing.

Today, I’ll show you what to consider when gripping your club…

…and how to adjust it, so you can hit more accurate shots.

Plus, I’ll show you why the way you grip the club might be preventing you from creating lag (revealed around the 14:25 mark)!

 

 

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 18:09

Video Transcription:

Clay: All right. So we've all heard different things about the grip and specifically about the left hand. You may have heard that the back of your left hand is the club face. And if you want to hit a straight shot, you need to keep the back of that left hand matching where the club face is going to be. So toward the target, keep it toward the target as you come through there.

If you want to play a draw, it's going to release on over. If you want to play a fade, it's going to hold on And I want to talk about in this video, uh, differing ways that you do the grip. Could make that the best advice that you've ever heard or could make that completely wrong. I'm also going to talk about a test that you can run to figure out which type of grip is the best for you based on your own anatomy.

And different people are different. PGA Tour players have won major championships with wildly different grips. Here's how you pick which is the correct one for you. So first let's start off with the general idea that the back of the left hand is where the club face is pointing. Well, this came from the idea that I'm going to match up the logo of my glove with the leading edge of the club face.

And if I'm taking a grip like this, that would actually be from coaching standards. a very weak grip. Now, a weak grip means that the grip is turned more to the left like that. A strong grip means that the grip is turned more to the right. So basically, if you can imagine, I have a perfectly straight up and down square club face.

If I grip the club with my left hand, where I can see three or four knuckles and the logo of my glove is facing more out toward the camera, then that's a very strong grip. The same would be true for the right hand. The more the right hand goes under. That would be a strong grip. So this would be an incredibly strong grip.

Think of like a, a Paul Azinger. Now an incredibly, uh, or a Matt Fitzpatrick would be a new player that does this. Now there's lots of players, tons of players, Dustin Johnson, um, uh, Roy McIlroy, to some degree, even definitely Sergio Garcia, who have these grips that are turned more to the right or stronger type grips, there's also players that have weaker type grips.

your Tiger Woods, uh, your Colin Morikawa's, your Ben Hogan's. That would be when the grip is over here to the left. Now, if I take a grip, excuse me, getting over a cough here. Uh, if I take a grip where my logo of my glove and the leading edge, so the bottom groove of the club here are in the direction. So meaning this is flat pointing up toward the sky.

This is flat pointing up toward the sky. That would be a pretty daggone weak grip, but now the logo of my glove and my club face would match in the same direction. Now, a lot of people would say, hey, this is the only way to go. I'm going to eliminate all the other variables. If I know this is pointing toward my target, then that's where the ball is going to go.

Let's make it as simple as possible. Well, it's not quite that simple. And this is actually a very difficult grip for a lot of players to have. Because of what we need to do with the club to be a good golfer. So if you're going to hit good golf shots, you have to have lag. If you basically take every single PGA Tour player that's ever played, when their hands are in front of their right leg in the downswing, this club is still going to be angled back or parallel.

The club shaft's going to be parallel with the ground. Now, the club face itself won't be straight up and down there. The club face will actually be turned down slightly. And when I get to impact, When I hit this ball, my hands are going to be in front of the golf ball. My club head is going to be lagging behind through impact.

Now, if I have this weaker grip where the club face matches the left back of the logo of the glove, Excuse me, again. Then, as I lean these hands forward, if I keep this wrist flat, the club face is going to be open and my wrist is going to be flat. That's going to be a shot that goes way to the right. So what I have to do to square up the clubface, is I have to turn the logo of my glove toward the target, and it gives me a bow in my left wrist.

So the forearm to left wrist have a very bowing type feeling. So this would be bowing the left wrist, or what would be called flexion. This would be extending the left wrist, or what would be called a scoop, or a cup, or a cast, would be these knuckles going back. So, all I'm saying there is, if I have my logo of my glove matching the club face, and I want to have a good golf swing, I've got to really bow this wrist a lot as I'm coming through impact.

That's why you see guys like Colin Morikawa, that when he's coming into the downswing, if I look at him when he's here, if I get rid of the right arm, you'll see this huge bow in the left wrist. When he comes through impact, when you're looking from face on, it's almost like his hand is like off the club.

His wrist is so bowed in that direction. Now this may not be right for you. I've got a simple test for this. Simply take a fist, like this, with a decent amount of pressure, like you're going to punch something. It doesn't have to be like a death grip, but pretty firm. I'm going to bow my wrist. How far can I bow it until it gets uncomfortable?

For me, that's about all I can go before it starts to feel tight in the back of the forearm. And then also, for me, it doesn't feel as powerful. So if you said, Hey, how are you going to hit this golf ball? If I said, Hey, I have to come like this and really bow this wrist for whatever reason, that just doesn't feel quite as good to me.

Now the other end of the spectrum would be a stronger grip, as I mentioned. And again, we still have to get the club lagging behind hands in front of the right leg club shaft parallel to the ground. We still have to get the hands in ahead of the club head through contact, which every single great player is going to do.

But if I take the grip and I turn it from the left hand, um, more toward the target, I'd have to be bowed. If I turn that grip a little bit more to the right, or stronger, So let's go ahead and get to the impact position here. Let's turn my grip a little bit stronger. Now my left wrist doesn't have to be bowed at all.

And the clubface is square. So here's another way of visualizing that. Let's take a clubface alignment stick. And it's going to show where this clubface is pointing. Now... Now, if I go ahead and I keep my logo of my grip and the clubface pointing the same direction, logo up, clubface up, then, like I said, if I keep this wrist flat and I lean the hands forward, so flat left wrist, hands leaning in front, the clubface is pointing way to the right.

I then have to rotate it until this clubface is square, which would look like this, and my wrist is bowed. So that's what you have to do if you're taking a weaker grip. Now here's another way of doing that. Let's go ahead and lean the club forward. Get it into correct impact position. Let's get our body a little bit opened up.

Let's take that grip with that weaker grip that's bowed. It'd look like that. And let's gradually start to turn it more to the right until it feels comfortable to you. You may feel like this is good. I like a lot of bow. Completely fine. You and Colin Morikawa will go on to play some fantastic golf with that bowed wrist.

But it better bow if you're going to use that weaker grip. You may feel like this is terrible. No way you can play golf from here. You maybe can't do the wrist flex test all the way without having some pain. I'm going to turn a little bit more to the right, a little bit more to the right until it feels comfortable.

Well now my wrist is flat, my club face is square, I still have shaft lane. If I was to go ahead and set that grip, uh, straight up and down, You can see how this would be a stronger grip or more turned to the right. So, long story short, that's all you have to do to find your perfect grip. Get a little bit of shaft lean.

Open your body like you're going to hit a shot. So your left arm is kind of across your chest like this. And then just simply get comfortable with that left hand grip. Do the same thing with the right hand grip. Just let it fold onto the club until it feels comfortable for you. That's about where I feel good, and that's about where my normal grip is.

Now one thing that's a little misleading too, let's say I take a really strong grip. This looks like a crazy grip. Very, very strong with my hands to the right. But my club shaft is straight up and down. Watch what happens when I lean it forward a little bit. It doesn't really look all that strong now. It looks like a lot of pro players that you're having.

So if your grip looks a little weird on camera, sometimes all you gotta do is lean the club a little bit forward like it would be at impact. And now all of a sudden, it looks a little bit more normal, like the pros would have it. So, find your perfect grip by doing the test I just laid out. Once it feels comfortable to you, and then we're going to hit some shots, and you can even fine tune this grip a little bit, based on your ball flight.

Alright, so I'm going to go ahead, get in my good impact position, I get my comfortable grip, and then from here, I'm going to feel like I go ahead and hit a dead straight shot. May not go straight, let's see what happens.

There we go. Really, really straight, had a tiny bit of draw on it. That's about all I could ask for there. So if you look at this tracer on the bottom, the black tracer on the ground, you can see it's just a tiny bit of a draw, landed almost right at the target. That's the kind of shot that I like to play.

So for me, I've already practiced this enough, I know my correct grip gives me the correct ball flight. Now let's say, for example, I took the grip that felt comfortable, And when I made my first swing, I went ahead and hit one and it looked a little bit more like that. Made a little easy swing, but it started to go to the right and then fade a little bit more.

Let's actually get one to go even a little bit more fade. So I'll exaggerate here a little bit. So I got my grip that felt comfortable and then I get these weak shots off to the right like that. Well, it's much easier to get the ball to draw the stronger or the more to the right your grip gets turned.

And like I said. Sergio Garcia is a pretty good ball striker. Um, you know, Dustin Johnson, pretty good ball striker. Matt Fitzpatrick, pretty good ball striker. These guys have pretty daggone strong grips. It's okay. Sometimes you just need somebody to tell you. You can play world class. You can win a major championship with your grip way over to the right.

I'm giving you my blessing right now. You can turn your grip as strong as you want it to. If it feels better and it gets a better shot, it's completely fine. There's nothing wrong with having a strong grip. If you like to have a weak grip and it feels fantastic and it gets you a great ball flight and you feel like you don't get the hooks, maybe if you have a weaker grip, it's completely fine.

Use whatever grip you want to. It doesn't matter everybody across all kinds of things, except for the few things I'm gonna show you here in a minute. But everybody has used weak and strong grips, all kinds of different players to win major championships. So, unless you're wanting to be drastically better than anybody that's ever played golf, it's completely fine.

Turn your grip wherever you want to that feels comfortable to you. So if I have that one that leaks off to the right, I'm going to turn my hand, I'm going to get the impact position like I did before, and I'm going to turn my hand even a little more to the right. So this way. So I almost have my logo facing out that way.

That would be a pretty daggone strong grip. I'm going to turn my right hand a little more under. And when you turn the right hand more under, and you turn this left hand more on top, one of the things it does too, is it gets you a little more close with your body, gets you a little more from the inside, it makes it easier to swing from the inside and hit a bit of a draw.

So I'm going to exaggerate there, go a little bit more this way, and now all of a sudden I'm going to feel like I'm more from the inside and releasing that club, letting it turn on over, and it should help to straighten out that ball flight. There we go. And for me, that's a little too strong. And we're going to see this ball flight overdraw that way.

Now if you have the opposite problem, and you're more like a Colin Markawi, you're more like a Ben Hogan, and you struggle with the snap hooks, Ben Hogan struggled, struggled snap hooking every shot, and he developed a grip that was an anti hook grip, which is a very weak grip, or logo of the glove matching the club face.

If you tend to snap hook it, and you hit shots, so let's say you get to the impact position. You get your grip that feels comfortable, and then you go ahead and hit one, and it's a snap hook, like that. You don't want to do that anymore. Simply go back there again, turn your hands the opposite, more under the grip, this way, a little more bow in your wrist.

Turn the right hand a little bit more on top, and let me tell you, you keep turning it that way, you will not be able to snap hook a shot. So that's what it's all about. Find the grip that works for your swing. Because it's going to match everything else you're doing with your body to get the desired shot shape.

That's what the best players in the world are doing. Most of the best players in the world came with a grip that they liked because it gave them the desired ball flight that they wanted. That's why you end up with strong grips and weak grips. Ben Hogan snap hooked balls for 7, 8, 10 years on the mini tours trying to play professional golf.

And then eventually changed his grip, changed his swing to straighten that out. I just don't want it to take 10 years for you. Let me give you what Ben Hogan did right now here today. You don't have to worry about all that other stuff. Find the one that works for you. Same thing with, uh, you know, maybe a Matt Fitzpatrick who has a really strong grip.

He just tried that out. It felt good. It got the desired ball flight and it worked easier for him. So those two swings are very different styles of swings. but you can find a grip that matches it. Now here's a couple of things that you don't want to do because every great player has done these things. So you don't want to have a grip that goes up in the palm, meaning that if I grip down here on the shaft like this, that it would be riding up my forearm.

I want a grip that's going to be at an angle

to my hand down here, the bottom of my pad, The grip is going to be under that. So if I have a really weak grip, meaning my hand is turned more under, logo of the glove matching the club face, there's my weaker grip. If I open it up, there's an angle between my forearm and this club. So even if I turn it all the way down, there's going to be a little bit of an angle like that.

This is because I want to be able to hinge this club. And that's how I'm going to be able to get lag in the downswing, compress the golf ball at impact. and get a lot of club head speed is by letting those wrists hinge like that. If I have a really strong grip and I go the opposite, same thing. When I look at this, it's under that pad.

It's more in the fingers that way. And I can, I'm going to be here. I don't ever want to get the grip to where it's in line with the forearm. Maybe like I would when I'm putting like this from the downline camera angle. I don't want it to be like that, or there's just no power there. Let that sit down.

Take your grip where it's across your fingers in the fingers mostly. Strong or weak, any one of those is fine. Another thing. No matter if you have a strong grip or a weak grip, I want to be tucked in with this right elbow. So a lot of players, they have a tough time squaring the club face up with a weaker right hand grip.

So if I get my right hand grip more on top like this, again, that's okay if that feels good to you and you're getting a fantastic ball flight. You're getting lag, you're getting shaft lean. But if you struggle to square the clubface up, most people are going to feel better with the right hand a little bit more under.

Because I have to get this elbow, this right elbow, tucked under my left elbow in the downswing. So when I'm looking from down the line, I've got to tuck this elbow under. That's very hard to do sometimes when people have their grip more on top like that. They want to get this elbow above it. So feel like you tuck the elbow under.

That tends to open up the hand for most people more under the grip like this. And then re grip it. That's going to feel a lot better for most players. Again, that one feels really good to me. Drew right back on the target. That's the way I like to play golf there. So, find your perfect grip, strong and weak.

Make sure that you get it in the fingers or you're really going to struggle. And then find that way to get the right elbow under because every great player is going to be doing that too. with the grip that feels the best for you. Most players, I'll go ahead and tell you right now, the right hand being more under feels better.

Not unless you're way shallow, already super shallow from the inside, which I can tell you, very few people are. Are you going to want to go with that weaker, more on top right hand? Now, there is one more thing that I should mention here. If your club starts down steep at the start of transition, So the club shaft is more vertical like this, rather than shallow it out and from the inside, like what you're seeing with all the top pros.

It's going to be impossible to play good golf, no matter what your grip is. So the grip can make it easier to hit it straight. But if you do this drill and you feel like, ah, I hit some good ones, but then some blocked out to the right and some hooked to the left, you're most likely coming in on too steep of a plane.

And then you're having to reroute it by standing up out of your posture, flipping your hands, doing all kinds of other compensations that I don't want you to have to do anymore. Let's get you shallowed out like every great player on the planet so that golf can be a whole heck of a lot easier. Now, if you're a member of Top Speed Golf, all you need to do is click the instruction tab and then the 20 minute shallowing fix.

In a single bucket of balls, I will promise you, you will shallow the club out on every single swing and you'll hit some of the most solid shots of your life. And again, in just a single bucket of range balls. So that's a pretty bold promise, but I've had thousands of players do that and I don't want you to miss out on it.

If you haven't done the 20 minute shallow fix. Go over there right now. Let's pair that up with your natural grip and when you put those two things together, it's going to be a whole heck of a lot easier. I even lead you through a couple more progressions to not only find your natural grip in the 20 minute shallowing fix, also to show you how to find your natural elbow position, which make things way easier because it's going to put your entire body in a position that feels powerful and really, really shallow.

So if you haven't done that, go over there right now. I can't wait to share it with you. Let's go and get started. Thanks