“That’s everything,” Sam Snead said, when Jim McLean asked him, “How important do you feel the grip is in the golf swing?” So many problems are caused by a bad grip, and so many are solved by a good one.
Here is one aspect of a good grip that you don’t read about too much, but is nonetheless a vital feature.
In Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons, he said the the V in the left hand should point to the right eye, and the V in the right hand should point to the chin. That’s a pretty weak grip, which most recreational golfers could not use successfully.
What this alignment does, however, is get your hands working together as a unit, something your grip does not likely do for you now.
Try this: Put a tee between the thumb and forefinger of your left hand, all the way up in the V. Put another one in the same place of your right hand. Now take your grip.
The tees should be lined up and pointing in the same direction, as in the pictures below.
If they point off to different places, the means your hands are not lined up, and thus not working together. Everything good in your swing is working under a great handicap. Controlling the ball could be a problem.
The good news is that it is not necessary for the Vs to be pointing in the exact direction that the Hogan grip describes. You might want to rotate both hands to the right, but in doing so, making sure the tees end up pointing in the same direction.
There is, on the other hand, Sam Snead’s method. He tells you to have both Vs pointing to the right shoulder. That’s a stronger grip, good for most recreational golfers, but it gets the hands out of alignment. The tees will be pointing in different directions.
It worked for Snead, and it might work for you. But if it doesn’t, the Hogan method is something you can try.
It could be the only adjustment you need to make to bring every shot around to the center. That’s what it did for me.
I THE FIRST PHOTO THE LEFT THUMB IS TOO LONG – BEN ALWAYS SHORTEN THIS SO IT WOULD FIT NICELY WITH THE FAT OF THE RIGHTHAND – SEE HIS FAMOUS GRIP
Michael, There are no isolated illustrations of the left thumb in Five Lessons that show a face-on view similar to the photo your refer to on this post. A side view of the left-hand grip is on page 22 and is repeated on page 116. Those show his left thumb in much the same place, relative to my fingers, as mine is when viewed from the same angle. There are also side views of the left-hand thumb on page 102, about which I could say the same thing. If you look at the photographs on which the drawings were based, that appear on pages 12-13 of David Leadbetter’s book, The Fundamentals of Hogan, I can still make the same comment. You say, “See his famous grip.” Where else than in these two sources? And by the way, my left thumb is nestled quite cozy in the pocket formed by my folded right hand, if that is what you mean by “fat of the right hand.”