We’re told that we are supposed to have a light grip pressure. And that is true. That means we’re not supposed to be squeezing the handle. But there’s another kind of grip pressure that we want to have.

If your hands are holding the club too lightly, it’s quite possible that they can rotate during the swing without shifting their position on the handle, taking the club face with them.

This is one reason why you either get a closed club face impact or an open club face and there’s no explaining it.

If that seems to be happening to you then try this.

After you’ve assumed your grip, rotate your forearms inward, toward each other, without your hands changing their position on the handle. If you do this correctly, you will find that the thumb on your leading hand presses tightly against the pocket made by your trailing thumb and palm.

In Tom Kite’s golf book, How to Play Consistent Golf, he presents a drill where you put a blade of grass in between your leading thumb and the pocket of your trailing hand and swinging so that blade of grass doesn’t fall out.

The way you do this is to press your hands toward each other as I described. Then, the hands can’t rotate to either open or close the clubface. The clubface stays square* exactly the way you have it aligned at address.

The other grip pressure is pressing your hands together by rotating them toward each other even though your pressure of your hands holding the handle stays the same.

I hope this description is clear.

* If not, there is another problem that you need to investigate.