In last week’s post, I wrote, “It is one thing for your grip to be identical for every shot. That takes lot of practice, and is a good subject for another post.”

I use the phrase, “a good subject for another post” without following through more often than I should, but this week I’m following through.

My topic is what your hands are supposed to feel like as you take your grip — again, something you read very little about in discussions of the grip.

Most of what is written describes what the grip is supposed to look like. What it feels like is just as important in having your grip be identical every time you pick up a club. Your grip can look right, but still be off. It has to feel right, too.

Let’s begin without a club in our hand. We’ll take an air grip, so the feel of the club in our hands does not distract us from the main points of how the hands should feel when they come together.

The key feeling of the hands working as one lies where the side of the left thumb rests in the pocket of the right palm. It is not enough for the left thumb just to be placed there.

There needs to be a feeling that the thumb is locked into that place, and there is only one placement that will give you that feeling. A shift of even a quarter-inch either way, by sliding the thumb in the pocket, is enough to destroy that connection.

I have written that there needs to be a slight bit of pressure in this spot so the hands stay together, but that is not what I’m talking about now.

I mean a feeling that the left thumb and right palm touch each other, fitting so neatly together, that you feel as if someone who tried to pull your hands apart couldn’t do it.

The second feel is of the right little finger interacting with the back of the left forefinger and middle finger.

There are lots of places this little finger can go. Wherever that is for you, it needs to have the same feeling as the left thumb does — it’s comfortably in place, but fitting in with the other hand, in this case, the left, in an inseparable way.

Those two fingers, the left thumb and the right little finger, are what lock the hands together — not because they are fixed in place by pressure, but because they are in the right place.

Now we can pick up a club and work with the fingers that actually hold it. They are the last three fingers of the left hand and the first three fingers of the right hand.

The feeling in the last three fingers of the left hand is that they, and no others, are holding the club. That doesn’t mean to squeeze those fingers, just hold on with them.

The feeling in the first three fingers of the right hand is of stability. They support the action of the last three fingers of the left hand, but do not take over their function.

The segment of the right forefinger closest to the palm presses gently against the handle of the club. That pressing action keeps the right hand rotated inward a bit, in support of the left thumb resting against the right palm, to keep the hands from coming apart.

In all, none of these feelings should be pronounced. There should be firmness, but light firmness and not heavy or tense firmness.

Finally, regarding grip pressure, you know how Sam Snead said you should hold the club as if it were a little bird? Sam Snead had large hands and very strong hands. You might not be able to get away with holding a club that lightly.

If you feel the handle pressing against, but not compressing, the soft pads of your palm and the underside of your fingers, that is about right.

The tagline for my advice on how to help you play better golf is, “Little Things That Make A Big Difference.” Today’s post is about a thing so tiny you can hardly see it, and which I have never read or heard about before.

It’s about the way in which you place your hands on the handle, no matter what kind of grip you have or what it looks like.

Go get a golf club and I’ll show you exactly what I mean. A 5-iron will do nicely. I’ll wait.

[wait]    [wait]    [wait]

Got one? Good. Now. Hold the club out in front of you, in your right hand, so the shaft is inclined a bit above parallel to the ground. Turn the club until the leading edge of the clubhead is exactly vertical.

While watching the leading edge, don’t take your eyes off it, put your left hand on the handle in its grip position. The bottom line of the clubhead must not get disturbed as you’re doing this. If it got turned slightly to the right or left, the clubface is now out of alignment and, guess what, the ball won’t go where you want it to go.

We’re not finished. Assuming you passed the left hand test, now add your right hand to complete your grip. Do not take your eyes off the leading edge as you do this. If the leading edge turned, even just a bit, you blew it. You haven’t even put the club on the ground and taken your stance, and the shot has been ruined.

Cary Middlecoff said in his book, The Golf Swing,

“… it is quite easy to vary the grip slightly without being aware of it, and just a slight variance can make a vast difference in how the shot comes off.”

And again,

“So many golfers do not relate their bad shots to a basically bad grip, or to slight but relevant changes in their grip from one shot to the next.”

It is one thing for your grip to be identical for every shot. That takes lot of practice, and is a good subject for another post.

But the way you place your grip on the handle is part of it. Doing that haphazardly can make a grip that is perfect in every way ineffective because you did not relate the grip to the clubface when you placed your hands on the handle.

The clubface acts as a surrogate for your hands. They must be coordinated from the very start. Practice this deliberately, and when you play, be that much deliberate when you take your grip. It’s a little thing that makes a big difference.

I just got back from a day at the range. It’s been raining hard here for the last few days, so the putting green was closed. The only thing to do then was to hit balls off the practice tees. Sometimes I just go through the motions on the tees because I like the practice green better. Tees, beets. Green, chocolate pudding. Since the option of the green was taken away today, I focused a lot better than usual on my full swing. Here’s what I took home with me.

Lighten up your grip pressure. You hear this all the time. Don’t squeeze the handle. Relax your hands. Yet you don’t. Why? Because it doesn’t make sense that a grip that light can hang onto and control the club during such a violent act (more on that in a bit) as the golf swing. Well, it can.

Try this. Pick up the club and hold it so it sticks straight out in front of you. Relax your grip to where the club starts to fall out of your hands. Now tighten up your grip pressure again just to the point where that does not happen. That is how much pressure you should have on the club when you hold it. Any more pressure in your hands will start locking up muscles throughout your body, preventing them from moving freely to build up the clubhead speed that you want.

Then there’s that slash at the ball you call your swing that makes the ball go everywhere but straight and long. There might be nothing wrong with your swing, it’s just that you’re overdoing it.

Here’s another thing to try. Swing at your normal speed, but feel like you’re swinging in slow motion. Imagine that you’re watching yourself swing, from inside your head, and you want to go slow enough so you can see everything. That will feel slow, but it won’t be slow. The result will be a swing with all the clubhead speed you need.

Lighten up your grip pressure, lighten up your swing. Especially with your driver, but that’s another post. Do those two things and see what a difference it makes. A good difference. And in the meantime,

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