The number of players who place their hands on the Grip without being aware of how their grip influences the angle of the clubface is numbered at far too many.
The grip is arguably the single most important fundamental as it relates to the golf Swing. It’s the only part of our body that is in touch with the club, and the grip’s consequential impact on ball flight cannot be overstated. If you’re a slicer, there’s a strong possibility your grip is too “weak” in your lead hand.
For golfers who fight a hook, there’s a very good chance these same players grip the club too “strong” in their lead hand. A “neutral” grip allows a player to see two to two and a half knuckles on their lead hand when they address the ball. If you see less than two knuckles, you have a weaker lead hand, while the presence of more than two knuckles in our view at address means our lead hand grip is stronger. Some teachers, like David Leadbetter, prefer a weaker lead hand as opposed to other fine instructors, such as Sean Foley, who prefer to see a stronger lead hand.
World-class players grip the club in their lead hand in a variety of ways, all within this stronger, weaker, and more neutral range. Be mindful that how we orient our lead hand on the club (strong, weak, or neutral) varies from player to player, but what we cannot do is employ a different grip from shot to shot. Our grip should be loose enough where it’s comfortable but not too loose where we sacrifice control of the clubhead.
What’s critical is that all golfers employ a repeatable, consistent, and comfortable grip that instills belief and confidence in the individual players’ ability to strike the ball in the center of the clubface.
What Kind of Grips Are There?
If you’ve been playing this game for quite a while, you’ve probably become comfortable employing one of three common grips: the interlock, overlap, or ten-finger baseball grip. The latter is common among seniors or players with arthritis/weaker hands who have a hard time gripping the club comfortably.
Ten-Finger Baseball Grip
While this baseball grip “feels” better for beginners and those with weaker hands, it’s harder to control the clubface during the natural course of the swing. In other words, squaring the face can be noticeably more difficult using this ten-finger grip. On the other hand, a baseball-style grip allows us to swing the club freely, which allows for lots of clubhead speed, meaning more distance.
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Overlap Grip
The best players in the world opt to place their hands on the club using either the interlock or overlap grip. While there are a select few, who do employ a ten-finger grip, the former styles are highly preferred among skilled players. Compared to the ten-finger grip, both the interlock and overlap allow us to bring both of our hands closer together on the grip. The overlap is ideal for players with larger hands who want more freedom of movement in both hands.
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Interlocking Grip
The interlocking grip tends to be the preferred grip among amateurs with smaller to average-sized hands, as it allows them to exercise control of the club more easily. Locking your hands in place allows these same players the ability to use their trail or dominant hand more freely.
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Should You change your Grip?
If you’re thinking of undergoing a grip change, be mindful that changing your grip requires patience and hard work. I highly suggest using the overlap grip for players who are just learning how to play the game or for any golfer willing to go through the growing pains which generally accompany such alterations. Because the overlap allows you to place your entire lead hand on the club, unlike the interlocking grip, your trail hand is less likely to sit too vertical relative to the ball at address.
While the interlocking grip has been used by the two greatest players of all time in, Nicklaus and Woods, the Golden Bear has said that he’d have employed the overlap when asked if he could change one part of his game in hindsight.
Upon further inspection, I’d contend that the interlocking grip is ideal from a “feel” perspective but very inferior from a technique standpoint compared to that of the overlap. Because of the right or trail hand’s verticality in relation to the ball, the interlocking grip is favorable for players who like to feel a lot of “hit” in their swing as opposed to players who “swing” the club more.
Tiger and Jack both loved to “feel” their right hand working during the swing itself. Consequently, they were better able to rely on their natural athleticism to win tournaments which occasionally came at the expense of their technique from a purely objective, analytical perspective. While Jack and Tiger may not have been as technically sound as players such as Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, they were perhaps more gifted in the mental toughness and putting/short game department.
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As it relates to the modern era, players such as Collin Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler employ interlocking grips while using their right hand to create power and touch. Morikawa employs a weak left-hand grip in order to get his right hand in position to be more of a motor for his golf swing compared to overlap players such as Ernie Els. Morikawa and Scheffler are both prolific iron players, much like Tiger and Jack are. Similarly, these players all utilize a lot of wrist hinge around the greens, which can create some problems chipping from tighter lies.
Jack was notorious for being a below-average chipper and struggled with this aspect of the game to such a degree that he needed to relearn how to find the bounce at one point during the prime of his career. The interlocking grip directly contributes to inconsistencies chipping the golf ball due to such players’ over tendency to dig the leading edge in the ground too much and/or too soon. This steeper angle of attack created on interlocking players’ chips is ok on chips from deeper rough while also ideal for spin from virtually all lies.
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However, the trail hand’s verticality in relation to the ball compared to golfers employing the overlap makes chipping from tight lies and “easier” lies a challenge as there’s less time to return the club back to the ball on these short shots. I would contend that Tiger’s chipping woes over the course of the mid-2010s were, at least in part, thanks to the inherent disadvantages of the interlocking grip on short shots compared to other gripping styles.
Scottie Scheffler uses his right hand for power and touch in an extremely athletic fashion, much like Tiger did in his prime. Scottie utilizes a lot of lower body movement combined with very high hands at the top of his swing to create power rather than using his core to the same degree that more traditional players might have. Like Tiger and Jack, I’ve seen Scheffler hit some very chunky chips from fairly straightforward lies, even when he’s playing his best golf.
Like Justin Thomas, Scheffler “dances” with his feet during the downswing on his full swing. His is a beautiful motion, but one which sacrifices a solid connection with the ground. When Scotties right foot moves up towards his target on the downswing and into the follow thru, he’s essentially getting his trail, right hand, or his dominant hand (and foot) in a better position to create both power and control, perhaps at the expense of what’s commonly thought of as “proper technique.”
While Scottie’s swing is less teachable from a data-driven, “Trackman-inspired” approach, I’d argue it’s easier to swing this way for people who have been relying on their dominant hand to perform a multitude of activities in sport and life. The most dominant player of all time, Tiger Woods, created power in a similar fashion to Scottie’s move.
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In the mid to late 90s, Tiger can be seen making many aggressive, gorgeous swings utilizing his right foot-slide in transition to create more power than what is taught and/or recommended by some of today’s finest teachers. Like Thomas and Scheffler, Tiger’s stable, powerful connection with the ground was compromised to a certain degree. However, he was better able to get his right or dominant side in position to strike the golf ball with repeatable and reliable power and control.
For those of you who like watching swingers of the club, such as Ernie Els, Ben Hogan, and even Phil Mickelson, try using the overlap grip. The club will bottom out in a more technically sound fashion without having to use so much body adjustment over the course of the swing. Ernie’s tremendous rhythm and tempo are largely thanks to the stability present in his lead side, which is largely obtained through years and years of practicing with the overlap grip.
Hogan, also a fan of the overlap, is commonly considered the best ball striker of all time and employed an overlap grip with a “short” left thumb on the grip of the club. Utilizing a short left thumb allowed Hogan to use his dominant or trail hand more effectively during the swing while also mitigating the presence of his lead or non-dominant hand. Like other men of his time, Hogan wasn’t in the gym pumping iron like some of the interlockers of today’s era. Consequently, Hogan had to rely on extremely sound fundamentals and mechanics as reliable sources of power, control, and explosiveness.
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In his day, Hogan could swing the club over 130 mph. While Bryson DeChambeau may get it out there further than Hogan did relative to each’s competition, Bryson is now fighting a slew of injuries thanks to a golf swing that puts too much pressure on his left wrist. Bryson begins his swing with a very weak lead hand coupled with a stronger right hand which situates his non-dominant lead hand on the club in a very exposed position.
If you love feeling the sensation of your trail hand working, I highly suggest employing the interlocking grip. Thanks to a more vertical position relative to the ball and the ground, the trail hand is in a better position to be more active during the swing for interlockers as opposed to those who overlap. Also, interlocking makes it easier to “be an athlete,” as this gripping style allows players to rely on body movement and weight transfer in order to create speed and power more so than those who overlap. On the other hand, interlocking makes moving one’s body during the golf swing less efficient compared to the body movements of overlap players.
Hogan, Snead, Nelson, and others created incredible speed and power without exerting as much energy compared to several of the best players today largely thanks to how they placed their hands on the club. On the other hand, one could argue that overlapping is less natural from a dominant hand/foot perspective. Furthermore, overlapping may require more practice for players to feel comfortable with compared to interlocking.
Because we’ve taken the pointer finger of our lead or non-dominant hand off the club when we interlock, most golfers are able to feel more comfortable employing an interlocking grip compared to the more traditional Vardon grip. The Vardon or overlapping grip leaves our lead hand on the club, which allows for a more technically sound golf swing, but a golf swing that doesn’t feel quite as natural for some of us who are very trail hand dominant. The inverse of this more common relationship between our trail and dominant hand would be if we played on the same side of the ball as our lead hand or dominant hand.
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Phil Mickelson, for instance, plays golf lefty but is right-handed. This relationship makes overlapping inherently favorable for players such as Mickelson, who also enjoy feeling their dominant hand go to work during the golf swing. I’d argue Phil’s longer, flatter backswing is a direct result of having the club in an easier position to use his lead hand to subsequently create his narrower downswing compared to the downswings of most players.
Ultimately, no one besides you can determine what grip is best for your game. Like anything else, finding what works comes down to trial and error and understanding how your genetic predispositions affect your golf swing in totality. Perhaps just as importantly, we must understand that the golf swing itself is both a visual and physical representation of the summation of each individual’s habits or tendencies. Placing our hands on the grip in a fashion that will produce consistently favorable results involves understanding that hand dominance is more of a learned behavior than several of us are willing to accept or recognize.
Genetic predispositions and learned behaviors are not entirely understood in a finite, objective manner. However, learning how to perform a particular motion is understood now to be just as much of a hurdle mentally as it is physically. In other words, the subconscious part of our brain is responsible for feelings and emotions, which both impact decisions we make every day. Often, our subconscious interferes with our ability to perform a specific task effectively by shifting our focus away from this independent event and onto the desired or undesired result(s) of performing any such task.
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An experienced golfer who tries a new grip, for instance, may be less inclined to place his/her hands on the club in this modified manner. During the course of employing the new, awkward grip, the same golfer may say something along the lines of “I can’t do this.” While they may claim they can’t do it because it’s “uncomfortable” or “unnatural,” it’s really the players’ feelings toward hitting the ball in front of them that cloud his/her judgment.
When we employ a new grip, many times, we focus on hitting the ball in front of us at the expense of simply focusing on doing what’s required in order to change one’s grip. If I were driving a car going 80 miles per hour with my buddy in the passenger’s seat on the highway and a car were to cut us off, followed by my buddy shouting, “Hit the brake!”, I’d apply the brake as fast as possible knowing that the consequences of not applying the brake could be potentially fatal.
In golf, the stakes aren’t nearly as high as they are when traveling at high speeds on the highway. In other words, the consequences of not doing something or doing something during the golf swing includes an infinite number of possibilities within a somewhat definable range of different shots or results. In golf, golfers fear they will not hit the ball solidly if they don’t change their grip or do change their grip. In the car, drivers and passengers fear they won’t survive in certain situations, such as high-speed collisions or near collisions, if the driver doesn’t apply the brake.
In the car, all drivers will apply the brake because they do not want to die. For golfers who are noticeably resistant to performing or “learning” a new motion, I’d be willing to guarantee your fear of sacrificing solid contact in the short term is negatively affecting your ability to perform a new motion(s) due to feelings associated with performing this new motion or grip.
Every day in a teaching setting, students’ feelings are responsible for creating mental hurdles, which make it exponentially more difficult to perform tasks anybody can do if properly motivated. These same students are too worried about the ball in front of them or short-term results rather than focusing on the gains which will be realized down the road or in the long term.
Accept that change is awkward, and in order to master any new grip or motion, one must be willing to deal with unfavorable short-term consequences of actions that will make their lives more difficult now but much easier down the road and for years to come. Golfers who understand this commonly overlooked concept and also make a conscious effort to be more focused on delayed gratification will reap the benefits of this wiser approach.
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