Anyone Use a Strong Grip?

[Nail]

Hi guys,

I was at the range today trying to fix my dreaded driver swing and I decided to try out a strong grip, seeing 3 to 4 knuckles on my left hand. I had some success with the driver so I tried it with my irons. I hit some really good shots with it, little baby draws landing very close to my target. I’m seriously considering changing to it permanently. I tend to fan open the club on shots and need to flip to square the face resulting in fat shots or  over draws or hooks more accurately. 

With the strong grip I had a couple of snap hooks but mostly shots I really liked, I found the centre of the clubface a lot more with the driver too. It’ll need work but I think I might be into something 

Any of you guys use a strong grip?

[boogielicious]

2 hours ago, Nail said:

Hi guys,

I was at the range today trying to fix my dreaded driver swing and I decided to try out a strong grip, seeing 3 to 4 knuckles on my left hand. I had some success with the driver so I tried it with my irons. I hit some really good shots with it, little baby draws landing very close to my target. I’m seriously considering changing to it permanently. I tend to fan open the club on shots and need to flip to square the face resulting in fat shots or  over draws or hooks more accurately. 

With the strong grip I had a couple of snap hooks but mostly shots I really liked, I found the centre of the clubface a lot more with the driver too. It’ll need work but I think I might be into something 

Any of you guys use a strong grip?

I do per the advice of my instructor. It actually can help flatten the shaft at A4 and improve inline impact.

[Nail]

8 hours ago, boogielicious said:

I do per the advice of my instructor. It actually can help flatten the shaft at A4 and improve inline impact.

👍 I found it much easier to square the face with it, at least it felt that way, the downswing felt much more natural as well to have my hands rotated that way. 

[gbogey]

I play with what is considered to be a strong grip. Nothing intentional, just started using something that felt comfortable. When I went through a period of time hooking the ball, the pro I took lessons from told me that I could either learn to use a less strong grip or learn to play with a strong one - he used Tom Lehman and Paul Azinger as players with similar grips. I practiced several times with a neutral grip and then said the heck with it, it's not comfortable. So now I use it knowing my miss is often left.  I'm a better player now than I was then so I guess it's working.

[Cantankerish]

I do.  No idea if it is a good idea, but I know that my grip is well on the strong side.

[iacas]

A strong grip can be a good band-aid. It might be what you actually need (though 3-4 knuckles is a lot). It can also be a bit too much, and may make some other things tougher for you to do.

The grip from your Member Swing topic looked fine. Just a little on the strong side. But perfectly normal.

[Nail]

On 7/2/2020 at 3:24 AM, iacas said:

A strong grip can be a good band-aid. It might be what you actually need (though 3-4 knuckles is a lot). It can also be a bit too much, and may make some other things tougher for you to do.

The grip from your Member Swing topic looked fine. Just a little on the strong side. But perfectly normal.

You could be right, I’d like to try it for a while though. I used it today for the first time for a round. I shot exactly my handicap, 16 over. My ballstriking was better I thought, I had a few three putts and a couple of bad pitches that would have dropped that score by 4-5 strokes. 
I was especially pleased with my driver, after the first few it started to go really well and I had 9 drives that I would be happy with and that is very good for me. 
It probably is a band aid but I’ll give it a shot for a few rounds anyway and see how it goes. 
 

On 7/2/2020 at 3:24 AM, iacas said:

A strong grip can be a good band-aid. It might be what you actually need (though 3-4 knuckles is a lot). It can also be a bit too much, and may make some other things tougher for you to do.

The grip from your Member Swing topic looked fine. Just a little on the strong side. But perfectly normal.

Out of interest what do you think might be tougher to do?

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, Nail said:

Out of interest what do you think might be tougher to do?

Hitting the ball straight. Hitting the ball high. Clubhead speed may be slower overall.

There's more, but those are the "bigger" ones.

[Nail]

30 minutes ago, iacas said:

Hitting the ball straight. Hitting the ball high. Clubhead speed may be slower overall.

There's more, but those are the "bigger" ones.

Strangely and this is probably due to some other underlying problem with my swing but I felt I hit the ball straighter with it, I never really noticed a height difference if I am honest so it must have been similar. My driver was straighter for definite and distance was the same once struck well but this is all from just one round so it is really impossible to tell for sure yet. 

I think i find it easier to square the face because with my regular grip I always fought with rolling the face open and then having to try square it up so this probably is a band aid really.

Edited July 3, 2020 by Nail
Spelling error

[Nail]

Tried my regular grip today again to compare, couldn’t hit a fairway, I think I hit 3 all day. Not sure what to do. 

[Nail]

I abamdoned this experiment fairly quick. One bad hook scared me away lol but really what @iacas said about my grip being perfectly normal was enough to realise a grip change wasn't going to solve any problems. 

[DrvFrShow]

I found that a strong grip led to some other problems like early extension. I've gone to a more neutral grip with my irons and even driver. It feels like I'm staying more in posture.

[xrayvizhen]

This is probably going to sound weird and will eventually backfire on me but I attribute a good deal of my improvement over the last few months to strengthening my grip...but I concentrate on the position of just my left hand. I let the right hand mesh with the left naturally.  With the left hand I concentrate on the position of the thumb seam of my glove and where it lies on the grip, just a bit to the left of the right edge of the handle. I really have not looked at or counted how many knuckles I see. Somehow this has enabled me to eliminate any miss to the right and I'm hitting the ball consistently with a nice little draw.

This won't last forever of course. At some point something will go awry, but right now I'm having a helluva good time.

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by xrayvizhen