Some grip help please...

[elivate]

I usually grip the club so tight that by the end of most rounds I have a blister on my right hand ring finger (I am right handed, this is where I interlock my right ring finger and left pinkie)

I try to relax my grip but I find that I always seem to revert back to squeezing the crap out of the club... At the range I have tried the "pro" overlap grip and even a baseball grip but I seem to really lose control and spray shots all over the place because I don't have a firm enough grip on the club...

I have average to small hands I would say, and I use regular tour wrap grips...

Also, most mistakes I make when striking the ball is a push to the right, and I ocaisionally hit a nasty hook with my driver...

Any advice would be appreciated...

[FAHooGolfs]

By regular tour wrap, do you mean whatever comes standard on the club? If so, you might want to consider getting smaller diameter grips to help compensate for your hand size. A good measuring stick is usually, when you grip the club, do your fingers touch your palm on your left hand? If they do, then you have at least the correct size grip (although it could be too small)... if not, you might want to look into different grip sizes.

That change in grip size will also help you rotate the club better so the face will have a better chance of being square at impact.

[elivate]

By regular tour wrap, do you mean whatever comes standard on the club? If so, you might want to consider getting smaller diameter grips to help compensate for your hand size. A good measuring stick is usually, when you grip the club, do your fingers touch your palm on your left hand? If they do, then you have at least the correct size grip (although it could be too small)... if not, you might want to look into different grip sizes.

The tour wraps I have are the rubber ones that you get on most clubsets these days, I guess. I have been trying to decide on some new irons, and I have been thinking that the grip is very important. The more I think about it, the more I think I need to go get fitted for proper clubs, grips and all. My father in law has a nice Tight Lies wedge and it has the "Velvet?" cord grip, and I really like the way that feels...

My fingers on my left hand do touch my palm, so I know that my grips are not too big, anyway... I guess I just need to learn how to relax

[rmgators]

The best way I found to train myself to loosen my grip was to look at the target and waggle while standing over the ball before my swing. Obviously you have to look down at the ball just before you swing but doing this has helped me eliminate a lot of tension.

[LarryK]

I can relate.

This past Saturday I shot 91 and hit maybe two fairways. On Sunday, I shot 87 and hit 10 of 14 fairways. The difference, primarily, was grip pressure. Tight on Saturday, light on Sunday.

You've got to get a handle on this (so to speak) or you are going to find it incredibly difficult to score well.

Try this exercise. Hold a five or six iron out away from you at waist level. Toe up perfectly square club face. Nice, light, soft, gentle grip. Think about that soft grip pressure for a good 15 - 20 seconds.

Now instantly squeeze that handle as quickly and as tightly as you can. What just happened to the club face? Open? Close? Did the clubhead move forward or back? Up or down? If any of those things happened, they are probably happening if you do the same thing at impact. And it won't matter much how soft your grip was as you were going back.

Get it out of your head that you "hit" the ball with your hands. You swing the club through the ball with your shoulders . The hands just hold the club so that you don't have to chase it along with the ball.

Of course, if you are swinging as hard as you can, it follows that you might be hanging on tighter in order to simply hold the club at all. If that is the case, try swinging slower and smoother and taking one more less lofted club for the same distance.

Good luck. You're going to love what happens if you can fix this.

[elivate]

Thanks for the advice everyone, one of the things I am working on is a slower swing with better tempo. I am really focusing on "cocking" my wrists on the backswing and releasing through the ball. I never used to do this very well at all, my old swing was a real "grip it n' rip it" type of swing, and that is where the tight grip came from, as LarryK mentioned...

I find that the ones I hit well now feel really nice off the clubface. Everything feels nice and effortless... I am maybe a club shorter, but that is ok, I am over the whole I hit a 170 yard 8 iron thing... who cares...

It is so hard to "untrain" yourself after 10+ years of bad habits, I wish I had taken lessons a long time ago... But the great thing about golf is that you are never to old to learn how to improve your game... And I am in a much better mindset when it comes to taking advice and actually trying tips and drills...

[BeRight]

Spot on dude....

if you are swinging on the right plane and cocking you're wrists correctly even the weakest grip will feel solid as a rock. I find that laying the club off at the top helps as well.

[elivate]

I was watching Golf Channel last night (I forget the name of the show) and David Justice was getting some pointers from a woman (I can't remember her name) and she was stessing tempo, getting him to try and hit 70% shots... She also stressed alignment to the target, another mistake I mkae a lot.

Anyway, one thing I noticed was that Justice used a baseball grip... I am so tempted to try that but for some reason it just seems wrong to me, and I don't know why... I guess I always had it in my head that in golf, you have to use a golf grip, not a baseball grip (old habits once again...)

Does anone here use the baseball grip?

[BeRight]

I resorted to a baseball grip once and couldn't believe it when i actually hit the ball because it feels so un-natural. But on that score.. if you are gripping the club to weakly(open) and you try to strengthen(close) your grip that feels un-natural too. The problem with the baseball grip is that it can cause you to set your right shoulder to low and cause instability.

[elivate]

I resorted to a baseball grip once and couldn't believe it when i actually hit the ball because it feels so un-natural. But on that score.. if you are gripping the club to weakly(open) and you try to strengthen(close) your grip that feels un-natural too. The problem with the baseball grip is that it can cause you to set your right shoulder to low and cause instability.

Yes, I agree, because I did try it once or twice at the range, and I tried the "Pro" grip too, and both, especially the baseball grip, felt very unnatural, it almost felt like the club was just flailing around n my hands...

[BeRight]

Plenty of Magazines and teaching videos show you what the grip should look like.. which is all very well but it's always from a front on view. How many of them show you from a first person view.. Not one that i've seen. It's pretty hard to translate because the perspective is totally different.

[cdriver]

I started out with the baseball (10 finger) grip, but quickly migrated to the interlocking grip. I have tried the overlap, but my hands are small, so it doesn't feel like I have control of the club. I am going to have to consider going to either the overlap or the 10 finger because arthritis in my hands is making it hard on my pinky with the interlocking grip. I tend to play with a slightly strong grip because I have a natural fade (slice) I fight and that seems to help.

Can't figure out how to explain what it should look like though? I wish I could help.

[elivate]

Well, I got another short lesson the other day and worked on my grip. I was jamming my index finger and pinkie finger together so tightly causing, me to grip the club in my palms too much, and way too tightly. So I was shown how to turn my left hand over quite a bit, so that my left thumb fits right into the "lifeline" of my right palm, and points down. Previously, my left thumb was basically straight across my right hand.

Anyway, it is a great change in my grip, it is still not coming to me 100% natural yet, same as the changes to my swing, but I am confident that I will get it eventually, and I am going to stick with it.

After 18 holes yesterday (and way too many swings ) I no longer have the blister on my finger...

[Chas]

I used to grip much too tightly as well, which usually led to stiff forearms and blocked/pushed shots. Then I noticed that many pros and low-handicap amateurs squeeze and relax their hands two or three times just before they swing, in a sort of "pumping" action. I do this now and find that it helps a lot, because 1) I become more conscious of grip pressure and remember to lighten up just before the take-away (especially facing a tough shot on the course that might tend to get me tense), 2) it seems to automatically remove any existing tension from all those small muscles in the hand and forearm. Try it, you might find it works for you as well.

Mind you, I still sometimes push shots, but at least it's due to something else - usually swinging too much from the inside - and I can work on THAT. Or else I need to slightly strengthen my grip, as I recently discovered. The divot line tells me which one of these applies. Grip pressure should be one of the easiest problems to get sorted out.

[rembrandt]

Years ago in an old Golf magazine one of the tips showed a pair of hands holding a dove. They refered that to the pressure you should apply to the club.