Grip question

[deekay]

Hello everyone,

I posted this on the Swing Thoughts forum, but there was no response.

I was checking my grip the other day and noticed that when I adjust my grip so that the club face is square in an impact position (shaft leaning somewhat forward), and I then return to my address position (shaft still leaning slightly forward, but not as much as at impact) without adjusting my grip, the club face is closed.

Does this mean I should address the ball with a slightly closed club face, or do the dynamics of wrist/hip movement during the swing take care of it?

(As far as ball flight goes, the longer clubs do fade a bit. Not a huge slice but definitely fading. Short irons often go straight left.)

[boogielicious]

Hello everyone,

I posted this on the Swing Thoughts forum, but there was no response.

I was checking my grip the other day and noticed that when I adjust my grip so that the club face is square in an impact position (shaft leaning somewhat forward), and I then return to my address position (shaft still leaning slightly forward, but not as much as at impact) without adjusting my grip, the club face is closed.

Does this mean I should address the ball with a slightly closed club face, or do the dynamics of wrist/hip movement during the swing take care of it?

(As far as ball flight goes, the longer clubs do fade a bit. Not a huge slice but definitely fading. Short irons often go straight left.)

Double check that your grip is not too much in the palms or that the right and left hand are not aligned. A good check to do is to place you hands on your grip as you do normally.  Then relax and tighten your hands.  If the club head opens and closes, your grip position if off a bit.  I could be that the hands are off in relation to each other.

[vangator]

You're clubface should normally be square pointing at your target. Exceptions would be when you want to purposely shape the ball.

[mmoan2]

Hello everyone,

I posted this on the Swing Thoughts forum, but there was no response.

I was checking my grip the other day and noticed that when I adjust my grip so that the club face is square in an impact position (shaft leaning somewhat forward), and I then return to my address position (shaft still leaning slightly forward, but not as much as at impact) without adjusting my grip, the club face is closed.

Does this mean I should address the ball with a slightly closed club face, or do the dynamics of wrist/hip movement during the swing take care of it?

(As far as ball flight goes, the longer clubs do fade a bit. Not a huge slice but definitely fading. Short irons often go straight left.)

I'm no pro, and a poor grip can cause major problems, but I've always heard that a proper grip ensures that when most people go from setup to impact position, the face stays square and doesn't OPEN. Without seeing it, I would imagine that your grip now is either excessively weak or too much in the palms. I find that a very weak grip with a square clubface at address opens up when you get to impact. This may also be poor advice, but it seems logical to me to establish your grip from square at address and worry about what the clubface does at impact by making changes. It sounds to me like you are doing the opposite.

[iacas]

You're clubface should normally be square pointing at your target. Exceptions would be when you want to purposely shape the ball.

Not necessarily. I play every shot with a right-pointing clubface, because I want to start the ball right so it has room to draw.

Now, it's not WAY right by any means, but a few yards, to account for my small draw.

[Ernest Jones]

Not necessarily. I play every shot with a right-pointing clubface, because I want to start the ball right so it has room to draw. Now, it's not WAY right by any means, but a few yards, to account for my small draw.

I need to start doing this as I've started to hit a fair amount of hooks and pulls. Obviously very different misses but have a slightly open face at address should help with both. I was always afraid to do this because of my propensity to push the ball but lately the pushes seemed to have evolved to pulls. :-\

[Jakester23]

I need to start doing this as I've started to hit a fair amount of hooks and pulls. Obviously very different misses but have a slightly open face at address should help with both. I was always afraid to do this because of my propensity to push the ball but lately the pushes seemed to have evolved to pulls.

One of my good buddies miss is a push so he does the opposite of what Erik does.  Its funny we were just talking about that last weekend and he said basically feels like if he squares the face he will hit to big of a push and it won't draw back enough.  If he closes the face he has a good feeling that it will be a little push and draw back to target.   I wish I was hitting hooks but Im happy my pull fades are becoming more of a small pull and a small fade back.