How To Improve Your Golf Club Grip

PGA: Masters Tournament - Second Round

Are you looking to improve your golfing skills? If so, you should look to improve your grip, something that many golfers often overlook. To help you achieve your goal, you also need to buy appropriate gear to improve your grip, such as tape for golf club grips. Once you have an excellent grip, you’ll be able to fix your slice, improve how well you strike the ball, and become a lot more consistent.

While learning how to grip the golf club properly at first might feel uncomfortable, this will be the first step towards bettering your golfing skills. Therefore, here are some useful tips on how to improve how you grip the golf club.

Assess Your Current Grip 

How To Improve Your Golf Club Grip
Nov 13, 2020; Augusta, Georgia, USA; Lee Westwood plays his shot from the 12th tee during the second round of The Masters golf tournament at Augusta National GC. Mandatory Credit: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports

The first thing to do when looking to improve your golf club grip is accepting you aren’t perfect. This means evaluating several aspects of your grip, including;

  • How you hold your golf club
  • How you pick up the golf club
  • How comfortable you feel holding your club
  • The position of your fingers
  • Your confidence you’ll hit an excellent golf shot

By analyzing these aspects, you’ll realize there’s a lot you need to learn, and this is essential when looking to better your grip on the golf club.

Inspect The “V”

How well you position your hands on the golf club is essential to make an excellent shot. You should start by picking the club with your weaker hand, which, if you’re right-handed, is the left hand. Consequently, slowly adjust your left hand until you can see a “V” shape created by your thumb and index finger towards the right shoulder and two or three of the left hand’s knuckles. The left thumb should point down the shaft’s right-hand side.

You should then take your stronger right hand and grip your golf club. As you do this, confirm the left thumb is under your right thumb, which should be facing downwards on the golf club’s left side. If your grip is weak, the “V” points towards your body’s lead side, fewer knuckles on your lead sides will be visible. This grip isn’t ideal as it promotes more of a slice.

Apply The Right Amount Of Pressure   

There’s a delicate balance to the amount of pressure you need to apply to a golf club. The goal should be ensuring your hands have a firm grip on the club. However, this shouldn’t be so tight, and on a scale of ten, it’s recommended a golf grip of five or six.

While maintaining the grip is firm, make sure your wrists are loose. This is important to avoid unwanted tension in your arms, which prevents you from making proper shots. Moreover, ensure always to maintain consistent pressure. This means if you’re applying pressure between five or six, make sure not to increase or decrease it as it leads to inconsistent strikes.

A great clue to know you’re holding your club too tightly is feeling slight tension in your arms and wrists. You should instead hold the golf club firmly but gently.

How To Improve Your Golf Club Grip
Nov 13, 2020; Augusta, Georgia, USA; Jason Day bumps up onto the 18th green with a wood during the second round of The Masters golf tournament at Augusta National GC. Mandatory Credit: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports

Avoid a “Palmy “Grip by Cradling Your Fingers 

The spot where your golf grip is placed at the centre of the hand is referred to as the “palmy” grip. Another essential factor you need to consider when looking to improve your grip is determining your lead hand’s exact position on the golf club. You need to address the issue of a palmy grip since it leads to problems squaring up the clubface since it becomes a lot harder to work your wrists.

This results in the backswing having a collapsed limp wrist position and a collapsed lead arm. Due to this, you’ll likely lose lots of power and have a hard time trying consistently to hit the ball from the center. Instead, your focus should be towards aligning your grip a lot more in the fingers to the little finger’s bottom joint through the index finger’s middle joint. Moreover, try and cradle your fingers and allow the golf club to be positioned in the cradle. You should also confirm that your thumb is positioned to your grip’s trail side slightly.

Mind The Gaps

You should make sure there are no gaps between your lead hand’s first finger and the trail hand’s little finger. This is vital regardless of the holding technique you’re using, be it a baseball grip, overlapping, or interlocking. The presence of these pockets of holes causes your club, and this happens between impact and transition. As a result, your control of the clubhead through the ball is reduced because the clubhead starts twisting slightly.  

Arrow to top