The function of the grip

When you're a beginning player trying to make sense of a series of photos or drawings, getting to the correct golf grip can be more than a little confusing. But it doesn't have to be. Step back from the mirror for a moment and think about the function of the grip.

The only function of the grip is to begin the series of hand and arm movements that draw the club back from the ball, and then return the club to the ball in such a way that the clubface is square to an imaginary line that runs from the target straight back to the ball. Any flaw in your grip will cause the ball to go to the left or to the right of the target.

Even experienced players can get in trouble by failing to identify a problem that has crept into their grip over the years. The problem with most bad golf grips is that they feel comfortable. No matter how many years you've been playing, one of the best ways to tweak your game is to check the position of your hands and fingers on the club.

Many golfers with bad grips blame their bad shots on a problem in their stance or swing, simply because their grip feels right. If they try to compensate by changing their stance or swing, they will only add an additional error to the grip error that has gone undetected.

This is how flaws pile up until it's impossible for a player to get out of the rut by himself. At this point, a player must seek the advice of a good teacher who can detect the cause of the problem by watching the golfer hit a few balls.

Every book on golf includes a section on the grip. And I've never found any advice on the golf grip that wouldn't improve the mechanics of a large number of golfers. Nevertheless, in all the literature on the subject of golf, no one has yet been able to turn the golf grip into a topic with broad appeal. It simply isn't the kind of thing that stirs up a lot of passion, so it is often neglected.

I'm not saying anything new when I point out that most golfers severely limit their games by not working hard enough on their grip. After all, it isn't an exciting topic. But the simple fact is that most golfers suffer through years of bad golf due to their ignorance of the correct grip. When you realize how easy it is to correct a grip problem, you wonder why most books don't try harder to create a little excitement around the topic.

Let me give you some food for thought. Ben Hogan's grip was so bad that he and his wife went through periods when they were barely surviving. Hogan came from a poor family and was a teenager at the start of the Great Depression. He knew what it was to have to struggle for a living.

Hogan was the most powerful hitter of his era, but he hooked the ball so severely that he almost decided to quit the professional tour. At one point, things were so bad that Hogan entered one tour event with 15 cents in his pocket. That was all he had to his name.

When Hogan was 34 years old, he changed his grip. Weakening his grip eliminated the hook. As a result, Hogan won nine of the last sixteen majors he entered. He had every right to say that "a player with a bad grip doesn't want a good swing."

I think the story of Ben Hogan's transformation into one of the greatest players in the history of the game injects a lot of excitement into the topic of getting the correct grip. Look what it did for Hogan's game.

During one event on the PGA Tour when Hogan was still struggling with his hook, he left the course for a few minutes and disappeared into an adjacent orchard. When he came back, he was loaded down with enough oranges to sustain him and his wife for the next two weeks.

If a time traveler had dropped onto the course that day and told the other players that they were watching a future legend of the game struggle through his growing pains, I am sure that no one would have believed it.

What I am trying to say is this: Don't be lazy about your grip. There's nothing unexciting about winning nine major championships in four years. And it was all because of a new grip-after years of playing the game as a Tour professional. So, are you starting to get excited about getting the right grip? I thought so.

If you're a beginning golfer, the best way to develop the right grip is to use a practice grip. And if you've been playing for a few years, but you know your mechanics have a lot of room for improvement, using a practice grip to correct a grip problem can prove to be the fastest way to take your game to the next level.

A practice grip is molded to guide your fingers and hands into the correct position on the club. It will help you get used to how a correct grip should feel. You can put a practice grip on one of your old clubs. Practice with this club until the correct grip feels comfortable. Soon you'll be able to pick up every club with the correct grip. (It's against the rules to use a practice grip in tournament play, of course.)