How critical is it?
Let me tell you all how critical it is – I essentially completed my swing research could have perfected my own golf swing research in 2015-16 if only I had taken the care to look at and correct my own grip.
That’s ten years of research and exploration of rabbit-holes and traveling through looking glasses in search of the thing I needed to perfect my swing. All because of a suboptimal grip that caused me no end of grief when playing golf.
You see, I had enough hand-eye coordination and sufficient practice time to be able to drill ball and ball on the line I chose at the range, and most of the time on the golf course, which actually turned out to be a curse rather than a blessing – if I hadn’t had the hand-eye, my grip issue would have been self-evident.
But when you’re pounding 330-350 yard drives down the line and striping 4 irons 250 yards, you would never think that your grip is the issue when you have a dicey long iron shot to a green on a long par 3, or you decide to put some extra mustard off the tee to a delicious dead-straight fairway when you double-cross yourself and snap if off the planet.
You literally think there’s something wrong with your swing technique, when it isn’t the case. So, this is what my golf swing looked like in 2015 when all that was suboptimal was my grip:
Everything was in place:
- The overall setup
- The ball placement
- The back pivot action,
- The down swing and finish
Everything except the grip, which was too strong. But when you are starting out in golf and you’re slicing everything until you strengthen your grip, you basically ingrain a strong grip into your psyche as being neutral, because it works.
It was only in 2022, when I had exhausted all other avenues of inquiry, that I looked at Jack Nicklaus’ grip from a swing of his in 1963 and thought to myself, “Blimey – that’s a very weak grip!”
I’ve already laid out last year how the only real difference between any of my personal swing technique over the years was the suboptimal grip and then, when I finally figured that out and fixed it:
The ’22 grip is much better but still too strong, in my opinion, having taken a look at how I would do it now.
It took two things to make me realize that my grip was too strong and why – the first was looking at the grip of the greatest golf champion of all time, and the second was figuring out that I was swinging left-dominant.
What that second bit has to do with the grip, you’re probably wondering, and here’s the issue – swinging left-dominant, I would focus on my left hand grip and not really think about the right hand, and so mine was positioned on the club very haphazardly.
And that was what would undo a great round – a momentary lapse of focus, failure to employ hand-eye coordination to keep the right hand from closing naturally into impact, and bam – a shocking result. Or something different with the same issue – perhaps keeping the right hand from closing down at all, and leaving the face open and another bad miss, probably into big trouble.
So, when I took that time to look at and examine the grip in my own swing, was when I knew I’d completed my swing research long before, and only had to catch up with what I knew was proper gripping of the club.
Now, I will lay out the way I would advise building your grip on the club, and no two grips will ever look exactly the same, but your neutral grip, when you find and build it (if you haven’t already done so), will make your ball-striking amazingly consistent.
It will be a short and to-the-point introduction to this upcoming MCS Golf Swing video, but please do yourself a favor and take it to heart.
Without a proper grip, you’ll always be fighting the current trying to swim upstream and wondering why things just don’t seem to work.
Trust me on that.
WAX Golf 