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THE PERFECT GRIP - Not always necessary
Sam Snead once said,” If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork as they do a golf club, they would starve to death.”
When writing an instructional article I feel as if it were fictional. Golf is an individual game, and should be taught as such. We, as individuals, would probably have turned out a lot better if we have been taught individually.
This is a high tech world of selling that we are living in today. On the Golf Channel, and in videos, and books, everything is based on the perfect swing and what is supposed to be pointing where at what time, etc. Everyone has a different theory of how to hit a ball. I went to one of those putting seminars given by a guy on the Golf Channel and got so much theory and baloney thrown at me that putting no longer was difficult, but impossible. I am a firm believer in explanation, but it can be carried a little too far.
The grip is an essential part of learning the golf swing. Beginners are usually taught the proper grip when first taking up the game. Your hands are the only connecting point between you and the club. If you have a perfect swing the chances are that you started the game with a proper grip. If you are one of the many thousands of occasional or self taught golfers with lousy swings, the proper grip is not going to do a thing for you. In fact it may cause more of a problem. If you take a bunch of lessons, and have the time to practice, a good grip would be helpful.
WHY THE GRIP
Don’t be misled by the picture of that young handsome man you see. That is me , but it was taken more than a month ago. I became a PGA member in 1942, so I have a few days of teaching behind me. Everybody shows you the grip, and you can see pictures of it everywhere. I was not here before the grip was invented, but arrived shortly thereafter.
This is the reason why this uncomfortable grip was invented: If you place your left hand on the top of the club, (You poor left handers have to reverse this, but after all you should be used to that) now place your right hand a couple feet down the shaft. Your hands are well separated now. If you try to swing now you will realize that the hands and arms cannot work together. Now bring your right hand up so it is on top of your left hand. Now you can swing the club easily, however you do not have enough hand strength to hit the ball. You have taken your right hand out of action, and without your right hand you will not be able to hit the ball out of your shadow.
The early grip, in the wooden shafted era, ( I won the club caddie championship playing all wooden shafted clubs) The most widely used, grip was the unlap grip, commonly (incorrectly) called the baseball grip. The hands were separate with both thumbs down the shaft. You had a weak left hand and a strong right hand. The wooden shafts were very inconsistent, but all had a great amount of torque (twisting action) and it was difficult to get the club face closed at impact. It was then discovered by strengthening the position of the left hand, by turning it over so that you could see all four knuckles on the back of the hand., allowed the left hand to turn over in the impact area, allowing the clubface to become closed. Eventually the steel shaft arrived, and although it was pretty bad, the torque disappeared, and the hands were moved closer together with he unlap and interlocking grips were added. New shafts, clubheads, grips, etc. have changed over the years.
A very small percentage of golfers have great golf swings. Many started late in life, while others have just gone out and played without any basic instruction. When you have less than perfect golf swing and still manage to hit an occasional good shot, but have a bad grip, it was probably the bad grip that saved your life on that shot. If you had a perfect grip, with your swing, the chances are, that you would have ended up in another county. You have had one fault that corrected another fault.
All golfers have seen golfers take halfway presentable practice swings, but when that little white thing was put in front of them, They fell back away from the ball, and hit it right down the middle. This man is fighting a slice. The practice swings were out of a book, the real swing allowed him to get his clubface closed at impact. If he had not fallen away from the ball, he would have hit a real banana ball.
If you are a habitual slicer, and decide to take a lesson. Don’t take one, take several. If you don’t practice in between lessons, but just go out to play, you will not get the results you desire. All of those expensive balls you have donated to the golf course with your slice, is engraved in your mind, and you will have the same mental problem as a man trying to quit smoking. You have to practice, practice, and practice. If you are not going to take lessons, but continue that losing battle with your slice, turn your left hand over so that you can see allof of your knuckes, and put your driver in the closet and get an offset three wood to drive with. This will be like a band aid on a cut. It will help.