Grip Pressure

[Martin Levac]

Greetings,

Repetition. Strength. Skill. Confidence. Technique. Practice.

Grip pressure.

How tight is too tight? How light is too light? After all is done and said, only you know how tightly you must grip the club. I read so many different advice on how tightly to grip the club but I've read one more often than any other. We must grip the club as if we held a bird. And I say hogwash.

With practice and repetition comes ability and skill. But that's not all that comes with practice and repetition. Strength also improves through practice and repetition. With greater strength comes the ability to apply less effort to produce the same result. It is critical to understand this in order to know what they meant by "grip the club as if you held a bird".

A certain Eldrick Woods would probably apply the same amount of force as we would even on a full swing but due to his extensive practice and repetition not to mention his weight training, the strength he has developed allows him to put very little effort to produce the same result. Contrast this to a beginner player trying to hold the club as if he held a bird and surely he would lose the club on the first swing. And frequently does.

Let's look at Eldrick once more. Ever see him stop the club right before impact even though it appears that he's swinging all out? Imagine the amount of strength he would need to stop the club like that. Imagine how much of that strength he would need compared to the amount of strength we would need to swing just like he does. When he tells us to grip the club as if we held a bird, he's really telling us that's how he grips it in view of his practice, repetition and strength.

How tightly we grip the club is relative to our ability and strength. The stronger we are, the less apparent pressure we apply for the same result. Conversely, the weaker we are, the more apparent pressure we must apply for the same result. Keep that in mind next time you grip a club.



The size of the grips can affect how tightly we grip the club and subsequently how well we use it. For example, a grip that is too small will force us to apply more pressure to maintain control of the club as we swing it. A grip that is too large in diameter will allow us to apply less pressure but will perhaps hinder full flexibility of the wrist and hand. Grip size and its effects have been studied extensively in tennis. When selecting grips for your clubs, choose a size that allows you to grip it comfortably for lack of a better word.

[GoNavy]

Re: Grip Pressure

Your not going to loose the club, if you grip it correctly, regardless of how lightly you hold it. The trigger finger and heel pad of the left hands locks the club in place. I can hold a club in my left hand with just the one finger and heel pad on the club, I bet you money you can not pull it from my hand. You only need enough grip pressure to maintain the contact of the club to the heel pad of the left hand at the top of the swing, because it is upside down. You need even less pressure in the right. Granted in rough or tall grass, you need a little more, to prevent twisting, but for a normal short, less is better, as long as you don't loose that contact at the top. If strenght is the key, you wanna take stab at why these little 14 or 15 yr old girls are knocking the ball 300+, they are certainly not stronger then me.

Just an addon: Watch any pro tour event, and almost without exception, you will see all of them moving the thumb of the right hand around, taking off, then putting back on, relaxing the grip then regripping. Why do you think they are doing that, because they want to get tension out of the hands and relax the the grip, that is why they do that...

[ubizmo]

Re: Grip Pressure

With practice and repetition comes ability and skill. But that's not all that comes with practice and repetition. Strength also improves through practice and repetition.

Not really, no. Distance runners, repeat the same leg movements thousands of times each day. They are not noted for their strong legs. Power lifters, who do one or two sets of squats, for a total of maybe 20 reps, have much stronger legs than distance runners. Strength improvement requires more intensity than repetition.

Here's a good exercise to build grip strength. It will work better than any number of hours at the driving range. Get a round section of dowel about two feet long, and drill a pencil-sized hole through the middle of it (through the diameter, not end to end). Put a piece of strong cord through that hole, tying a knot in one end that can't go through (or tie something on the end of it). Tie the other end to a weight; start with five pounds. Hold the dowel in both hands, held in front of you, palms downward, and wind the weighted cord up by turning your hands. Then let it down and wind it up by turning them the other way. Then let it down, and grip the dowel palms up and repeat. If it's too easy put more weight on the cord. Keep a record of your grip strength increase by squeezing a bathroom scale and charting the results.

The size of the grips can affect how tightly we grip the club and subsequently how well we use it. For example, a grip that is too small will force us to apply more pressure to maintain control of the club as we swing it. A grip that is too large in diameter will allow us to apply less pressure but will perhaps hinder full flexibility of the wrist and hand. Grip size and its effects have been studied extensively in tennis. When selecting grips for your clubs, choose a size that allows you to grip it comfortably for lack of a better word.

I also don't see why grips should be tapered. It's not as though my right hand is smaller than my left.

[Martin Levac]

Re: Grip Pressure

A distance runner and a powerlifter are both athletes. I compared a beginning player to an expert player. To make a similar comparison, I must compare a distance runner to a person who is beginning to run. The ability, strength and relative effort that each have and give to produce the same result are dramatically different. The advice to "grip the club as if you held a bird" is intimately linked to the ability and specific strength of the person who gives it.

When I began, I couldn't grip the club like that. I had to grip it tightly, much more tightly than "as if I held a bird". In fact, I would have choked that bird in no time. I still grip the club with the same pressure but it feels so much lighter now than it felt when I began. That's because my ability and specific strength increased as I practiced and repeated. I have more strength and thus need not put as much effort into it. Now when I advise people on how much pressure to apply, I don't speak of pressure. Instead, I speak of control, grip the club to maintain control of it. The message is different, the result is the same.

[89imf]

Re: Grip Pressure

>>I also don't see why grips should be tapered. It's not as though my right hand is smaller than my left.<<

I assume that the grips are tapered because the shaft of the club is tapered.

With that said, you can buy grips that are not tapered.

Natural Golf Clubs: Non-Tapered Grips, Longer Shafts, Hand-Crafted Quality

Tom

[oldwease]

Re: Grip Pressure

The key point is to achieve control of the club with the hands working properly together. This basically means that the grip must be sound as a starting point (although, there's obviously more than one grip which will achieve this).

From that point, I find that you really don't have to grip the club too tightly to control it so long as you maintain the same hand contact with the club throughout the swing. The control really comes from maintaining the hands on the club in the same way that they are at address.

One of the problems I think a lot of people have is that they open or move the hands slightly through the swing. This movement or adjustment of the hands may be minute but many golfers do it. It will certainly tend to happen if the backwing plane is off or the arms 'move against' one another as this will cause the hands to compete against each other. As soon as you start to feel this conflict occuring, the response will be to tighten the grip. Probably, if you try to manipulate the club too much with the hands, you'll also end up with a stronger grip.

One thing, though, I suspect will be true of everybody. No matter how lightly you grip the club at address, that grip pressure will have increased by the top of the backswing.

All of that said, I don't necessarily disagree with the original point. In absolute terms, people's grip pressure will be different. I do believe that a 20 st muscle man with forearms and hands like Popeye will clamp the club in place with very little effort (for him). His absolute grip pressure will be a lot higher than that of the 8 st weakling however.

[Dazza XL]

Re: Grip Pressure

I was once told by Charlie Earp...
Imagine you're holding a tube of toothpaste instead of your club.
Grip the tube tight enough so that you don't squeeze any toothpaste out.
Thats how firm you should hold your club.
It works for me, anyway!

Cheers

Darran

[BrianW]

Re: Grip Pressure

Greetings,
Grip pressure.

How tight is too tight? How light is too light? After all is done and said, only you know how tightly you must grip the club..

If you hold something in your hands and you wish to push it you must hold tightly, if you wish to pull it you must hold tightly otherwise your hands will slip. If you wish to swing something while manipulating the hands and wrists, like using a hammer to hit a nail or a golf club a ball, you need to hold it just tight enough to stop it slipping as tightness will loose mobility of the joints. That is also why you would grip a little tighter when hitting a ball from the rough, to stop the club from slipping or rotating in your hands.

Try this test: Take a 12 inch rule, hold it with a gentle grip near the end , now flick it backwards and forwards as fast as possible by rotating your wrist, gradually tighten your grip and see how much the movement will slow down and restrict as your grip becomes tighter.

So! My take on this is grip the club just tight enough so that it does not slip and you can maintain good mobility, no matter how strong you are.

[mont86]

Re: Grip Pressure

I was once told by Charlie Earp...
Imagine you're holding a tube of toothpaste instead of your club.
Grip the tube tight enough so that you don't squeeze any toothpaste out.
Thats how firm you should hold your club.
It works for me, anyway!

Cheers

Darran

Thats soft, how can you take a divot with grip that soft?
Grip pressure ,I have been told both ways gentle and firm??

[GoNavy]

Re: Grip Pressure

Thats soft, how can you take a divot with grip that soft?
Grip pressure ,I have been told both ways gentle and firm??

I have heard that bird and toothpaste thing too, I'm not too sure about, a bit vague...here is what I teach, first you need a correct grip, heel pad of the left hand on top of the club, thumb slightly left, right hand in the fingers, thumb pad covering the left thumb. Then I line up three balls, so someone can hit, step upto the next then hit again. If the clubs move in the hands and you have to regrip, before you can hit all three balls, you grip is too loose, if your grip is too tight, by the time you get to the third ball, your hands will be tired, and you'll probably loose your grip (club will move in the swing) before you get that third ball.

For me it is around a 3 on a scale from 1-10, ten being a diffinate tight hold on the club. If I want to draw the ball, I tend to be at a 3, to fade I move upto a 4 or so, to slow my hands, and hold off the face a bit. From the rough I may be even at a 5 or 6, but that is because the club IS going to want to twist in the hands.

The three ball, can be done very easily with a correct grip and pressure, no adjustments needed, the club doesn't move, you shouldn't have to regrip, and your hands should be very relaxed when your done. It is hard to do, because you intinctively want to regrip, but for the purpose of this drill, you have to fight that impulse and use the same grip you have on the club start to finsh, first ball to last ball. May take a few times to accomplish, but you will find YOUR correct grip pressure.

[mont86]

Re: Grip Pressure

I'll give that drill a shot. How about having one hand tighter then the other?