While driving some golf ball today on the range, Getting to Scratch author Erik, noticed that his grip was too tight. On every shot I felt like I was chopping at the ball rather than trying to swing at it. Of course I didn’t notice until after I was done with my second basket but there it was plane as day. Chopping at the golf ball rather than rotating my body and swinging through the ball.
To practice the loose grip you should take a light club, possibly your 5 or 3 wood and head out to the driveway. Then grab the club with the tightness of a 2 out of 10, 10 being the tightest and begin to rotate your body with your club and arms following their normal swing plane. The difference you should be trying for is imagine your wrist to be a loose hinge that you have no control over. When you get to the top of your back swing begin to rotate your body allowing only your body and shoulders to take your club through its swing path.
Don’t worry about where the club head goes. If you swing with the correct amount of tension in your grip the club head will actually have an easier time coming back to square. Continue on with your swing, imagining your wrist is an unrestricted hinge and finish by nearly letting the club fly off into the distance. It should actually whip around and almost hit your in the back of the head.
Continue to do this with the your wrists just free floating. Don’t try and hit a ball. Do this 10 or 20 times until you get the feel. Then the next time you are at the range try this same motion. Don’t worry about where the ball goes just fling your wrists without controlling them.
The reason for loosening your grip and ultimately your wrists is because if you have a tight grip on the golf club that means your wrists are going to be tight and when you bring the club to the bottom of your swing, where you contact the ball, you’re going to have that much more of a difficult time bringing the club around to square. You are actaully going to use your arms and your strength to re-square the club rather than using the momentum of the club head as it swings around.
With a tight grip you are more than likely slowing the club head down to allow your wrists and forearms to play catch up and thus reducing the momentum of the club head and therefore hitting shorter shots as well.
It should also be noted that this type of loose grip technique works best with a neutral grip.Â
Just remember to keep your grip loose and your wrists and arms will follow. More to come on drills to practice the proper and loose grip.
