My Favorite Videos
The Golf Grip - How To
Sorry, you need to be a member to access this video.
You Are Just Seconds Away - Become a member here!
Already a member? Log in now

Much has been written on the importance of a good grip over the years, Ben Hogan devoted 17 pages to it in his book "Five Fundamentals", making it seem to many that it is some magical, mystical secret of the swing. But over the years teaching countless golfers I've learned a couple things. One, grips come in all shapes and sizes and can still be effective. And two, a sound grip is important, but very easy to achieve. In this video I show you the details of getting a good grip on the club that allows the hands to seemlessly work together as a unit, regardless of your swing type. From there, you can adjust for your natural tendencies and what works best for your swing and desired ball flight.
- In a "strong" grip, the V of the left thumb points beyond the right shoulder - a "weak" grip points to the center of the body
- Neutral to slightly strong is the preferred grip for most golfers
- The pad of the left hand & space between the tendons at the base of the left thumb should both be about at the center of the shaft
- Most of the force is exerted with the back three fingers - thumb and forefinger are light on the club, but pinch together to prevent the shaft slipping through at the top
- The right hand matches up to the left - the V of the right thumb parallels the V of the left
- The left thumb nestles into the lifeline on the right hand
- The hands should grip the club securely - don't let the left do all the work
The grip is one of the most important and overlooked fundamentals of the golf swing.
In this video I'm going to walk through step by step how to take a proper grip, going first with the left hand and then with the right hand, and I'm also going to talk about how having your grip differently than what I described is going to affect your swing and the ball flight.
Not necessarily wrong or right, but I'm going to show you what type of tendencies you're going to develop.
So let's first start with the left hand, getting the left hand on the grip properly.
I'm going to talk about the muscles that you're going to use, how the club needs to line up, and what issues you're going to run into.
So let's take a close look at the left hand.
When looking at the left hand, the most common mistake that I see is with golfers who take the grip in a very weak position.
When we say weak, what we're really looking at, you'll hear terms defined either by the line formed by the thumb and forefinger, this little V it's commonly referred to, what direction that points, or how many knuckles on your left hand that you can see.
If you can see here, if I take this line and I have it pointing up more towards the center of my body, and you can only see maybe one knuckle there, that's considered a weak or maybe neutral grip depending on who defines it.
But more or less, this is going to be a very common grip that's going to make it very difficult for you to square the club face coming up into impact.
So, and you'll see, I can see a lot of the butt of the club here.
You never want to be able to see the butt of the club looking face on, it should be covered up by the meaty pad of your left hand.
So let's look at what that's going to look like first, so we're going to define strong and weak here.
This would be a very strong grip.
Notice that this part of the grip is now missing, you can't see it from face on.
And there's a little crease right here, you can see between these two tendons, you kind of put your finger in, and that's now set up to the right of the center of the shaft.
This is weak, this little gap here is set to the left.
In an ideal world, you're going to set that pretty much over to the center, or just to the right of center of the shaft, so that's a good way of checking it.
Notice that from your perspective, you really shouldn't be able to see much of the butt of the club here.
Here you can see a lot, here you can't see any at all.
This would be a very strong grip, and there's pluses and minuses for that that I'm going to go over in a minute.
But for right now, in an ideal world, we want to be just slightly stronger than neutral.
In other words, a good way of looking at it is taking this V and getting it to point about to your right ear, assuming you're a right-handed golfer.
This is pointing up towards my right ear, this would be pointing well beyond my right shoulder.
So you can see, I can see a lot of knuckles, maybe all four knuckles here.
So about two and a half knuckles, good generic gauge there.
But the big thing, once you get kind of the definition of where you want to be in terms of strength and strong or weak, is how you grip the club.
And this is a big deal.
If I were to show you how you should properly grip the club, you could do it more or less with your thumb and forefinger off the club.
In other words, the majority of your gripping strength is coming from these fingers, which is going to activate the flexor muscles in your form.
That's where the majority of your grip strength comes from.
And so you should be able to hold the club pretty securely with just these three fingers.
If you're using these a lot and you see a big wear spot in the thumb part where your thumb sits on the shaft, you're running into all kinds of issues.
This is typically, you'll get this wear pattern at impact and during the transition when you're using your thumb too much, you're going to hurt the tendon in your thumb.
So your thumb should be pretty relaxed on the club.
Most of your grip strength is going to come from here.
You don't need to hold the club tightly at all.
If you use the scale of one to 10, you could say kind of a two to four at the high end.
And then these two fingers are going to be pinched together to keep the club from slipping at the top of your swing.
If your thumb and forefinger are gapped like this, the club as you get to the top of your backswing can kind of start to fall out.
And so people complain about having to re-grip the club.
Nine times out of 10, it's because they don't have this thumb and forefinger together.
With my thumb and forefinger together, as you can see here, as I get to the top of the swing, the thumb can support the shaft without me having to grip it really tight with my fingers.
So, get this pad over the top of the shaft, the center of the shaft.
That'll line up this little gap pretty close to the center of the shaft.
It's going to give you a lot of leverage on the club.
You should notice, again, about two, two and a half knuckles.
And there should be a little natural cupping in your left wrist.
Thumb and forefinger pinched together.
These two fingers, your thumb and forefinger are light on the club.
The majority of your gripping strength is coming from here.
In a minute, I'll go through what strong versus weak is going to do for your hand.
For now, those are the main things you need to know.
Now with the right hand, as we bring it in, we just want to match it up with the left.
In other words, the thumb and forefinger on this hand are now going to be parallel to the thumb and forefinger on that hand.
And so you'll see that this line is going to run basically right up through the center of my forearm and right up to my right shoulder.
Because it's parallel, it's going to be to the right of the thumb and forefinger line, which is going up towards my right ear.
With the left hand, this one's going to go a little bit further right because they're parallel to each other.
So now, the other thing is that I want to grip it a little bit more in the fingers.
This is going to have, you're going to have a little bit more palm on the grip here.
The right hand is going to sit a little bit more in the fingers.
And so if you look closely here, you can see how it kind of sits right through this little crease in my first knuckle.
It sits just like that.
I'll move the left hand out of the way.
There.
And then, again, thumb and forefinger are light on the club.
And my left thumb is going to sit nicely in the lifeline of my right hand.
So you can see how they kind of mesh up there really nice.
As I bring that on, it's going to go right like that.
The knuckle of my left thumb is sitting up in my lifeline on my right hand.
This hand just comes across.
And that's that.
Again, thumb and forefinger need to be pinched together again because if you go to the top of the swing and you hold the club like this, the club's going to go right through your hands.
You're going to have zero control over that club face.
So really important that these two guys are pinched together.
Whether or not there's separation here, which is something you see a lot in golfers, a lot of golfers call this your right forefinger, the trigger finger.
And you want to push against the shaft there.
You really don't need to do that.
In fact, that's going to cause you a lot of problems.
It's going to make it really easy for the average amateur to flip the club if you're pushing against it with this forefinger.
So whether or not you have it separated, not a big deal.
What's more important is that you grip the club primarily in the middle two fingers of your right hand and the last three fingers of your left hand.
And avoid gripping it tightly with the thumb and forefinger here on your right hand.
So now that's it.
It's all it takes to get a proper grip.
Now we can run into a million problems if we don't have this type of grip.
I'm going to give you a couple of things that's going to, what I see most commonly and talk about the pros and cons of each.
One is having a really strong grip.
So I go back to this left hand and the right hand is really strong as well.
What this is going to do is make it so that you could, if you wanted to, have your hands way ahead of the ball at impact and still have the club face square.
But what this is going to do is it's going to deal off the heck out of the golf club and you're going to hit the ball very, very low.
At the same point, not necessarily a bad thing if you want to do that, but if you don't have a lot of shaffling at impact, you're the type of golfer that loses a lot of lag and you have a really strong grip, you're going to tend to hit the ball really hard to the left.
So again, more of a neutral or slightly stronger than neutral grip is what we're looking for here.
Now the opposite, let's go with a really weak grip.
Now you can see the thumb and my forefinger on my right hand pointing over to the left side of my head.
And now I'm going to require a lot of hand manipulation coming into the ball in order to square the club face.
Not ideal again.
So again, slightly stronger than neutral is ideal.
It allows you to get a little bit of shaffling, all you need.
Just a few degrees of shaffling here, again that's a variable.
You can have, you know, four, five, up to eight degrees of shaffling depending on the trajectory you're looking for.
Instead of the club face square without having to manipulate it with your hands.
If you go stronger than that, you can get your hands much further ahead instead of the club If you go weaker, your hands are going to tend to be a little bit more in line with the ball because if you've got your hands way ahead of the ball, the club face is going to be wide open.
So again, just go through the simple sequence of getting your grip proper on the club and you won't have anything to worry about.
Changing your grip, just keep a club handy for a couple weeks.
It won't take long.
And just keep re-gripping it until you get comfortable with this.
And then the big thing is just make sure that both hands are on the club equally.
If you have, a lot of times I see the golfers who come to lessons have their left hand on the club pretty tight and the left hand looks like this.
Well, I know they're not going to be able to do anything with the right side of their body if the right hand is not on the club.
So using the right hand to throw the ball drool and all those things is completely taken out of the equation.
If I see your grip like this and the left hand cinch down, I see your knuckles starting to turn white.
So, make sure that both hands are on there securely, you need to use both in the golf swing.
Work through this grip sequence and you'll be able to start hitting the ball much more consistently, with a lot less effort.
Trying to manipulate the club face with your hands.
Roy
Chuck
Steve
Chuck
Ronald
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Vikram
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ronald
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Nicholas
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Larry
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Matt
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
zachary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Juan Eduardo
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Rick
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Robert
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Michael
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Todd
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Sean
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Sean
Jim
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jim
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Matthew
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Matthew
Robert
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mohnishkumar
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Matthew
Matthew
Matthew
Matthew
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Michael
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Michael
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
gordon
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
William
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Stephen
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Stephen
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Emmanuel
Emmanuel
Mikko-Pekka
Emmanuel
Mikko-Pekka
Mikko-Pekka
Gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mikko-Pekka
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mikko-Pekka
Elizabeth
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Elizabeth
Dan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Julie
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Julie
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gerardo
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Richard
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Richard
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Richard
Shane
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Shane
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Robin
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
PRIO
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Michelle
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Tomas
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
tim
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Alan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Marc
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Marc
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Nick
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Nick
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Brett
Dan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Dan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Dan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Chris
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Andrew
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Rick
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Andrew
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hector
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Scott
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Tyler (Certified RST Instructor)
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hector
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
John
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
John
Steven
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Steven
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Steven
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Steven
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Krishna
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Frederick
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ian
Chuck
Rob
Chuck
Scott
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Wayne
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
GC
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
GC
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
shulei
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Robert
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
jerry
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
David
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hector
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ed
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ed
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ed
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hector
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hector
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hector
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
George
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Rockford
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Rockford
jeffrey
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
RANDY
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
T David
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Caleb
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Caleb
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ashar
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Donald
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Eric
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Donald
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Donald
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Donald
Ian
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Malcolm
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Ray
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Steven (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Gary
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lane
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lane
David
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Chan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
James
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Dave
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Chris
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ross
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lance
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lance
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lance
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Masato
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jason
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Rob
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jim
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Denys
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Miguel
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mads
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mads
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Howard
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Stéphane
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Marc
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Stuart
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jordan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jordan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jordan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Stuart
Matt
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Toby
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Deon
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jon
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Martin
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
ys
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mike
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mike
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mike
Robert
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Marcus
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Virgil
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Virgil
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Emil
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Steven
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Steve
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Stephen
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Seth
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
Stephen
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Loran
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Carole
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
GARY
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
GARY
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Robert
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Robert
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
GARY
Theodore
Patrick (Certified RST Instructor)
Pankaj
Steven (Certified RST Instructor)
Nguyen
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Nguyen
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Nguyen
Anthony
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
David
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
David
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Robert
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lindsay
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Giampietro
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Terrance
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Stephen
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Andrew
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Andrew
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Robert
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Rodolfo
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Rodolfo
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
James
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
James
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Elliott
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Chan
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Jacob
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jacob
nathan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
nathan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Aaron
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Michael
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Michael
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jeff
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jim
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Stephen
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
George
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kade
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
David
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
David
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Seth
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
john
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Rick
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Tom
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gerald
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jeff
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Michael
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
lee
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Jeremy
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
David
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
joseph
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
mike
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Ola
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Ola
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)