Best Way to Hold Your Golf Clubs

How you hold your clubs is all-important to your game. Your grip controls the height, distance and direction of your shots and is the same with all the clubs except the putter. A beginner should learn it with a 7 iron.

• Sit the club squarely on the ground. The leading edge – the front of the bottom of the clubhead -should point directly away from you and be facing the target. Any line or mark on the grip is directly down the front. Just steady the top of the club with your right thumb and index finger.

• Hang your left hand loosely down to the side of the club shaft, with the fingertips pointing directly downwards.
• Fold the left hand so the thumb and fingers take hold of the club. Now take the right hand away. The club should sit diagonally on the fingers of your left hand with your thumb resting slightly down the right side – it should not feel stretched. The inset picture shows how your left hand should look on the club as you hold it up in front of you – with the thumb slightly down the right-hand side.
• Lift the club out in front of you and look for these guidelines. The line (or V) between the thumb and index finger should point up towards your right ear or shoulder, not your chin. If you wear a glove you should see part of the logo on the glove. If you don’t wear a glove, expect to see two or three knuckles – not one, not all four. With the hand folded over correctly, the fingertips shouldn’t be visible.
• With the club still in front of you, place your right hand so the club sits on the middle joints or tips of all four fingers. Fold the right hand over to complete your grip.
• The left thumb fits snugly into the palm of the right hand. The right index finger is ‘triggered’ away from the second finger with a definite gap between the two. The thumb is not straight down the front of the club. The thumb and index finger are split apart with the thumb down the left side of the club The V between the thumb and index finger should point between the right ear and right shoulder.

• The powerful trigger position of the right index finger. The tip of the finger hardly touches the club. You want the power in the finger facing the target and not pulling away from it.
• Check Hold the club up in front of you. In a good grip the hands look elegant. The right index finger is beneath and beyond the thumb. Ensure the clubface is square. Golf grips are not perfectly round but slightly egg-shaped. You should feel a slight ridge in your fingers. Close your eyes, turn the club and feel how you can keep the club square even without looking at the clubface.