Gripping My Golf Club Too Tight

/ The Grateful Golfer

Grip it and rip it! Let the big dog eat! Swing Away! I guess I could go on, but you must be getting the idea of a theme by now. As my 45+ year golf journey unfolded, the advice of the experts was to grip my golf club tight enough to hold on to it during my entire swing. The challenge with that advice is that it really does not explain how to accomplish this important swing technique. Just how tight is tight enough because I do not want to lose my club during my swing from the force during all phases of my swing plane. It really can be a challenge for beginners to understand what gripping the club just right means to executing my most efficient swing. So, what does gripping my club too tight actually mean?

Much like the Goldilocks’s analogy, the just right grip tension is important to fluidity and effective physical movement. My musings leads me down the path to the ultimate question; what is the proper grip tension? Lets have Butch Harmon explain:

I have worked on my grip pressure for years. My failing sometimes is that I do grip the club too tight. Especially when I am trying to hit the farther. I tense up thinking it will help, but alas it does not. Most of the time I miss hit the ball on my club face because my club does not fluidly move through impact. I usually slice the ball much to my dismay.

For me, I hold the club just tight enough so that if some tries to pull it out of my hands I have a grip and it will not release. If they really yank on the club, it will pop out of my hands. I realize that this a relative thing and is hard to describe until you actually have someone try and pull your club. Once I determined what that grip pressure is I was able to adjust slightly to ensure I could develop the proper grip pressure for my swing. Regardless of the grip you use, the pressure will need to be determine. Keep in mind that everyone’s will be slightly different and only you can determine what works for your game.

Grip pressure is important. I affects distance, ball flight, and swing mechanics. Determining the proper grip pressure for your swing is something that will take a bit of trial and error.

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!

5 thoughts on “Gripping My Golf Club Too Tight”

  1. Pingback: How to Properly Hold a Golf Club – Golfer Kingdom

  2. Our natural instincts can play havoc with our game. Things like gripping harder when we should be doing the opposite happen a lot to us amateurs working to improve our games. I’ve taken to going so far as to just assuming I’ve got it backwards and trying to work a problem from the other side when they arise. And not all that surprisingly, it’s helped get me back on track a little faster often enough I’m still doing it when I’m on the course and things aren’t going the way I want them to.

    Spent my first 15 minutes on our little range today swinging without a ball. I had two tees in the ground and I was just swinging for all I was worth and trying to get the club bottoming out between the tees every time. I moved them back as I had to, but did pretty well. Better than usual. I pretty much dug a foot and a half long trench. lol But it did the job well enough. The first ball I hit landed 3 feet off the pin.

    Love that drill. It’s the single best one I’ve ever taken up.

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    Reply

      • 😂 I didn’t even retrieve the ball. I left it there for whoever came out next for some practice. It was just a ball I found in the deeper rough near where I was doing the swing practice. One that apparently came through the hedge that protects the tee area from a par 3 hole that runs next to the range.

        I walked away instead to get in practice hitting my driver and fairway wood on one of the par 4’s on the nine hole course the range is attached to.

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