Hello, my name is Conan Elliott, and I'm director of instruction for Teacher of Champions Golf Schools here in Camas Meadows Golf Club in Camas, Washington. Today, we are going to talk about the grip. Well, it's been one of the most talked about topics over the years and years of golf that there is. And you know, it is probably the most important part of the whole golf swing. It's actually your grip is your steering wheel. It's how you make the golf club, the face of the club go where you want it to go. If we get our hands on the golf club for example, here is my left hand facing the back of my hand to the sky my club faces at the target. When I swing the golf club, if I square my hand up to the target which is natural, my face gets shut. The opposite goes if I have my hand too far under and I would come to the square face, my face would be way to the right. So, having my hands on the golf club correctly is the start of all good golf swings. Just like your steering wheel on your car. If you turn it left you'd like your car to go left. If you turn it right, you'd like for it to go right. We can't have opposites and that's what we build into our swing out of bad grips. Wrong grips causes to swing incorrectly and reverse the action to try to make it work. Therefore, we get very inconsistent. So, the way the club should work in the hand is the fingers, the club should lay across the fingers of the left hand, up and under the little pad on the back of your hand. So, I want to lay the club in the fingers, up under the pad so that the back of my hand and my club face are equal with each other. So, wherever my hand goes, that's where my face is going. A good way to try that is if you put it on correctly, take the back three fingers of your hand off and your thumb off you'll be able to lever the pressure of that club between your index finger and the pad. If you have it on there incorrectly, when you do that if will fall out. So, through your fingers, back of the hand, thumb pretty much down the middle of that golf club toward the face. Now, the right hand, the biggest problem we see in golf is usually the right hand. For people tend to lay the hand, club up in their hand. As soon as that occurs, when you close the fingers again the hand is way back under the golf club. So again, we want the club to lay in the fingers, the lifeline of the right hand will fit in and lay on the left thumb. That's what they designed that for, think about it. We don't use it for anything else in life. That piece right there. But, it sure does fit the other hand wonderfully in the golf swing. In the fingers, the lifeline on the thumb. I like to see a little trigger finger of the right hand. Make sure your hands always feel like they're back on that golf club. Not forward on the golf club like a baseball. Back here, back here, back. In the fingers, pull back, make the lifeline fit. So, now the palm of my hand is at the target. The back of my hand at the target. Where ever my hands go, the face goes. A good way to test that is to when you hold it in front of your eyes, that we see two knuckles only of your left hand, not all your knuckles. And that we see no fingertips of the right and right here. So, that would be, I'll hold it out here. Two knuckles and no fingertips. A nice V of your right hand and index finger right there. Two knuckles, no fingertips, nice V. Now, there is one other thing...part of it and that's whether we overlap our pinkie finger over our index finger, interlock it or have all ten fingers on the club. None of those three matter a whole lot. They have more to do with strength. I think that people with a lot of strength and big hands, long fingers, should overlap. People with shorter fingers, not quite as much strength interlock. And people with very little strength and small hands more into a ten finger. So, if we showed you that grip left-handed for those of you that are left-handed, it would just be the reverse of what we just said. In the right hand, under the fingers, in the pad, be able to hold it there. Back of the hand the same as the face, in the fingers of the back hand. Lifeline covers the thumb, trigger finger with a V. So, here would it be, here it would be left-handed. Two knuckles, thumb down, in the fingers, cover with the lifeline, form a V. Again overlap, interlock, ten finger. The position of those interlock, overlap and ten finger with your pinkie finger is not nearly as important as the positioning of your hands on the golf club related to the face. This is Conan Elliott, and that's the golf grip.
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