Every new piece of technology reveals something new and interesting about the golf swing.
When it comes to grip pressure—meaning, how hard you should squeeze the grip while you swing—we started with word of mouth. Sam Snead's famous 'hold the club like a baby bird' quote, and Tiger Woods talking about the time he used a grip training aid that beeped any time he squeezed too firmly—which happened often.
As teachers began measuring it, they found two things:
- That a person's grip strength is a great indicator of clubhead speed. In other words, the firmer you can grip, the more likely you are to swing fast.
- That golfers may feel like they're not squeezing firmly, but they're also very strong. So what feels like a soft grip to them is actually very firm in absolute terms. Golf Digest Best in State Teacher Jon Tattersall has a good explanation of that below...
In short, a weak grip likely means slow swing, with the club falling out of your hands to create a fake-long backswing. No good.
Technology is getting even more advanced. Now teachers can use grip sensors to see exactly how firmly golfers swing with each hand as they swing. And it's revealing some interesting stuff.
Golf Digest Best in State Teacher Liam Mucklow is behind the research, which he presented at golf's Open Forum summit last year. Here's a quick breakdown of what he found:
- At setup, better players are squeezing the grip at about 45% of their maximum capability.
- Higher handicaps only squeeze the grip at about 25% of their maximum capability.
"Tour pros are squeezing it way harder to begin with than anybody else, and they're stronger than anyone else, too," Mucklow says.
This sets the stage for the key difference:
- Higher handicap golfers grip lightly to begin, then gradually grip firmer as they swing.
- Pros, Mucklow found, start by gripping the club firmer, then actually begin gripping softer with their trail hand (right hand for right-handed golfers, left hand for lefties) during their downswing.
"So the high handicapper starts with nothing then absolutely squeezes the crap out of it as they swing. They're the only group that had higher trail hand grip pressure than lead hand," Mucklow says. "The only group that had a decrease in grip pressure with their trail hand in this transition phase is the group of professionals."
How this information can help you
O. B. Keeler
It's not enough to draw definitive conclusions, but consider this a where-there's-smoke-there's-fire situation.
Mucklow says there's something here to suggest that gripping the club softly at first, then squeezing the daylights out of the grip with your right hand on the downswing as most amateurs do may cause you to get steep and prevent you from releasing the club, causing swing flaws like chicken wings.
Gripping firmer at the start then feeling like your right hand gradually gets softer as you swing seems to help you drop the club and release the club.
A couple of tips from pros to help you do that:
- Bobby Jones, who had an incredible knack for figuring out basically everything, said he used to think about squeezing as hard with the bottom three fingers of his lead hand (left hand for right-handed golfers), and keeping it loose everywhere else.
- Viktor Hovland will often practice making full swings with the bottom few fingers of his right hand removed from the club. With fewer fingers on the club with your right hand, it's basically impossible to grip firmly with that hand.