Not Too Tight!

You’ve probably often heard it said that you mustn’t grip the club too tightly. It tenses the muscles of the wrists and arms and prevents you swinging properly.

Legendary player and coach Ernest Jones had this to say about tension and its effects on golf: “Tenseness is the insurmountable barrier to swinging, because swinging implies a free, easy rhythm, which can never be achieved in the face of tenseness.” Again, “If there is tenseness in either the hands or the arms or in the legs, it will absolutely forestall the swinging action at the start.”

This morning I put that advice to the test. I keep a 9-iron in the lounge to practice rhythm and swing, and this morning I concentrated on altering the tension in my hands, wrists and forearms and seeing the effect it had on a free, swinging action. I started out swinging the club back and forth, not worrying too much about posture. I simply wanted to establish a smooth, rhythmic, pendulum kind of half-swing with the club.

Then I deliberately loosened my grip so that it was barely strong enough to control the club – about a 2 out of 10 degree of firmness. Gradually, as I swung the club back and forth, I increased the firmness of my grip until it was about 6 or 7 out of 10, and watched for changes in the motion of the club in the process.

The results were striking. There is no question that when my grip was most relaxed, the club swung freely and easily. I had the sense that the club itself was the main thing (rather than my arms and hands trying to hit something with the club). The moment I began to increase tension in my hands and forearms, however, the nature of the club’s motion changed. It didn’t swing so freely or easily, eventually becoming quite rigid and somewhat jerky in its movements (corresponding more exactly to the movement of my hands and arms). Furthermore, its swing plane changed and became more erratic.

This little experiment left me with no doubt at all that the advice “Hold the club just securely enough to assure control of it throughout the stroke”, is good advice. Try the above exercise yourself and I think you will agree.