How firm should the fingers and hands hold the club?

We hear all types of thoughts or beliefs about this subject. I have also mentioned it many times in online forums and social media posts, as well as some videos on this very site.

Bryson DeChambeau sums it up quite nicely right here.

It is quite easy to look at Ben Hogan and comprehend that he had a very firm grip on the club. You must if you are swinging that fast and want to control a club that is trying to swing away from you, just by centrifugal force.

Hogan was quoted " Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club, don't you? This quote kind of tells you exactly how firmly a grip on the club is needed to control it.

Jackie Burke, whom I was fortunate to spend some time with during my Secret Golf filming with Steve Elkington, tells a similar story about Sam Snead.

"Sam told us to feel like we were holding a bird with our hands on the club... but what Snead didn't tell you was that bird he was talking about was a hawk."

When students work on the drill one of my training series, they become very aware of a firmer tighter grip to control the club. They use the impact bag to strike into and the strength and awareness builds into their hands.

Gripping firmly doesn't mean the arms also need to be tight and tense. You can hold a club firmly with the hands while still maintaining soft tension free arms.

It also makes sense that gripping the club reasonably firm to begin with would help eliminate regripping or twisting of the hands on the grip. We are going to tense up in anticipation of striking something, in this case the ball. So putting some tension in there to start with will create more feel and awareness of the hands and they will be easier to keep firm and controlled ad remove much of the manipulation if the clubface by using the hands less themselves.

Gravitate towards what the drill work tells you and you will ultimately have the same belief as Bryson, Hogan, Jackie and myself.

Holding the wristcock at impact and beyond is the key component to returning the shaft and clubhead back to strike point almost identical to their original orientation at address.

We do not want to uncock the wrists to strike the ball. This would move the shaft up higher than it started and would also slow the hands down and twist the clubface off direction.

It's no surprise that the beginning of this work is drill one and 430 path drill.

We use forearm rotation to speed the shaft and hands up. But, we dont let the wrists fully uncock by using that forearm rotation. 

Here is Henry Cotton explaining how the "left hand has to turn down." That is drill one in real life mentioned by a three-time Open Champion.

Cotton became a renowned instructor after his tournament play ceased. He knew the 430 path and, therefore, it isn't crazy to understand he also had his own version of drill one for his students where they would strike a tire to increase their wrist strength.

Gary Player wrote hundreds of articles for golf books and magazines. This is one of my favorites and it 100% implies the drill one release I teach golfers.

He is describing the release of the club is done by the forearms. It is drill one in a nutshell. To maintain a firm structured wrist pattern the forearms must rotate and increase the speed of the hands and the grip in the process.

Great players truly knew what they were doing. It is very wise to listen to them. Player won over 150 tournaments worldwide, including completing the Grand Slam on the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour.

His golf swing was as good as anyone's to ever play the game, despite what many may say.

If you can fly across the world like Player did and get off a plane the day before an event on the other side of the world and win those events then you have a golf swing that is repetitively sound and fiercely correct in it's attributes.

Don't let people fool you into believing his swing was not good and that the only reason he did so well was because he worked out and had ultimate belief in himself. Those things help but his golf swing was one everybody should admire and learn from.

If the backswing was so important to making a golfer strike the ball well and produce a repeatable golf swing then why do the golfers in these pictures have different styles at the top of their swing? Is it really a fundamental to playing good golf?

The answer is NO. It isn't a fundamental - however - the answer could also be a resounding YES. Yes because how we position ourselves at the top of the swing can set forth the entire motion of the downswing and create the path to produce the desired result.

The real importance of the backswing is we HAVE to find the best top of the swing position for each of US. 

If every person is built differently, views things differently through eye dominance, has varying degrees of strength in certain body areas, has different ball positions because of release point and have different equipment in style and in lie angles and length then it stands to reason that all trying to make the perfect backswing shouldn't be too high on the priority list of things to really concentrate on while hitting a shot. This becomes even more true when we consider the target we are aiming for is in front and to the left of us (right-handed golfer). With our target out there, the forward part of the swing is more critical than what is happening back and behind us.

We have all witnessed golfers on the driving range obsessing over their backswing position. Unfortunately, many driving ranges are blessed with some of the best looking backswings you could imagine, followed by the most dreadful impact position you could wish for. The major problem with backswing obsession is that from the top of the backswing — even the most perfect ones, EVERYTHING alters as the change of direction begins.

This is the very reason I teach students in the order that I do. While it may sound backwards to teach a golfer the release and strike first, then the footwork and ground forces secondly and the through swing as the third piece of the puzzle, this order of learning allows them to find the most efficient backswing that leads them back to the important stuff we have already learned.

A great example of this was a student I had very early on in my instruction days. He had been to over a dozen instructors in his quest to fix his backswing and all to no avail. His backswing was very upright with his hands way up above his ears and head, almost to the point he had to look through his arms to see directly down at the ball. Through the "church steeple" as I called it. After working on my drill one for twenty minutes we went and hit some balls again. I filmed his very first swing and then went back inside to show him the vision. He laughed. He even tried to tell me that wasn't him on the computer screen. I assured him it was since he had the same clothes on. Dumbfounded by how different and "perfect" his backswing now looked, he asked me "How on earth did you do that?"

It was easy. Whilst all the other instructors were focusing on his poor top of the swing position and trying to alter that, I went the other route. I taught him the proper visuals of entry and how the delivery and release should function and, voilà — his backswing altered to suit this new logic of where and how to strike the ball properly. Problem solved.

What can we learn from the address position of a great player such as Curtis Strange?

For starters, Strange has set himself up in a nice balanced orientation — especially with the width of his stance.

With a driver, the stance should be wide enough, so if we drew a line down from each shoulder, that line would drop vertically down very close to the insides of the feet. That is the stance necessary to remain in balance once the club starts moving up and around the body with motion.

This would alter to a slightly narrower stance for long irons and fairway woods. The stance would then again decrease in width for mid-irons — where the lines would drop and fall into the middle of the feet. And once more we can narrow the feet a little more for short irons where the shoulders will be aligned closer to the outsides of the feet.

The right shoulder is lower than the left for various reasons. The right hand is lower on the club AND the stance width being wide for a driver naturally tilts the shoulders. Never try and tilt the  body. That is unnecessary and not needed if the stance width is correct.

The arms form a triangle. Letting the arms hang correctly downwards without tension creates the diamond shape at address. This is useful for a one piece takeaway- a swing thought quoted by most of the very best golfers and instructors. This triangle stays intact for as long as possible until the right arm begins to naturally fold once it can't stay straight any longer.

Weight distribution should feel 50-50 on either leg. Never feel the body or the legs leaning left or right. You may feel more over the right side with a wider stance just as you may feel more on the left side when the stance is narrower.

Ball position never allters for any normal full swing. Keep the ball relative to the left foot for every club. That is the low point where the left arm and shaft want to align straight.

So what has really changed from Strange's address position compared to his impact position?

BTW — I hate the word position for impact!! It is not really a position. It is a pass-through point. A moment in the swing and not truly a goal or a consideration when swinging the club in motion.

Many believe the hands need to be pushed forward for impact. Strange proves that theory wrong. His left arm and shaft are in a corresponding straight line, like the arm is an extension of the club. There is no instinct to shove or force the hands forward in an attempt to strike the ball.

The right arm is not thrusting or straightening, it has remained bent. Yes, it is being used to create power and release the club, but its structure remains almost identical to where it started at setup.

The head. In relation to the tree in the backdrop, Strange's head is practically unchanged. It is ever so slightly tilted backwards and the eye line has shifted slightly to match that.

The left shoulder has raised gently, and the right shoulder has dropped. Showing a more tilted shoulder pattern than where he began. This shows a nice inside approach to the ball. A higher right shoulder at this stage would insist the swing path came across the line in its attempt to hit the ball.

The only distinct change is how the legs have functioned. The legs have moved laterally forwards toward the target. They are not spinning open. If the hips and lower half move forwards, then the hips and body begin to open. If they didn't open, the player would fall over. The balance of the human body will insist we open up rather than continue to move forwards.

The left leg has not snapped straight. It is bent, supportive and stable. Golfers that snap the lead leg straight are using power too soon or snapping the leg in an attempt to get the torso moving from its stalled movement. Leg snappers are generally golfers who throw the hands at the ball and straighten the right arm. A weak, inconsistent way to try and generate speed, always in the wrong area of the swing.

The right leg and knee are driving forwards. This shows an excellent inward push of pressure still working into the right leg for as long as possible. With a driver the right heel will generally lift because of the weight shifting from the wider stance.

Strange's wrists are ideal at impact. The left wrist has flattened out slightly more than it was at his address spot. The right wrist is bent and pushing forward. These are in correlation to his great legwork and lateral motion of the lower half whilst keeping the upper body behind the ball and closed off for as long as possible in the downswing.

In conclusion, never judge a still photo just from appearance alone. A good number of golf enthusiasts and instructors try to mimic still photos of positions. The swing, however, is a dynamic motion.

In Curtis Strange's instance, we were able to witness one of the game's straightest hitters who would perform well under intense pressure. He excelled at US Open venues where a premium was placed and accuracy and his swing is living proof that he controlled the clubface and the hitting zone to a higher standard than most of his rivals at the time.

Address and Impact - They aren't as far apart as you have been told or may think.

Many golfers' sole focus is believing that positions throughout the swing are important. They stand on the range working through each stage of the swing like a robot. Rehearsing positions and putting in angles along the various phases of the swing. They try and put the club in positions they have read about or been told about.

Movement, motion & force are much more important than any particular look or position.

How long is the golf club going to actually be exactly parallel to the plane on the downswing?

A 10,000th of a second?

The club is moving somewhere close to 100 miles per hour so the moment that parallel or a position happens, the swing is too hard to replicate and certainly nothing your brain can possibly wrap itself around.

On the other hand, how long do we usually see the club moving down the plane line from our bird's eye view of the 430 path — the club coming from behind us with cocked wrists and rotated forearms?

We see this visual unfolding out the corner of our right eye a thousand times longer. This is something we can wrap our minds around both visually, mechanically and from a feel standpoint. The 430 line is very much a visual reality because our eyes are not inline with the plane.

The importance of this path towards impact is why I teach it straight away. It is the first stop. Drill one.

There are not a lot of straight lines in the golf swing, it's much more about arcs and ovals. Even the straightest thing — the shaft — is arcing with flex.

The important factor is to understand visually what these ovals and arcs need to look like from our perspective — the golfer's viewpoint — from the visual command post (two eyes socketed into the head) and what these rotational forces need to feel like from the ground up in various pressure points within the body.

The 430 path gives the golfer a far greater general reference for the path of the hands and the delivery of the butt-end of the club into the release area. It also helps remind us to get busy and fire via the forearm rotation that uncocks the wrist and rotates the clubface and the shaft into the back of the ball.

Arcs and ovals are much easier to understand and functional from the 430 line rather than the plane line. The illusions are great given the eyes are up above and inside the swing plane. That's why, with Drill one, we get straight into solving this illusion and getting things immediately on the right track,

The role of the hands in the golf swing has been discussed forever in the golfing landscape. Yet there is truly only one real role the hands have. And that is to be set on the club in a manner that enables the club face to be controlled through the swing void of manipulation and in a way that returns the club face back to square at the moment of impact.

As mythical as it may sound — the ONLY role the hands play is to HOLD onto the club.

In a good repeatable golf swing, it's the other areas of the body that make the role of the hands easier. The hands don't attempt to hit the ball. The unwinding of the forearms and wrists uncock the hands down onto the strike.

An educated player can often feel things that are sometimes not quite right or that some part of the action is out of position and then they can do something with the hands in an effort to still create the intended shot. That should not, however, be a common theme.

If you don't believe me, then see the following quotes from some of the greatest golfers ever.

"Passive hands is not meant to mean inactive hands. Our hands will be as active as we need them to be IF we let them move along with the rest of the body." George Knudson

Knudson is saying the hands react. They don't run the show.

"The hands' main role is to hold onto the club. They don't hit. You should never add anything with your hands. Let them go down the fairway with your body and if your hands are holding the club they will go with it." Jackie Burke Jnr

The hands, therefore, are only there to save you. They don't control the swing. They hold the club and react to the beautiful sequence of the other moving parts.

I recently had a lesson with a young girl who had an excellent swing and could hit the ball reasonably well. But, she was losing her turn and her balance on her backswing. She wasn't turning into a stable right leg and hip and was swaying her upper body away from the target line, getting herself into a position of weakness that she had to recover from.

The easy fix to her allowing her to feel how her body should turn properly and her legs should support that turn was to put the Down Under board between her feet, squeezing inwards against the board with both feet inwards and downwards and making some backswings.

From just having the board inside her feet gave her a balance point in her feet and legs, and it provided the sensation of a bigger turn around and into that right leg and hip.

In the photos we can see the difference in the shape of her body and its turn. The board also allowed her to get a nice lateral bump forwards from the lower half to start the downswing. Void of sliding and void of having to shift the upper body back into a spot that is again centered on a orientation where the strike is more consistent.

Backswing trouble?

Put the Down Under board down on the ground and squeeze it strongly between the feet. Make nice slow backswings. Backswings ONLY to begin with.  And feel how the pressure works into the right heel and right hip with a full turn but not an overturn. The body will form a solid base of stability which you can then ingrain into your swing every single time just by using the feet in the same way even when the board is not below and being able to used to create that turn against the resistance.

The most consistent strikers on a daily basis had the uncanny ability to return the shaft back to impact in a very similar orientation to how it was aligned in the original address position.

Karrie Webb was an amazing player. I am just using her as an example here in the photos, as she even admitted it herself — raised the handle just like most golfers are prone to doing. She starts with the shaft at setup, pointing towards her belt line and by the time impact occurs, the shaft has been raised significantly higher — almost all the way up to her armpit or shoulder line.

This contorts the body. The spine angle lifts upwards and out of posture. The wrists uncock upwards, altering the path of the club more to the right. More often than not, this also alters the orientation of the clubface. This is a tendency of most golfers. Karrie is obviously able to control these alterations better than most, but it does bring in a lot of compensations into the equation which need to be managed on a daily basis. 

Moe Norman, on the other hand, setup with the shaft much higher at address - up towards the shoulder plane. He was then also able to return the shaft to the exact same plane again for impact. He even softened the right arm slightly and gained knee flex.  Moe was obviously touted as one of the premier ballstrikers in the history of golf. For this very reason.

Viktor Hovland is another great example of the shaft returning to impact very similar to how it was aligned on the ground at address. His posture is still intact with his tush line staying back. He also exhibits a beautiful 430 entry path which her transfers into the forearm release of drill one. This is very much the ONLY way the shaft can be returned this way- back to where it once started.

He is not alone. Hogan, Snead, Trevino, Garcia were all masters of returning the club to the strike where it started from. They were all implementing the "hitters" release that I teach students. "Swingers" will let momentum pull the shaft up as the arms run away from the torso, just like Webb and so many others have in the past 30 years, since equipment — lighter and longer - brought some far worse physics into mainstream golf and the swing beliefs.

Growing up only a few good drivers away from Rossdale Golf Club — located on the outskirts of the famous Melbourne sand belt — meant one thing. Practice. I practiced a lot in my formative years. Not only did I spend 10–12 hours a day at the course in an effort to improve. I loved it. I truly loved practicing.

I sometimes slept in a tent on the driving range having the birds or the grounds crew mowers wake me up at first light. I would often be the very first golfer there each day. Call me dedicated or stupid, but I was infatuated with golf and learning how to control the ball and get it into the hole in as few strokes as possible.

Do you expect results because you put the work in? Do results come from loving what you do? It's a great question. And it applies to any form of life and not just to golf.

How do you practice? Are you practicing because you love it OR are you practicing because society says you have to if you want to become better? Are you working on the game as a whole? 

Do you separate time for technique and also work on your routine and visualization void of technical thoughts? Are you a range rat constantly tinkering or do you put that work into practice where it matters most — out on the course.

In the late 1990s, I learned a great lesson. I was working hard on my game in Orlando but wasn't seeing many great results. I was frustrated, believing I deserved some reward for the effort, yet it wasn't forthcoming.

I was paired with Lanny Wadkins in the final round of the Houston Open, and he asked me where I played in Orlando when I was home. When I informed him I had practiced at a few places in the area, he told me upfront. "I know it may cost you some money, but you need to join a club and get out and play more on the course. That's the aspect you are missing — it's not your swing at all."

A week later, I joined Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club at a substantial cost. However, just like Lanny had told me, it enabled me to play out on a golf course more and get feedback on whether my practice on the range was working. And could that practice then be transferred over to the course? Even though it wasn't tournament golf, at least I was out playing golf and not just playing  golf swing.

The rewards came just a few weeks later.  I had a runner-up finish in the CVS Classic in Boston. Money spent was money earned.  I had forgotten how to play the game of golf because I was so intent on practicing golf.