Most golfers treat the grip as a formality before the “real” swing begins. It is the opposite. How you place your hands on the club influences where the clubface points at impact, the compensations your body builds into the motion and, in the end, the flight of the ball. But the grip does not decide ball flight on its own. Understanding why is what lets you change it on purpose, instead of swapping one fault for another.
What tennis taught me about the golf grip
I want to start with an old story from the golf equipment business. In the late 1980s, Cobra Golf, based in Carlsbad, California, put Mark McClure in charge of its marketing. McClure was a former ski instructor turned golf professional, and he brought with him a habit common among ski manufacturers: put the gear in the hands of the people who advise players. Cobra sent clubs to club professionals, who could lend them to their pupils, then buy them at a discount or send them back.
Combined with the arrival of Greg Norman, then the dominant figure in world golf and a shareholder in the company, that approach turned Cobra within a few years into one of the names that mattered, and the reference for oversized irons in the early 1990s. The story has stayed with me ever since, because it carries a simple lesson: in business as in sport, answers often come from looking at what other fields already do.
That is exactly how I came back to the grip. I now play tennis regularly, and I have seen how much a change of racket grip transforms a shot. Moving from a continental to a semi-western forehand grip changes the angle of the strings at contact, and with it the direction, height and spin of the ball. It starts in the hand, but the player then has to adapt the contact point and the mechanics of the whole stroke.
It is hard not to ask the same question in golf. If a few degrees of hand rotation can reshape a forehand, what happens when you change your hands on a golf club, with a far smaller face and a stationary ball you are trying to send 160 yards? The answer is more subtle than it first appears, and it is what this article is about.
The grip is your only connection to the club
The swing uses the whole body, but everything the legs, hips and shoulders produce reaches the club through one place: the hands. If that connection is poorly organised, the rest of the motion spends its time correcting it.
Yet when golfers talk about “the grip”, they often mix up four different things, and it pays to separate them:
- Hand position on the handle: this is what defines a neutral, strong or weak grip, and the heart of this article.
- Grip pressure: how tightly the fingers hold the club, whatever the hand position.
- How the hands are linked: overlapping (Vardon), interlocking or ten-finger (baseball).
- Grip size: the diameter of the grip itself, which is an equipment question.
The most common confusion is between the first two. A “weak” grip is not a grip held without force: it describes hands rotated towards the target. A “strong” grip is not a tight grip: it describes hands rotated the other way. You can hold a strong grip very softly, or squeeze a weak one far too hard.
What really sets ball flight: face and path
Before comparing grips, it helps to recall what makes a ball fly one way rather than another. Launch monitors such as Trackman have made it measurable, and what is often called the “new ball flight laws” comes down to two impact parameters.
- Face angle at impact sets most of the ball’s starting direction. A face open to the target (pointing right for a right-hander) starts the ball right; a closed face starts it left.
- Face-to-path sets the curve. If the face is closed relative to the path, the ball curves left (a draw, then a hook as the gap grows). If it is open relative to the path, the ball curves right (a fade, then a slice).
Take an example. A club path 4 degrees to the right (in-to-out) with a face 2 degrees open to the target starts the ball slightly right and brings it back towards the target: a draw. The same path with a face 6 degrees open starts the ball right and keeps it going right. The path has not changed; only the face has, and the curve has reversed.
This is where the most widespread misunderstanding about the grip sits. You often read that a strong grip “gives you a draw” and a weak grip “gives you a fade”. That is a shortcut. Hand position influences the face at impact, sometimes a great deal. But curvature also depends on the path. The grip acts first on how you manage the face; it can then lead to a reorganisation of the path, as we will see, without dictating it on its own. A strong grip combined with a steep out-to-in path can just as easily produce a pull to the left as a tidy draw.
Neutral, strong, weak: three hand positions
Once your hands are on the club, the thumb and index finger of each hand form a “V”. Where those Vs point, and how many knuckles of the lead hand you can see at address, tell you what kind of grip you have. The checkpoints below are for a right-handed golfer; left-handers simply reverse them.
| Neutral grip | Strong grip | Weak grip | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hand position | Lead hand neither on top of nor beside the handle | Hands turned to the right, trail hand more under the handle | Hands turned to the left, trail hand more on top |
| Where the Vs point | Between the chin and the right shoulder | At the right shoulder or beyond | At the chin, or towards the left shoulder |
| Lead-hand knuckles visible | About two | Three or more | One or none |
| Effect on the face | Favours neither opening nor closing | Face more easily closed at impact | Face more easily open at impact |
| Can help | Players who already control the face | Players whose face arrives open (slice) | Players whose face closes too fast (hook) |
| Risk if it doesn’t suit you | Little correction for a pronounced fault | Pulls, hooks, delofted strikes | Pushes, slices, lost distance |
The neutral grip is the reference position in most teaching. It favours neither opening nor closing the face, which leaves the rest of the swing responsible for delivering it square. That suits players who control their rotation and their clubface. For a beginner whose face arrives open every time, it is not necessarily the best starting point: it corrects nothing.
The strong grip puts the lead hand more on top of the handle and the trail hand underneath. At impact, as the hands return close to their address position, the face tends to arrive more closed. It can therefore help a golfer who slices, provided an open face really is part of the problem and the rest of the swing does not immediately compensate. It also often reduces dynamic loft, the loft the club actually presents at contact: the ball launches lower and faster, which can be an asset or a problem depending on your game.
The weak grip does the opposite: the face arrives open more easily and closes more slowly through impact. It can help a golfer with very active hands who hooks the ball. But for a player whose face already arrives open, it makes the slice worse and often adds loft, at the expense of distance.
None of these three grips is better in absolute terms. Tour golf proves the point: you will find clearly strong grips, clearly weak ones, and great champions who changed theirs over the course of a career. But for those players, the grip is part of a coherent whole (lead-wrist position, body rotation, club path) built over thousands of hours. Copying a champion’s grip without the rest makes little sense.
Compensations: why changing your grip can also make things worse
A golfer who has played for years without regular lessons almost always ends up with a set-up that “works”. Without realising it, the body has adjusted grip, posture, alignment and path so that the ball goes roughly where it should. Each fault is balanced by another. That is why changing the grip in isolation rarely does what you expect: you are removing one piece of a balance built over years.
Two very common scenarios show how.
The slicer who strengthens the grip without changing the path. The face arrives open. To stop the ball finishing too far right, the body has learned to swing out-to-in, coming over the top with the shoulders. A stronger grip closes the face: good. But if the path stays out-to-in, the ball now starts left and stays there, or curves further left. The slice has gone, replaced by a pull. The golfer concludes that “a strong grip doesn’t work for me”, when the fix was simply incomplete.
The hooker who weakens the grip without changing the path. The path is strongly in-to-out and the face closes quickly. With a weaker grip, the face stays more open: the ball no longer curves as far left, but it starts well right and stays there. That is a push, sometimes a push-fade.
In both cases, the grip change made sense, but it called for a change of path as well. That is why coaches often start there. “The grip is the first thing I look at when I give a lesson. When you struggle with ball flight, it is the first thing you should look at,” Lyon-based coach Massimo Vinaccia told me. Another French teaching professional, Michel Delbos, recommends a stronger grip “for a pupil who tends to come over the top or who slices the ball too much”, but always as part of wider work on the swing.
Before you touch your grip, make the right diagnosis
- Where does the ball start? A ball that consistently starts right or left of the target tells you first about the face.
- How does it curve? The curve tells you about the relationship between face and path.
- Is the fault consistent? A steady slice and shots spraying in every direction do not call for the same answer. A grip change corrects a tendency, not inconsistency.
- What do the numbers say? Even a short launch-monitor session can separate a face problem from a path problem within a few shots.
- What do you want from the change? Straighter shots, more distance, better compression with your irons: the goal determines the adjustment, and how far to take it.
My own switch from a weak grip to a strong one
I have lived this compensation mechanism from the inside. For years I fought shots that curved hard from right to left. My swing has always had a naturally in-to-out path, made worse by a tendency to let my left shoulder dive towards the target. Without noticing, I had settled into a weak grip, which calmed down the closing of the face and let me hit the ball more or less straight.
During a session at the MyGolfMedia studio, Massimo Vinaccia nonetheless asked me to try a strong grip. His goal was not direction: he could see that I often caught my irons low on the face, with an angle of attack that was too shallow. The launch monitor measured the difference over a comparable series of shots with an 8-iron (38° loft):
| Trackman data, 8-iron (right-hander; + = right, − = left) | Weak grip | Strong grip |
|---|---|---|
| Club speed | 70 mph | 75 mph (later up to 78 mph) |
| Ball speed | 93 mph | 99 mph |
| Dynamic loft | 26° | 24° |
| Club path, relative to target | +1° (in-to-out) | +4° (in-to-out) |
| Face angle, relative to target | −3° (closed) | −3.7° (closed) |
| Face-to-path | −4° | −7.7° |
| Offline, left | 9 yd | 14 yd |
The distance gain was immediate: around 11 yards more carry, to the point where my 8-iron was flying the distance of my 7-iron. The strong grip freed the hands through impact, where the weak grip had acted like a brake. But these numbers need reading with care. Ball speed rose mainly because club speed rose: the ratio between the two, smash factor, stayed almost flat (about 1.33 with the weak grip, 1.32 with the strong one). Nothing suggests better contact. The lower dynamic loft may have changed impact conditions, but these measurements cannot isolate its share of the result. And the angle of attack, the original reason for the change, barely moved in this first session.
Above all, direction got worse exactly as the theory predicts. The face closed slightly more, the path moved further in-to-out, and the gap between the two went from about 4 to almost 8 degrees. The result: more shots left, precisely what I had spent years fighting. My old weak grip was not an isolated mistake; it was a compensation.
The grip change only made sense with other adjustments. Massimo asked me to keep my hands further ahead of the clubhead through impact, so as not to over-close the face, and to stop my left shoulder moving towards the target, so the hips could rotate independently of the upper body. A grip change is not an on-off switch: it opens a series of questions about the rest of the swing, and it takes time and practice to bed in.
Grip pressure: enough to control, not enough to lock up
Once the hand position is set, pressure remains. The most common mistake, especially among beginners, is to squeeze hard in the belief that it gives more control. It usually does the opposite: a tight grip tenses the forearms and shoulders, limits wrist hinge and stops the club releasing freely through impact. The swing becomes stiff, speed drops and the face becomes harder to manage.
Too little pressure creates the opposite problem: the club moves in the hands at the top or at impact, and the face is no longer stable. The right pressure lets you hold the club without unnecessary tension in the arms. Many coaches suggest placing it around the middle of a 1-to-10 scale, a useful image as long as you treat it for what it is: a feeling, not a measurement.
It is also worth knowing that pressure does not stay constant during the swing. It naturally increases in the downswing as the club accelerates. Trying to keep it “the same” from start to finish is an intention, not a physical reality. What matters is starting from a soft hold at address and not strangling the club as the downswing begins.
Grip size plays a part too. As French clubfitter and clubmaker Alexandre d’Incau put it to me: “Grip size has a direct influence on how hard you squeeze. If you have a good hold, through the size, shape and texture of the grip, the pressure on it will be lower.” Depending on hand size and grip texture, the wrong diameter can encourage you to squeeze harder or get in the way of the hands, with no universal rule. If you are unsure, a fitter can check it in a few minutes.
How to check your grip
You do not need a launch monitor for a first check. A few simple steps will tell you where you stand.
- At address, look at your lead hand. Count the visible knuckles: about two for a neutral grip, three or more for a strong grip, one or none for a weak grip.
- Check where the Vs point. Between your chin and right shoulder, you are neutral. Further right, strong; at your chin or beyond, weak.
- Compare with your usual ball flight. A weak grip with a chronic slice, or a strong grip with a hook, is a serious lead. A weak grip on a player who hooks may, on the other hand, be a compensation: do not change it before you understand what it is compensating for.
- Test your pressure. Take your address position and waggle the clubhead gently. If your forearms feel hard, you are squeezing too tightly.
- Change in small steps. A few degrees of hand rotation are enough to change the face. Hit a series of shots, watch the start line and the curve, then adjust.
- Get a second pair of eyes. A coach, ideally with a launch monitor, will see within a few shots whether the change also needs work on your path.
Change your grip, but know why
The tennis parallel holds to the end. In tennis, changing grip changes the angle of the strings and forces the player to reorganise the stroke. In golf it is the same, with one extra demand: the face is small, the ball travels a long way, and a few degrees of error turn into dozens of yards.
The grip does not create a draw or a fade on its own. It influences the face, which must always be read against the path. That is why a grip change can transform a golfer’s game, and why a change made without diagnosis can just as easily damage it. What my own experience taught me above all is that you can change your grip during a golfing life, provided you know why, and what you are trying to achieve.