Top 100 Teacher: My 4-step starter guide to gripping the golf club

By: Don Sargent, Jr, Top 100 Teacher February 17, 2022

Follow this system, and you'll be in great shape.

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Want to start your 2022 golf season quickly and correctly? Well, lesson one is the single most important lesson of all: How do we put our hands on the club correctly?

The hands on the grip will control and dictate everything else we do with the golf club and our swinging motion. It will play a huge role in altering the face angle throughout the swing. A poor grip will mean poor clubface position, which will then begin a series of compensations that will send the ball in unintended directions.

So, let’s get started…

1. Set your lead hand

Holding the club with one’s right hand upright at a 45-degree angle and the left forearm parallel to the ground. Place the club into the left hand at the same 45-degree angle from the middle-left index finger joint to the base of the pinkie finger. This placement will allow the fingers of the left hand to comfortably wrap around the club while keeping the club out of your palm.

2. Check your knuckles

The result of this process will allow the golfer to see two knuckles on the left hand and have the left V point between the players right eye and the right shoulder. Correctly gripping the club, as I have precisely described, will be the first step to eliminate an open clubface and the need for golfers to produce an over-the-top swing path and slicing.

3. Add your trail hand

Now we move to your trail hand.

The club should lie from the tip of your right index finger to the base of your right pinkie finger. Regardless of the type of grip a golfer chooses (interlock, overlap or ten finger), we never want to hold the club in the palm of the bottom hand.

4. Final check

When we have gripped the club properly, the V of the bottom hand grip should point between the players right eye and the right shoulder.

If you’re struggling to comfortably wrap your fingers around the club, the club I would suggest either the overlapping grip or the ten-finger grip. This placement of the grip will ensure a “neutral” yet powerful hand location, and put you in great shape before you hit the ball.