How A $10 Golf Grip Fix Instantly Improved My Ball Striking
My strong golf grip led to inconsistent strikes, but this cheap training aid and the expert advice of my coach helped to quickly straighten out my ball flight
Joshua Mayo
Improved ball striking can be often be achieved by focusing on the fundamentals, in particular the preparatory aspects that occur before you even start the golf swing.
This was the advice that Golf Monthly's instruction lead, Baz Plummer, received during a golf lesson with Former World No.1 Lee Westwood, but it's also a common theme shared by the best PGA Professionals around the world.
Some of the best ball striking lessons talk about the importance of the perfect golf grip, but this is often the root cause of common faults for amateur golfers.
The transformational impact that a neutral golf grip can have on your ball flight is amazing, as realised by Golf Monthly's content director Rob Spedding in a recent golf lesson.
As Rob explains below, a simple $10 training aid used by World No.1 Scottie Scheffler, that was leant to him by his coach in a recent lesson, had an immediate impact and improved the quality of his ball striking...
Improving My Ball Striking One Lesson At A Time
“Look at that – that’s going to fly!’ My coach, Joshua Mayo, is filming as I swing at the start of my lesson and he sounds mildly impressed. I have to admit I am too, as I’ve just flushed a seven iron 150 yards in almost the right direction.
‘‘I can see that you’ve taken on board what we talked about in the first lesson, trusted what I told you and have been putting it into practice,” he says. “Your posture is way better and your swing is smoother. Not bad.”
Golf completed for Mr Spedding? Of course not. This is just my second session with Golf Monthly Top-50 coach Joshua – based at Windmill Leisure Golf Centre near Bristol, UK – and truth-be-told this fleeting moment is probably as good as it’s going to get today.
Due to a number of reasons too mundane to go into here, I’ve left almost two months between lessons one and two. Which is way too long.
In between that I have been semi-regularly hitting both the range and trees, bunkers and the deep rough on the left-hand side of Lansdown Golf Club in Bath. And while Joshua says he can see improvement, I am much less sure of this than he is.
The Lesson
As a quick recap, that first golf lesson delivered a few home truths. It started with Joshua taking a look at me on set up and quickly diagnosing that I was going to have to work on my hunched, tense and, as a result, wildly inefficient posture.
He also got me to work on my rotation on the backswing – providing me with drills to do at home and when I’m practising.
I’d love to say that I’ve been sitting with a golf club across my chest and rotating whilst watching Widow’s Bay on Apple, but I haven’t. Like physio prescribed exercises for chronic Achilles problems and flossing, drills at home are optional right?
The posture tips, though, I have taken on board and have tried to be far more mindful about how I hold myself before striking the ball.
Of course as any high-handicapper knows, thinking and doing are two different things and, usually, the thinking means the doing goes to pot, especially out on the course..
Which brings me back to the mildly impressive strike at the start. The next hit is wild, and the next, I bring it back, and then it’s a hook, followed by a topped hook, then a hook off the toe… If there’s one thing I’m currently consistent with then it’s inconsistency. Although I am at least consistently hooking.
Joshua has been playing golf pretty much his entire life with his dad, Paul, being a former Amateur champion and Walker Cup player. He brings a holistic approach to coaching for all ages and abilities and he will use a combination of modern teaching methods as well as the traditional methods.
“The trick for new golfers is to not be hard on yourself,” explains Joshua.
“Improving really really does take time as there are so many elements to work on. Here at the range during a lesson we can work on, among other things, swing dynamics, posture, alignment, ball striking, your grip and aim.”
“And out on the course it’s getting it off the tee consistently, distance control with different clubs, chipping, putting, bunkers and, of course, game management and controlling your emotions. To be honest that can add up to at least 18-months of lessons!”
Joshua is seeing improvements in my game after a couple of lessons, but I need to fix a common grip issue that many amateur golfers struggle with
The Grip Fix
I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m in this game for the long run so that sounds fine (if a little expensive!) and there are clearly no quick fixes. But how about a quick fix Joshua?
“Let’s take a look at your grip, tell me how you set that up.”
I tell Joshua that I use an interlocking grip and try to position my left hand so that I can only see a couple of my knuckles. So far, so good, but when I set up Joshua notices a problem straight away.
“Two knuckles is good, but you have a strong grip, which leads to an open club face on ball strike and partly explains why many of your balls are heading left," he explains.
Of course, strong doesn’t mean ‘good strong’ in this context. (Although I do still have a tendency to throttle my club to death.)
Rather, as a right-hander, my hands are too far to the right when gripping the club. (A weak grip would mean my hands were too far to the left.) The goal is a neutral grip.
Joshua reaches into his bag and grabs something that he thinks will help. It’s a training grip favoured by no lesser talent than our very own Joe Ferguson. Oh, and it's also used in every practice session by world number one Scottie Scheffler!
World No.1 Scottie Scheffler uses a grip training aid in practice
“A neutral grip means that you're holding the club primarily through your fingers, with the line between your thumb and forefinger on both hands pointing towards your right shoulder, and as you said, just two left knuckles visible. And relax – pressure should be about six-out-of-ten,” says Joshua.
“Using one of these grip trainers can help set your hands in the right position and, hopefully, starts to help build muscle memory so that it’ll eventually become natural without the training aid.”
With the training grip attached I start to hit balls. Surprisingly, a reasonable proportion of them head in a much straighter, less left, direction than earlier.
“That’s exactly how I’d script it for a golfer going from a strong to neutral grip,” beams Joshua.
On the Trackman screen he shows me some of the data that’s been collected during the lesson – my strong gripped shots show closed club face angles – facing to the left at anywhere between five and 25 degrees.
With the neutral grip, the higher angles decrease. A couple even get close to, gulp, zero and the ball flight looks decent.
“Establishing a neutral grip is foundational,” says Joshua. “It’ll help to remove over-compensations in other areas of your swing and help simplify your swing substantially.”
I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t already been aware of some of the information Joshua has imparted to me over the last 45-minutes. (I do read stuff on this site and watch our videos, honest).
I am surprised, though, to find myself so in awe at how much practicing with advice from someone who really knows their onions appears to yield real-time improvements.
Like the game itself, the learning is becoming addictive. Obviously, I book my next lesson before I leave Windmill Leisure and order a grip training aid from Amazon as soon as I’m in the car.
