In the immortal words of Patrick Swayze, “It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”
Swayze was talking about the biker bar he was hired to protect in the cult classic The Road House but he might as well have been talking about golf. Or, more specifically, OWN golf game. I’m going through a massive movement overhaul, the first step of which is changing my control. And it’s killing me.
Maybe I’m naive, but I had no idea that the way I held the club would have such a dramatic effect on my swing. OK, just writing this sounds silly, but it’s the truth.
There are basically three ways to hold a golf club. It’s the 10-finger grip, where the hands are stacked on top of each other like you’re holding a baseball bat. This is how most of us new to the sport of golf will approach the grip of a club. It’s only natural, especially if you grew up playing baseball like I did. But the most common way to hold a golf club is combined syllable, where the right pinky and left index fingers are intertwined. Turn it over if you’re left-handed. Then there’s the Vardon grip, named after British golf pro Harry Vardon, who popularized the version where the right pinky overlapping left index finger. Both the Interlock and Vardon’s grips are designed to bring your hands together and take a finger off the stick.
I grew up playing baseball and never had a golf lesson, so naturally, I played golf with a 10-finger grip. My dad was the only person who showed me how to swing a club when I was 13. I’m willing to bet he showed me a 10 finger grip.
My golf guru and guiding light for this Scratch By 50 project, Sam Hahn, says it’s not absolutely essential to change my swing, but moving away from the 10-finger approach can set me up for greater success.
“Linking hands makes them work as a unit rather than as independent engines,” says Hahn. “There are fewer things that can go wrong and it generally produces more speed and allows the club to move a little more freely.”
I like it more speed and a club that swings freely. That sounds sexy. And I obviously like the idea of ​​making less mistakes with my swing, so a few weeks ago I decided to change my grip. Like an idiot, I made that decision in the middle of a round. My thought process was simple: I’m just fixing a pinky toe – how hard can it be? It turns out, very difficult. I completely missed the low point of my swing. I spent a few holes trenching and putting balls and abandoned the change, retreating to my comfortable 10-finger approach for the rest of the round.
Adjusting the grip is one of the most difficult swing changes a golfer can make. But the grip is also the foundation of a good golf swing, and I know that if I want any chance of success with this project, I’m going to have to pay attention to those fundamentals. So I dedicated myself to the process. A friend lent me his SKLZ Grip Trainer, a small piece of plastic that slips into the grip of a bat with holes that put the thumbs in the right position. I got to work trying out the link and Vardon style as I hit hundreds of balls into the net in my backyard where no one could see my experimentation.
My swing felt… foreign. I didn’t understand my body all of a sudden. It was like puberty all over again. Just taking a little finger off the club and moving my right hand up a few inches up my hand completely compensated for my balance. The club felt much longer. So much heavier. It felt like I had never played this sport before.
Fortunately, the backyard net was designed primarily for this type of work. I wasn’t worried about the ball’s flight or spin; I was just trying to get comfortable with the new control and make solid contact again. At first, my club grip felt so flimsy and loose that I could barely get a hold of the thing. I thought I was going to lose the club with every move.
I spent weeks obsessing over the change. I consulted everyone who would listen, even my barber, about the process. I took my grip trainer with me on ski trips, sliding the piece of plastic over my ski pole and practicing the new grip in the condo at night.
I settled into the Vardon control very quickly because it felt less claustrophobic than the interlocking option. Is this strange? When the grip became more comfortable in my backyard, I moved it to the range and then the course for practice rounds.
The process took longer than I wanted, but after about a month, I’m happy to say that the Vardon grip no longer feels awkward. The other parts of my swing are still a mess (I’ll get into that later), but the club itself feels natural in my hands, resting easily in the creases of my fingers. I’m not squeezing the life out of it, but it feels safe in my hands. Clean contact comes easier now and when the stars align and different elements of my swing work together, the club feels like a whip in the bottom of my hands. This is the loose, fluid feeling my golf guru was talking about.
“That’s the goal,” Hahn says. “I always say the golf club is a whip, not a hammer.”
Changing my control is a massive transition and transitions are hard. Life is full of these hard times. Puberty. A biker bar trying to be respectable. Golf swing variations. These are all beautiful, frustrating examples of life in transition. All of them are awkward and sometimes painful, but they are all leading to something good.
Swayze it Was right; it will get worse but it will also get better.
