! Scigolf presents Scott Hazledine Answers Your Golfing Questions On Your Golf Game.

Question 52

Greetings Scott,
Background: New player since January '98, 42 years old, 6'3" tall. Started with Natural golf lessons from local NG teacher you probably know, nice guy but...
I have just received your short game and full swing videos and wanted to say in the first viewing you answered questions I have had a long time as far as stance and just bending over to the right and grabbing that club!
The question is grip. In the video it looks like you grab your left thumb with the right hand. Is this true? If so then your right palm is not on the club but on your left thumb. I used to do it this way, but found it easy to let the left hand twist more to the right where my left thumb going down the shaft was at 3 o'clock instead of the 12 o'clock position. Please tell me where that darn left thumb needs to be. Am I making too much out of this and just need to grip and rip it?

Thanks,
Gary
A Confused Single Axis Golfer

Dear Gary,

The position of the left hand has to do with a number of factors. The flexiblity of the wrist plays a crucial role (many wrists that I've seen need ajustments).

Moe has his thumb down the side of the shaft and the heel pad of the hand on the handle. I have my thumb positioned at 1 o'clock in a similar position. To chose the best position for you (and this depends on the grip size you use) place the left hand on the handle and swing the club back to waist high using just the left arm rod. Then let the arm fall back in front of you (do not rotate the left arm back, but draw it back as I show on the video). Do this a number of times to check where the club squares up and moves square to. If the club squares up before your hand reaches your sterium then you left hand is turned too far to the right, i.e., too strong. If the club squares up at the sternium and stays squares to your left shoulder you have a correct left hand position. If your club does not square up before the left shoulder than you are too weak, that is turned to the left.

Note that the right heel pad is what needs to be on the handle, not the lifeline of the palm, with your right thumb pad resting on the last knuckle and finger nail of the left thumb. This is single axis and you can interlock, overlap, or baseball grip it and still be single axis as long as the shaft is in line with the ulna of the right forearm.

As the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words." The photos to the left show how I grip the club.