Is your grip strain too tight? A prime instructor shares tips on how to inform

On the subject of grip strain, Sam Snead has maybe the sport’s most well-known steerage on the subject, suggesting that gamers ought to maintain the membership like they’d a child chook.

However GOLF Prime 100 Instructor Jason Baile disagrees.

In a video posted to Titleist’s YouTube web page, Baile argues that grip strain itself isn’t the enemy of the golf swing — as a substitute, it’s all about how and the place it’s exerted on the membership.

“If I had been a baseball participant hitting a 90-mile-an-hour fastball, the very last thing I’d be doing is holding this bat like a child chook,” Baile says. “We all know that energy is a giant a part of our sport. So I’d say [to Snead], it’s extra about the place you grip it and the place you apply that strain.”

The issue, Baile says, is that many gamers grip the membership tightly with downward strain.

“That’s gonna ship plenty of pressure to my forearms, my shoulder and possibly my decrease jaw,” he says. “I need to make it possible for I’ve all that grip strain pulling up.”

When grip strain is directed this fashion, Baile says, it allows you to retain your energy in addition to your management.

“If I pull up into the grip, I can nonetheless have supple wrists, elbows and delicate shoulders, however but have actually good management of the face,” he says. “So once I step in there, I need to really feel that grip strain pulling up with my fingers, enjoyable my forearms, my shoulders and my jaw. I could make a really intentional swing and nonetheless have management of the membership face.”

To summarize: make it possible for grip strain feels prefer it’s pulling up, not pushing down as you swing, and also you’ll know you’re doing it proper.

To look at a video of Baile’s tip in its entirety, click on right here.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of feminine varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everybody on the masthead. She will out-hustle them within the workplace, too, the place she’s primarily accountable for producing each print and on-line options, and overseeing main particular initiatives, resembling GOLF’s inaugural Type Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview sequence, “A Spherical With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in each within the journal and in video kind on GOLF.com.