Senior Golfer 4 - Fat fingers don't lock too deeply, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Senior Golfer 4 - Fat fingers don't lock too deeply, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

One area that often talked about when I'm talking to golfers about improving their game is how they grip the golf club. And we all know how essential it is to grip the golf club in the right way. We talked about different hand sizes, different grip sizes. But we very rarely talk about different finger weights. Now, actually, for golfers who have fat fingers, they can find it quite difficult to follow the conventional teaching on how you should grip the golf club. I talked to people and they say, well, I tried to follow that video or that book or that instructional professional and I just couldn’t literally get my hands on the club in the right position.

So we are to look at David. Now he's got generally quite large fingers, and a lot of other gentlemen have quite large fingers. And we see how he's gripping the golf club in a Vardon fashion there. So, the little finger of the right hand sits against the index finger of the left hand, just sits into the grove and sits around. He has a really good grip for someone that has quite large fingers. Because the fingers don’t have to sit together, they just sit one on top of another which can work really nicely.

Now, if we just change David's grip and go for an interlinking grip. So just pop this finger out and swap the places. That's an interlinking grip. Now, I'm a quite a big fan of teaching this grip. A lot of people find this grip comfortable. But generally guys with bigger fingers can struggle particularly if they try and push them too deeply together.

So if I just change David's grip then pull them right apart and kind of ram your fingers knuckle to knuckle, that can really get uncomfortable because there's a lot of finger trying to get into quite a small space, and that can get quite uncomfortable and sort of pull at the knuckles particularly if you're struggling with some of the early stages of arthritis in your hands, that can cause quite a problem.

So if you are interlinking with your grip, try and back your fingers off a little bit so the fingers don’t sit too deeply into each other, they're not right round here, they're just laid on top. And if you can go back to more of a Varden grip so your fingers don’t interlink but they lay on top. And again, if you're really struggling with fat fingers or early stage arthritis, just back the fingers off completely and actually go back to a more sort of baseball style grip.

It's not a very conventional golf grip, but for lots of golfers, that might be the only way they can grip the golf club sort of pain-free. So, try and just adapt to your grip to your finger's size and whichever helps you play with the least amounts of pain.

 2012-09-18

One area that often talked about when I'm talking to golfers about improving their game is how they grip the golf club. And we all know how essential it is to grip the golf club in the right way. We talked about different hand sizes, different grip sizes. But we very rarely talk about different finger weights. Now, actually, for golfers who have fat fingers, they can find it quite difficult to follow the conventional teaching on how you should grip the golf club. I talked to people and they say, well, I tried to follow that video or that book or that instructional professional and I just couldn’t literally get my hands on the club in the right position.

So we are to look at David. Now he's got generally quite large fingers, and a lot of other gentlemen have quite large fingers. And we see how he's gripping the golf club in a Vardon fashion there. So, the little finger of the right hand sits against the index finger of the left hand, just sits into the grove and sits around. He has a really good grip for someone that has quite large fingers. Because the fingers don’t have to sit together, they just sit one on top of another which can work really nicely.

Now, if we just change David's grip and go for an interlinking grip. So just pop this finger out and swap the places. That's an interlinking grip. Now, I'm a quite a big fan of teaching this grip. A lot of people find this grip comfortable. But generally guys with bigger fingers can struggle particularly if they try and push them too deeply together.

So if I just change David's grip then pull them right apart and kind of ram your fingers knuckle to knuckle, that can really get uncomfortable because there's a lot of finger trying to get into quite a small space, and that can get quite uncomfortable and sort of pull at the knuckles particularly if you're struggling with some of the early stages of arthritis in your hands, that can cause quite a problem.

So if you are interlinking with your grip, try and back your fingers off a little bit so the fingers don’t sit too deeply into each other, they're not right round here, they're just laid on top. And if you can go back to more of a Varden grip so your fingers don’t interlink but they lay on top. And again, if you're really struggling with fat fingers or early stage arthritis, just back the fingers off completely and actually go back to a more sort of baseball style grip.

It's not a very conventional golf grip, but for lots of golfers, that might be the only way they can grip the golf club sort of pain-free. So, try and just adapt to your grip to your finger's size and whichever helps you play with the least amounts of pain.