Should you try the baseball grip, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Should you try the baseball grip, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

As a golf professional, we'll often prescribe that there are 3 methods of holding the golf club. However 2 of those methods are much more preferred. We've covered those in previous videos so if you're new to the game and you're looking at a grip, start off by looking at the Vardon or the overlapping grip which is your left hand at the top, right hand at the bottom for the right-handed golfer. The 2 fingers that touch, one goes on top of the other one, and has an overlapping or a Vardon grip. The Interlinking grip is a variation of that, whether 2 fingers that touch actually crossover and swap places. So those two crossover and swap places. That’s an Interlinking grip. And the split between professional players and good players that use those grips is pretty much 50/50. There's no real preference over the Vardon or the Interlinking grip. The 3rd grip that often people get to ask about or talk about is just the Baseball grip where the hands slide together and the two fingers that touch don’t swap or move they just stay there. And for a lot of golfers who actually find the Interlinking of the Vardon grip a bit uncomfortable, that can be a method that allows them to play decent golf with a bit more comfort and a bit less pain. So if you've got very wide fingers and you struggle to interlink them, or you've got very small, weak hands and you struggle to interlink them, just gripping as a Baseball method can work for you.

The one thing I would encourage you to do here is make sure that you don’t see your hands separate and split up. So you take your left hand in a good position, still looking for 2 knuckles and some pointing down the shaft. Then take your right hand and jam it in right underneath. Put your right thumb on top of your left thumb and squash it down, but make sure there's no spaces underneath with your fingers. If there starts to be a gap here, it shows that the hands are trying to sort of separate on the golf club, then your hands will start to argue and fight with each other and this is why the Interlinking, the overlapping method is often preferred because the hands swing together as one unit. Anything where you're hands split up and separate, your hands will starts to argue and fight and sort of try and control dominance of the swing.

So a baseball grip can be used efficiently if you're struggling with a Vardon or an overlapping grip or an Interlinking grip, sorry. Make sure that the hands sit nicely together, there should be no feeling of fighting and arguing. Now actually, if you slice the golf ball and struggle to rotate the club face, having your right hand down lower and having 4 fingers on the grip, can actually encourage more rotation. So it's not about training exercise. To separate the right hand off, don’t interlink. Roll hands nice and quickly and feel how that has a bit more influence and then maybe go back to your overlapping or your Interlinking grip. But using that Baseball grip, try to experiment with it. If it works for you, fine. If you don’t like it, go back to one of the more preferred methods, the Interlinking or the Vardon grip.

 2013-01-15

As a golf professional, we'll often prescribe that there are 3 methods of holding the golf club. However 2 of those methods are much more preferred. We've covered those in previous videos so if you're new to the game and you're looking at a grip, start off by looking at the Vardon or the overlapping grip which is your left hand at the top, right hand at the bottom for the right-handed golfer. The 2 fingers that touch, one goes on top of the other one, and has an overlapping or a Vardon grip. The Interlinking grip is a variation of that, whether 2 fingers that touch actually crossover and swap places. So those two crossover and swap places. That’s an Interlinking grip. And the split between professional players and good players that use those grips is pretty much 50/50. There's no real preference over the Vardon or the Interlinking grip.
The 3rd grip that often people get to ask about or talk about is just the Baseball grip where the hands slide together and the two fingers that touch don’t swap or move they just stay there. And for a lot of golfers who actually find the Interlinking of the Vardon grip a bit uncomfortable, that can be a method that allows them to play decent golf with a bit more comfort and a bit less pain. So if you've got very wide fingers and you struggle to interlink them, or you've got very small, weak hands and you struggle to interlink them, just gripping as a Baseball method can work for you.

The one thing I would encourage you to do here is make sure that you don’t see your hands separate and split up. So you take your left hand in a good position, still looking for 2 knuckles and some pointing down the shaft. Then take your right hand and jam it in right underneath. Put your right thumb on top of your left thumb and squash it down, but make sure there's no spaces underneath with your fingers. If there starts to be a gap here, it shows that the hands are trying to sort of separate on the golf club, then your hands will start to argue and fight with each other and this is why the Interlinking, the overlapping method is often preferred because the hands swing together as one unit. Anything where you're hands split up and separate, your hands will starts to argue and fight and sort of try and control dominance of the swing.

So a baseball grip can be used efficiently if you're struggling with a Vardon or an overlapping grip or an Interlinking grip, sorry. Make sure that the hands sit nicely together, there should be no feeling of fighting and arguing. Now actually, if you slice the golf ball and struggle to rotate the club face, having your right hand down lower and having 4 fingers on the grip, can actually encourage more rotation. So it's not about training exercise. To separate the right hand off, don’t interlink. Roll hands nice and quickly and feel how that has a bit more influence and then maybe go back to your overlapping or your Interlinking grip. But using that Baseball grip, try to experiment with it. If it works for you, fine. If you don’t like it, go back to one of the more preferred methods, the Interlinking or the Vardon grip.