Now we know the grip in the golf club is important but one area we often overlook is well, whereabouts on the grip should we grip. The grip is deliberately longer than most people actually need it to be. If I place my left hand half and ease down from the top here, I think that’s a perfect position at the top. If I then place my right hand on, I’ve still got 2 inches spare at the bottom, and I’ve got relatively big hands. So if you got smaller hands and you are gripping at the top, you probably feel there could be up to a third or even a half of the grip that hasn’t been used. But actually, having that ability to move your hands up and down can be quite useful for particular shots. Not just if the golf club is too big or too small, ideally the clubs are custom fit to you. So you are not gripping down because the golf club is too big. If that’s the case, really, this bit of the golf club should get removed because you don’t need the extra length or the extra weight.

So get the clubs custom fit for you, then you can use the length or the lower down on the grip to actually change the type of shot you are going to hit. And generally speaking, higher up the club, will give you more distance, more power but actually a bit less control and gripping down on the golf would give you less power but more control. So we generally find if we are hitting long shots, full shots, tee shots and the like, we hold at the top; half an inch down with the back of the left hand, right hand on the space there, leaving a bit of space at the bottom. That would be a full shot grip. I never really like to see the left hand falling off the back end of the club here, if that’s happening, you’ve got less control than you should have and all of the hands should be on all of the grip rarely with the white line at the end there completely unbroken.

If I was to then move my hands lower down on the grip, positioning it more towards the bottom, I would generally feel less powerful because I’ve shortened the club but maybe more controlled just because I’m holding this end. That could work nicely if I don’t need full distance. So if I’m pitching or chipping the ball out there, less than a full swing, I would often encourage you to go down onto the grip. That would give you a bit more control; higher up the grip gives you a bit more power. And you don’t need to go top to bottom, it could be a sliding scale, maybe even just moving half an inch per swing as you drop down would change the distance that you are hitting the shots. So have a little bit of an experiment trying to grip the club near the top, trying to grip the golf club near the bottom and see how it changes the control that you have and the distance that you can hit your shots.