Having a clubface that’s square to target is one of the most essential parts of hitting a golf ball straight and it stands to reason that if we are trying to control this end the only part of our body that can control it really is this end and this is where the hands meet the golf club. And that’s the only link we have to the club. So clearly the hands have a very influential role to play in terms of whether that clubface is square. The other alternatives would be open as in pointing to the right at the point of impact for the right-handed golfer or closed as in pointing left at the point of impact for the right-handed golfer. So open or closed or square to target.

Now if your grip is responsible for – if your hands are responsible for where that clubface is clearly the position of your grip or your hand position at the start of the swing is also very, very important. For a lot of golfers amateur golfers, club golfers the main issue they have in terms of squaring is the fact that the face is actually open at the point of impact, so they are coming down to impact the clubface is pointing to the right and that’s going to cause a lot of shots to drift out to that right hand side effectively the over fading, slicing, cutting, blocking, pushing golf shot all caused by a face that’s open at the point of impact. So you’ve got to be careful if the grip can control the face. So for a lot of golfers they might like to be better with a stronger than neutral grip.

So if you are a golfer that struggled with the ball always curving out to the right hand side or starting out to the right hand side. Let’s consider that the neutral grip which is a case of sort of two, two and a half knuckles on the left hand and the right hand sitting nicely on top, might not really be working for you. If you are trying to square that face to the target and your struggling is always open perhaps moving your left hand to the right and your right hand to the right would encourage your hands to turnover a bit more, to roll back over a bit more, have the club face aiming more to the left which in general terms is going to give it a square or look to it at the point of impact. Now there’s a risk that you could overdo this, you don’t want to have that open position and cutting the ball to the right all the time then you go too far around with your hands and you start closing the clubface, clubface aims left of target and starts hooking, but there’s going to be a happy medium.

So what I want o encourage you to do here is have a little experimentation, take your normal grip and then touch that turn in your left slightly to the right bit by bit by bit, millimeter by millimeter. Let the right hand go with it bit by bit and millimeter by millimeter and see whether you can close and open your clubface by strengthening and weakening your grip. And for a lot of amateur golfers they’re going to find that they are going to play better golf with a more square clubface with a slightly stronger than average grip.