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Strong Grip & Low Point Issues

A portion of golfers who employ a relatively strong grip will struggle with inconsistent contact and poor low point control. While they will typically eliminate the right side of the course, they will still fight the occasional pull-hook. If this is a shot that leaves the course once or twice a round, scoring can become increasingly difficult.

If you fall into this category, it is important to revisit the relationships between body, grip, and release mechanics. This does not mean you need to completely overhaul your grip, but a few tweaks may be necessary to get back on track.

Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Early Extension, Chicken Wing, Impact, Follow Through, Transition, Release, Concept

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This concept video is discussing strong grip low point issues.

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A pattern that I tend to see with some students is, and I'd say that this is kind of like

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let's say somewhere in the high single digit to low double digit handicapped.

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So let's say somewhere in the 12 or sorry, the 7 to 15 handicapped range.

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I see a lot of golfers who tend to have a fairly strong grip, so they don't hit many

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slices, but they struggle a lot with low point contact, partly because of their body

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relationship compared to the grip.

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So what I mean by that is if I have a strong grip, so if I have my hands turned well

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to the right, or if I was to take a grip and hold it so that that left arm is pointing

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out, let's say that the club face would be greater than 40 degrees or so kind of like that.

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Well, if I supinate my left arm, the way that I might want to in order to move low point

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forward, that will tend to cause the club face to get really closed if that happens out

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in front of my chest.

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So golfers who tend to have a stronger grip on tour will tend to get much more open and

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leave it behind.

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I'm still supinating the arm in order to move that low point forward, but my body is

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wide open in order to prevent the club face from getting too closed.

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It also allows me to provide more of the powering of the swing from my body and a little

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less from the arms.

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So I might notice with this strong grip in this good pattern, I'm going to tend to get

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my body more open, have my arms kind of soft and feel like the club is left even further

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behind.

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But what a lot of golfers who have this low point issue with the strong grip end up

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doing, is they don't get their body open enough.

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And so in order to prevent the club face from getting closed, what they do is they'll tend

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to chicken wing and kind of hold off the face.

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And you can see as I do that, the club is actually coming up into the golf ball.

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So they'll tend to have more of a swing kind of like that on the way through.

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Now you might have seen from the down the line, I hit a nice little soft draw that

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way.

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So I was able to control the club face, but I wasn't able to control my low point very

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well, and I'll tend to have a lot of bigger misses in consistent contact.

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Now to improve that chicken wing pattern, I've got to induce a little bit of supination.

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So supination tends to move the low point forward kind of like that as opposed to no supination

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and having a little bit more extension, tends to move the low point backward.

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So if I'm trying to use my arms in a way that will move the low point forward, I also

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have to manage the club face.

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So what will happen with these strong grip players is they will tend to when I show them

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how to get a little more supination, they'll tend to hit a shot that kind of looks like

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that.

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So a very solid shot, but went probably a good 20 degrees left of the target.

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And so they'll struggle with getting their brain to commit to getting some of that supination

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which helps with contact and low point because it doesn't match the club face compared

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to where their body is.

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So if you struggle with that pattern, you either have to weaken your grip a little bit

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and commit to where your body is going to be an impact, or you have to work on getting

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your body more open so that then when you do that same release, it's happening more

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behind you in the club face.

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So I'm basically hitting it earlier before the low point which prevents the club face

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from closing.

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So I see a number of golfers who have this strong grip low point problem because the

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body is not matching where the club faces.

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So if this is the case for you, if you have a stronger grip and you're looking at it

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from down the line video and you're not seeing much of your back at impact, that is probably

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the reason why you're seeing more of a chicken wing and you're going to have a hard

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time breaking that pattern unless you either change the impact position or change the grip

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so that you can improve the chicken wing.

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But unfortunately the strong grip chicken wing are matched with a body position that is not

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as far open as it needs to be at impact.

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So hopefully this helps tie together a few different concepts of why you might be struggling

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with low point especially if you have a strong grip in the chicken wing.