Golf fundamentals

By Mark Gallagher

Golf is a sport almost anyone can play. The secret of the game is really quite simple—it’s all about the golf swing. A golfer first needs to learn how to grip the club and take the proper stance, then focus on the swing technique.

The Grip
There are three ways to grip a golf club: the interlocking grip, the Vardon (overlapping) grip and the baseball grip. When a person, especially a young person, starts out playing golf, the interlocking grip is a logical choice because it affords the best chance of both hands working together as one.

If you’re a right-handed golfer using the interlocking grip, place your left hand at the top of the club and wrap the fingers of the left hand around the club, then grip the club with your right hand just below the left hand. Take the index finger of the left hand and interlock it with the little finger of the right hand.

If you’re a left-handed golfer using the interlocking grip, the set-up is just the opposite. The interlocking grip is an easy way to develop a feel for the two hands working as one; but some golfers, as they expand their knowledge and aptitude for golf, feel the constraints of that grip seem to inhibit the swing.

Phil Anderson, Head Golf Professional at Southview Country Club in West St. Paul, says, “While it is true that an interlocking grip works best for beginning golfers, some advanced golfers still use the interlocking grip.” And Phil is one of them. One of the reasons: it makes his hands feel like they are working together in a more effective fashion than when he uses the Vardon grip.

One of the tenets of a good golf swing is to have both hands working as one, but as you graduate to a level of play that warrants a different grip, the Vardon grip is the natural choice for most golfers. In golf, as in just about any sport or part of life, the fundamentals are very important; but you need to do what feels and works best for you to get the most out of the game.

To use the Vardon, or overlapping grip, if you’re a right-handed golfer, grip the club with your left hand at the top of the club and put your right hand just below the left hand, with the little finger of the right hand overlapping the index finger of the left hand. The little finger of the right hand should be somewhat between the index finger and the middle finger of the left hand.

For a left-handed golfer, the set-up is just the opposite. If you’re able to do that, your two hands will work as one. Anderson says that “the ‘V’ formed by the thumb and index finger of the left hand should point just to the right of the golfer’s chin; and the ‘V’ formed by thumb and index finger of the right hand should point to the right shoulder.”

Anderson also says, “When the golfer places the hands in that position, the right-handed golfer should see two knuckles of the left hand, and the left-handed golfer should see two knuckles of the right hand.”

The grip should be firm but not too tight, because too tight of a grip will cause the hands to tense up, which in turn will cause the arms and then the shoulders to tighten up. A golfer can’t swing the club very effectively when the upper body is tense. A good way to check the firmness of your grip is to hold the club at a ninety-degree angle out from the body and ask a fellow golfer to pull the club out of your hands. If the other golfer can’t easily pull the club out of your hands, you’re gripping the club too tight.

The baseball grip is mentioned only as an alternative and it is not used very often. Dale Jones, the Head Golf Professional at Mendakota Country Club, also in West St. Paul, says, “Some beginning golfers and even some experienced golfers use the baseball grip because of their small hands. Their hands are so small that they find it hard to interlock or overlap their fingers and still have the hands work as one.” But, as Jones says, “In any grip that a right-handed golfer uses, the left hand grips the club with more of a palm grip, and the right hand uses more of a finger grip.”

Stance
The second component of an effective golf swing is the stance or body position. Ideally, you should set up with your feet facing perpendicular to the target. If a line were drawn from toe to toe, the line would point to the target. This is called setting up square to the target and is just a starting point, but it is integral to developing and then keeping a good swing.

Jones says, “You should keep your feet, knees, hips, shoulders and eyes square to the target.”

The next thing you need to be conscious of is to flex the knees. Flex in the knees helps to keep tension from the body; you cannot produce a good golf swing when your body is tensed up. To finally move into the golf swing itself, you should bend slightly foreword at the waist, put some flex in the knees, and with the club in your hands and a firm grip, address the ball.

Golf Swing
The golf swing is contingent upon having a fundamentally sound grip and a solid stance. One of the keys to a good golf swing is to have a systematic or repeatable pre-shot routine. As Anderson says, “The more fundamentals that a golfer can adapt to, the more efficiency the golfer can put in the golf swing and that leads to a repeatable golf swing.”

One of the first elements of the pre-shot routine is to walk about eight to ten feet behind the ball and look out toward the green of the hole you are playing, to see exactly where the ball needs to be hit. From this vantage point, the golfer can see any trees or hazards that might be in the way of the ball’s trajectory or in the landing area.

Another element of the pre-shot routine is the club-head waggle. The waggle is when a golfer addresses the ball and moves the club back and forth a number of times behind the ball. The act of doing this relieves tension in the hands and arms and relaxes the body; then as you end the waggle, you will start the one-piece takeaway to commence the golf swing.

The one-piece takeaway is a term golfers use to describe how the hands, arms, body, legs and club work together to become “one” in the golf swing. When I asked Jones about the one-piece takeaway, he said, “As you take the club back with the hands, wrists and the rest of the body working together in one piece—at the point of the backswing just before your hands reach your waist—the shaft of the club should be parallel to the target line and also parallel to the ground, with the toe of the club pointed up.”

People in the golfing world often use the term “swing plane.” The “swing plane” is an apt description of a phenomenon that defines the path of the golf club as it gets taken back to the top of the swing in one piece, pauses for the transition from backswing to downswing, then gets pulled down by the hands and arms to make square contact with the ball. The “follow through” which is another integral element of the golf swing, is the motion of the club after it makes square contact with the ball, and it needs to stay in that same swing plane. So as Jones says, “You are swinging inside a tilted circle.”

And Finally
Golf is based on learning the fundamental ideas concerning the grip and stance, and using those fundamental ideas to develop a repeatable motion in which to swing the club. For anybody wanting to play golf or those already playing golf, it is always a learning process.

Learn the fundamentals, be patient with yourself, then go out and enjoy the game.