Hands often get a bad rap in golf coaching circles … You rely on your hands too much … You’re overusing your hands … Your swing is too wristy … Your swing is all hands and arms … You’re holding too tight … So, how much should you use your hands in the swing? (Image 1) Your hands (and wrists) can be a massive source of control and power in the golf swing; you just need to use them right. Very often it’s more that we are not ‘actively’ gripping the club in a meaningful way, and this often leads to our hands being too passive. I like to help golfers produce the most natural swing possible, but in our daily lives, we don’t use our hands in the way nature intended and, therefore, we lose strength in our hands and often mobility in both our hands and wrists. This can have a huge detrimental effect on our golf swing. So, the first job is learning to explore what we can do with our hands and wrists, by taking them through various movements, to open up the joints. There are no specifics here; just go very slow and gentle and play with different movements. Hopefully some of the images here will help (images 2-5). You can then try a specific strength movement for your fingers… Hold your golf club just in your fingertips (image 6) then slowly continue to curl your fingertips into your palm so you create a ball/fist (image 7), then slowly uncurl your fingers whilst keeping a good grip of the club in your fingertips. (NB. focus mainly on the last three fingers of both hands and keep the thumb and forefinger relaxed). By exploring your hands with various movements, you will start to create a better and stronger grip; a grip that should feel what I call ‘airtight’, i.e. no gaps appear between your hand and the golf club. See image of left hand at image 8, whereas if you look at image 9 you can see lots of gaps. If you are a right-hand player, I suggest you practice swinging the club back no more than halfway, making sure you keep this ‘airtight’ grip while allowing your wrist to create an angle between your forearm and shaft, as seen in image 10. Just a few minutes a day practising these movements and you will be on your way to having much more control of your hands and wrists, and this will have a profound impact on your golf swing and shots. Get a free swing evaluation. Limited offer: to check availability and for more information contact me via [email protected] By Scott Cranfield