Hand Size and Grip style

I was recently reading through Nick Faldo’s Golf - The Winning Formula. I think its not a bad read and he does touch on some abs principles,(he talks of cutting left, “holding off”, hitting from inside with right hand etc, ground pressures.) anyways he’s a big fan of the vardon grip, and the book has a photograph of his actual hand size and compared to mine they’re huge, (I do have small fingers though - it ruined my rock guitar career!)

As a youngester I converted to vardon, however having recently returned to the game I it seems more instinctive of me to use the interlock.

My feeling for doing this, is it keeps my hands together more as a unit, I’m a natural left hander, playing right, so I often felt the right was quite clumsy on there and would sometimes lose contact through impact, and being stronger on the left, "losing the left index finger off the grip didn’t give me to much bother because I could use it to keep the right little finger connected to the unit.

However, as usual, reading makes me question what I’m currently doing and its got me thinking again about changing. During module work I sometimes play around between interlock and vardon, but on the course I’m 100% (at the moment)

I’m just wondering if anyone as an opinion on hand/fingersize, and grip style?

I’ve alway heard that shorter fingers should use interlock vs. longer fingers use overlap. I guess it’s just what feels right to you…

I personally use overlap (vardon) in that I have long fingers… Nicklaus and Tiger use interlock. Palmer, Hogan, Snead used Vardon… but remember the vardon grip has a strong R hand… vs. Hogan’s explaination said the R hand is very weak with the ‘V’ pointing at the chin or L of the chin…

I think that if you want to have the hand “on top” of the club, to allow for adequate forearm rotation, the Hogan style Vardon is the way to go…

Zack

Yeah, Faldo is a big guy with huge hands. If you had the chance to see the guy play you are immediately struck by what a powerful looking man he is. As for his hands I read somewhere, perhaps in that book since I read all his stuff in the 90s, that Snead could get a ridiculous number of golf balls in one hand. I want to say 12, but I can’t remember the exact number, and Nick could get one less…but never could match Snead.

Faldo’s swing in his prime is like having a Ferrari that you only drive one block to the supermarket.

No sizzle. No dynamism. Dumps his wrist cock WAY early. Not much use of ground forces. One-dimensional.

But, aesthetically it was pretty.

youtube.com/watch?v=juqzzN5Aj9E

and they just give away 6 majors.

Aye, I thats the book NRG, I also read his lifeswings autobio, and he talks about being given time with hogan, so he flew out to see him and tried to get him to do the foreword of this book.
He gives the impression in the bio that hogan would have loved to, but because it was something he’d never done for an American player he couldn’t to it for someone not on that tour…so says Sir Nick. He left with an autographed 5 lessons instead. (not bad if you ask me)

:slight_smile:

There are plenty of other people who folded down the stretch to hand Nick Faldo majors. Azinger, Norman, Scott Hoch, John Cook. But that is completely beside the point I was trying to make. Obviously, Nick became a champion, has a great record in majors and he was a winner and he intimidated players, kept his calm and he won. That says a lot.

All I was saying is with Faldo’s capability, he really could have been the Tiger Woods of his era on the course… Off the course, Faldo comes closer to Tiger :wink:

If you look at his action, he is really missing a few things that great ballstrikers have, and many of those same things are what John and Bradley teach people here to do.

Finally, if you read the accounts from the Hogan biographys, in Faldo’s interaction with Hogan, Faldo comes accross as an arrogant prick. Hogan declined the invitation to watch him hit balls, and Hogan told him the secret to winning was to shoot the lowest score in the tournament. LOL.

Ok.

No one is saying that Faldo is a Hogan, but to say he just had a pretty swing is laughable.

Aye, Faldo certainly divides opinion eh? Personally I quite like him, in his era he was one of the best, had great control, but you do sometimes think he could have perhaps made more of his athleticisism. Perhaps he just used all that he needed to get the control he wanted. Different times I guess.

But the real reason for posting was the hand size grip style question!

I played with Faldo probably 4 or 5 times and for those that haven’t seen him in person …he is a MOUNTAIN. Looks much bigger in person than he appears…funny because Greg Norman looks a mountain on TV and then isn’t as big as he seems in real life…no real story to that just an observation
Whenever I played with Faldo (practice rounds and tournament play) …I couldn’t believe how SHORT he was from the tee… I can definitely see where he was intent on having the mechanics and not the dynamics and didn’t utilize the build he had to really do damage. That said however golf was more precision then and you didn’t have to overpower courses to be a contender. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that he and Hal Sutton and Pavin and such fell off the golfing map when all this ‘golf’ became out of control and turned golfers into bombers.
anyhow…the grip
I have never liked the interlock grip because it always made me feel like I had to grip hard with the two fingers that were interlocking otherwise I would lose control of the club. I preferred the overlap grip as I didn’t need to have pressure in my left forefinger and right pinky finger then.
I could gain my feel for control of the club at the top end and bottom end of the grip …and not in the center like the interlock made me feel I was doing.

Before ABS i used interlock grip, after doing the modules, i converted over to Vardon/Hogan grip. This feels a lot more comfortable for me, I can have a stronger left hand with a weak right hand. You cant do this with interlock. Traditional teaching suggest to always have your palms facing each other. Hogan proved that great ball striking does not.

Anyone training in ABS will eventually develop their own grip overtime.

-Brandon-