Staggering Update: Grip Change

In what might be the biggest change I have made to my golf game since starting in earnest almost one year ago, I elected to change my grip from the interlock grip (middle picture above) to the Vardon overlap (right-most picture above). This was a fairly significant change given that not only have I spent the last year (well, almost year) with the interlock grip, but it has been my natural - or at least ingrained - preference as far back as when I first grabbed an ancient bamboo shaft driver from my grandfather's basement and whacked tennis balls with it as a means of more efficiently playing with my hyperactive Australian Cattledog. In short, this was a significant departure from any semblance of a "norm" or "instinctive feeling" as I'd developed in the game of golf, and I can only liken it to trying to write with your left hand if you're right-handed, or maybe more accurately shooting a left-handed lay-up (again, for a righty) for the first time once you get to junior high and the coach actually starts coaching as opposed to babysitting.

Without question (just as with writing or shooting the lay-up in a non-accustomed fashion), the change will represent several definitive steps back, and I certainly wouldn't so willingly accept this bit of regression if I didn't think it was *clearly* worth it. And I do believe it's worth it for two key reasons - one somewhat micro and short term, the other far more macro and "looking forward."

1. With regards to the short term, you will - if you've noted the comments on my practice calendar at the bottom of the homepage - recall that I've been making a very diligent effort to "remove" my right hand from its domination of the swing. Being right-handed, and having a tendency to want to use my arms as opposed to letting them be "pulled" by the lower body, I've long suspected that my overactive right-hand was to blame for a poor swing bottom (in short, fat shots). To remedy that, I'd taken to practicing the Ben Hogan drill (linked here) in which he advocated removing the right forefinger and thumb from the club in order to get a feel for a more even-keeled swing. The results were sufficiently impressive to the point that my suspicions were confirmed - once my right hand was out of play a bit, the swing was far more smooth and the contact more crisp. I couldn't, however, play with that grip (at least not on a long term basis), so I set to finding a way to take my right hand out of the equation and mimic that Hogan drill feel. Through some rather quick experimentation, the overlap grip proved to be as close to an instant solution as I believe I'll come across in golf. With my pinkie fingers not "linked," I feel as though my right hand is "floating" on the grip - the exact feeling I have with the Hogan drill. Though it's only been a few days, the results are incredibly promising and have me looking forward to the start of the official season far more than I was just a few weeks ago, when I felt as though I was butting my head against a wall.
   
2. From a more macro perspective, the unfamiliar, even foreign "feel" of the new grip has essentially given my entire golf swing a rebirth. Everything feels different, as if I just started golfing anew only a few days ago. Most importantly, though, I feel as if I just started physically but I have the benefit of a year's worth of trial and error as well as other forms of learning to immediately impart upon this "new" golfer. I'm at a loss for a sufficient way to explain it other than to resort to the following: imagine a basketball player who goes through junior high with a rather ugly shot - a "push it from the hips" type of shot that works against 5'3" junior high kids, but doesn't quite cut it come the first day of high school when 6'3" just might be "short" (my imaginary example of a kid goes to an inner city basketball powerhouse). At some point he's forced to abandon that shot and essentially start over from scratch. In doing so, however, he carries with him all the knowledge, trial & error, and learning that helped him cultivate his shot, but almost instantaneously erases all of the ingrained bad habits that had manifested and become an inherent part of his shot. Essentially, he becomes a blank slate from a physical standpoint, but with a mental awareness and "know-how" well above and beyond that of a traditional blank slate. It effectively becomes a way to reboot bad habits without erasing the beneficial eureka moments that blunted those bad habits. That's where I feel as though I'm at with my golf swing....I essentially have the opportunity to start from scratch given how everything feels new again, but with a year's worth of diligently accumulated knowledge.
   

I'm not suggesting someone read this and go make a drastic change simply for the sake of making the change per this "blank slate" theory of mine, but rather pointing out how one very deliberate alteration (taking the right hand out of play) has had a tremendous unintended side-effect of sorts. Or maybe I'm just trying too hard to be an optimist with regards to the "two steps back" aspect of the change........