By Jim Corbett

“Good golf begins with a good grip.” So says Ben Hogan in the very first words of the first chapter of his book, Five Lessons, The Modern Fundamentals of Golf. “The grip,” he says, “is the heartbeat of the golf swing.”

That seems to make sense. Hogan points out that, logically, it is through the grip that the energy of your swing will be transmitted to the club and hence to the ball. The grip is the focal point for the energy of your swing and, as such, should be active and alive not rigid or stiff. If the grip is not fluid it will cause the muscles in your arms and hands to stiffen up and the energy will never make it through to the club and will be choked off in some useless place in your body.

There are a variety of different kinds of grips that can be employed. And even though Hogan offers his own preference, he acknowledges that other grip styles can work fine for different people. The main types of grips are the overlapping (Hogan’s favorite), the interlocking and the baseball grip (probably the least often used by golfers). But for different types of golfing strokes, people experiment with varying types of grips as well. For instance, in putting people sometimes use a criss-cross grip or a hands-apart grip, people with long handled putters obviously must adapt their grips accordingly, etc. But which ever grip style you employ, the essence is the same in that your grip should be flexible, fluid, active and alive.

The important concept to remember here is: Control. Your grip is giving you control over your club — over the direction, the energy and the impact of your swing. In life it is important to have a good grip as well. That is, it’s important to have control over the direction of your life, the energy that you exert and the impact that you have.

If your grip in life is not active you will let the world control you. You will constantly be the victim or the passive observer of all that goes on around you, never imparting your own energy or ideas and never fully letting in the energy and new ideas of others that will allow you to grow to your full potential.

In golf you need to achieve the delicate balance in your grip between firmness and flexibility. That balance will allow you to withstand the impact of the ball as the club face hits it, yet still retain the fluidity to leave open the channels of energy that are being directed from your body, through your arms. In life your grip needs to attain the same balance. You need to be firm enough that you can stand up to the daily assaults upon your sensibilities, yet be flexible enough that you are open to new ideas, to constructive criticism and to all opportunities for personal growth.

The expression that we use, “Get a grip on yourself,” acknowledges our understanding that grip is an apt metaphor for control over our lives or our situation.

I know a guy (someone I used to work with) who really needs to come to a better understanding of the concept of grip as it applies to his life. He is the most rigid person I’ve ever met. He can’t tolerate change. He can’t tolerate disagreement. He can’t understand people being different than he is. He can’t compromise. As a result his personal life and his professional life are in shambles. He moans a lot about how unfair everything is, his former employers, his former wife, his former in-laws, his former friends, but he never stops to think that he might have a role in his own demise.

It never occurs to him that his grip is so tight that he chokes off every opportunity for closeness and for meaningful interaction with other people. The irony is that in trying so hard to control every situation, he has completely lost control of his own life and relationships.

In Hogan’s discussion on the grip he states, “In golf there are certain things you must do quite precisely, where being approximately right is not right enough. The grip is one of those areas where being half right accomplishes nothing. On the other hand, once you start cultivating the right habits, gripping the club correctly comes easily. You’ll fall right into it. Once you have mastered a correct grip — and assuming your stance and posture are also correct — you can practically forget about what the hands will be doing, or what they have to do, during the swing.”

Certainly these wise words are true when applied to your grip, or your control, over your life. It is truly an area where getting it approximately right is not right enough. Hogan advocates practicing just your grip about 30 minutes a day to be reinsure that you are doing it correctly. Our perspective on the control we exert over our lives is something that bears constant review and scrutiny as well.

So, when you are playing golf be sure to apply your grip in a way that is active and alive, flexible and fluid to allow yourself the energy to flow from your body, through your hands, down the club shaft and directly to the ball. And be sure that in your life you are giving yourself the same chance for success by having a grip on your life that allows you to stand up to pressure, but flow with the opportunities for growth and happiness.

To repeat the words of Ben Hogan, “Good golf begins with a good grip.” And so does a good life.