The grip – the most fundamental of all Hogan’s Fundamentals

As Hogan himself famously stated at the outset of his book, ‘good golf begins with a good grip’. And for this, the first of my five articles exploring Hogan’s ideas and beliefs, I am going to focus on the grip and the role it plays in facilitating a biometrically correct golf swing.
Hogan’s recommendation that a golfer should adopt the the ‘Overlapping’ or Vardon grip (in which the little finger on the right hand overlaps the left forefinger, or nestles in the groove between forefinger and second finger) held a hidden truth; had it been fully understood, my belief is that many players of his and later generations might not have allowed themselves to use the alternative ‘Interlocking’ style of marrying the hands together.
The methods of Hogan regarding the grip were near perfect in their science and function. He stated them clearly and emphatically, yet their full meaning was often ‘lost’ on us. We have read them, used them and in most cases, misused them. In The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, Hogan used no fewer than nineteen pages to impart the principles of the correct grip. Over these pages, I hope to re-examine and distil his meaning, and in so doing will reveal the first ‘Lost Fundamental’, which is the critical importance of a ‘Short and Parallel’ left thumb.

Hogan’s preference

Hogan himself used the Vardon or Overlapping grip, still the most popular among tour players today. As I have illustrated here, his left thumb was angled slightly to the right of centre. The whole left thumb bone ran parallel to the shaft and rested on the thumb’s pad.
If you have a copy of The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, check out the pictures on page 22. As Hogan explains, it is vital that the thumb pad takes the pressure; if the joint of the thumb rests on the handle it will extend too far down the grip – a ‘long left thumb’ – and likely to permit an overswing. This fault will cause the golfer’s glove to wear out under the joint and encourage the thumbnail to cut through the end of the glove.
Once you have the left hand and left thumb placed correctly on the grip, the right hand fits neatly into place. The groove in the palm of the right hand (under the fleshy pad at the base of the right thumb) will perfectly dovetail the left thumb. This enables the hands to become a snug unit.
If I only had five minutes in which to teach a budding golfer something guaranteed to help him or her develop a sound technique, it would be the ‘Short & Parallel’ left thumb.
To place the left hand on the club correctly demands a sense of posture and encourages a comfortably straight left arm as you set up to the ball. The palm of the right hand neatly fits the parallel left thumb, and the resulting ‘neutral’ grip sees to ot that the arms and shoulders fall nicely into line. And what do you know? If the shoulders are on line, it is only natural for the hips and the feet to be on line. Quite important, don’t you think?
I regard the ‘Short & Parallel’ left thumb as the lynchpin of a sound Overlapping or Vardon grip and the cornerstone of a set-up routine that prepares the club, the arms and the body in a perfect relationship, ready to work together in producing a solid swing.