Monkey Fingers

If you're not a golfer, the phrase "in the fingers" might sound kind of pervy. Or, since Halloween is coming up, "in the fingers" might bring to mind a creepy image of skeletal hands. If you are a golfer, you may have heard the phrase and, like me, had no idea what it really meant.

The night before my Tuesday round, I happened to catch Michael Breed on the Golf Channel talking about how the golf grip should be "in the fingers." Since I had recently changed how I gripped my clubs, I was paying special attention to how I placed my hands on the club. Suddenly I had a eureka moment about my new grip, the baseball grip, which is also known as the "ten-finger grip." So after hearing the phrase "in the fingers," I made a note to try it out the next morning.

Rather than feel the club grip primarily in my palms, I made an effort to wrap my fingers around the club and take hold primarily with the fingers. As I completed my grip, my palms wrapped around too, of course, but the pressure on the grip was mainly in my fingers. Picture a monkey's fingers hanging on to a tree branch, and you get the idea.

Anyway, it worked. Somehow I felt like I had a more secure hold on the club and it led to better contact and more distance. Remember that par 4 I mentioned in my previous post, the one where I could never make it on in two? Well, I hit driver far enough on Tuesday to have a shot at getting on in regulation on that hole. (If only my 3-wood didn't tail off to the right on the approach.) And I ended up shooting an 89 for the round. All thanks to three little words: in the fingers.