Sports
How a simple grip tweak fixed this LPGA winner’s worst miss
My season prep with Maja Stark started a little later this year. And while we made some solid gains and good adjustments, there was still one shot that bothered her with the scoring irons: a kind of high, floaty shot that leaked a bit to the right. It lacked authority, and made setting up birdies consistently a challenge.
When I watched her warm up in Orlando during the week of the LPGA Tournament of Champions, something caught my eye. She kept fiddling with her left-hand grip, trying to get it comfortable on the club. Obviously, that affects everything — the takeaway started to feel wonky and impact wasn’t what she wanted on a consistent basis. When those pieces aren’t right, her confidence starts to dip.
Then the light bulb came on.
5 lessons from the U.S. Women’s Open champ to shoot lower scores
Between shots, Maja would chat and casually make some half-swings with her left hand only on the club. And every time she did, the grip looked perfect. So I kept watching, and it kept happening. (I might’ve even stretched out our conversations a bit to catch her in those moments when the grip went on just right.)
After a while, Maja asked if I had ever heard of the interlocking grip. I told her some guy named Jack Nicklaus did pretty well with it.
She smiled and said, “I’m going to try a couple shots with that.”
From the very first swing, her left-hand grip was fixed. I watched her left hand settle onto the club properly — turned slightly to the right of center, with the butt end of the club under the heel pad of her left hand, not off to the side of it. As she started hitting shots, I knew we’d solved that pesky floaty right miss.
In Maja’s words: “The takeaway felt so much simpler. Impact was solid, and the clubface felt way more under control.”
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Of course, there was a quick conversation about whether this was really the right time in the season to make a grip change, but Maja said yes. And once I saw her left hand going on the club properly and consistently, without all the angst and adjustments, I became a believer.
Funny enough, a grip change is usually reserved as a last resort for pros. But in this case, it was exactly what the doctor ordered. It allowed Maja to get the left hand on the club properly with little to no fuss. Sometimes the simplest change makes the biggest difference.
Even when it comes to the swing of a major champion.
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