[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

I think grip strength is sometimes overlooked. What I mean by that is that depending on how much pressure one is able to exert, a light-feeling grip can have a large difference in quality between someone who has plenty of grip strength over someone lacking grip strength.

If you ever take some time to look at the guys on the PGA tour, you'll notice that many of them have fairly sizeable forearms which is at least somewhat indicative of how much grip strength a person has, although a person can have muscular forearms and lack the neuromuscular coordination with the tendons to have a strong grip.

Or let me put it this way. Last year, I often found that in order to keep the clubhead stable, to me it felt like I had to exert a fair bit more pressure than the lightly holding a baby bird idea. If I held the club with that kind of feel, the clubhead would twist and rotate because my grip wasn't exerting enough pressure to keep the clubhead stable. So I had to grip with what felt tighter to get it stable. That was an improvement, the drawback was that sometimes it would tighten up my arms too much leading to trouble.

But over the winter and spending the first 6 weeks of this year in a leg cast, I kept myself sane by doing upper body strengthening along with exercises to improve grip strength. I have gone from below average grip strength to now well above average, and it has made a marked difference in how I grip the club. I now want to hold the club with it feeling like I'm holding a baby bird and that results in enough pressure to keep the clubhead stable.

I know it's also helped me hitting out tough lies in thicker vegetation because now the clubhead won't twist nearly so much.