Grip comment from Robert Smith

[rab91787]

I follow him on facebook and remembered an interesting comment he made awhile back that I just tried putting into practice.

"The reason we use fingers to lift is because our wrists our weak when holding the weight of the ball on your fingers. Most Pros have their weight in the pads of the palm. calluses are there on all of us. This allows us to cup the ball because the palm is much stronger than the fingers, therefore no need for the brace to stop the wrist from collapsing from the weight on the fingers. Hope that makes sense"

I know when I had my swing analyzed I was told my revs were low because of my wrist breaking early and my fingers being on top of the ball at release. I experimented a bunch of times trying to figure out what Robert meant and then finally got something to work. I found that if I grip hard with my fingers and press the pads of my palm into the ball at the same time, I can have a real strong grip without much effort and maintain a relaxed thumb at the same time. I practiced this at home and was able to adjust revs and loft without much difficulty for the first time. Does this sound like it should work? I am going to try it at leagues tomorrow and hopefully I can put it into use in a real game

[Tampabaybob]

rab....That's an interesting concept that I've never heard before. Many of the pros use their own techniques that may never surface for years because it's their secret. And they want to keep it that way. I squeeze my fingers in the ball (not my thumb) and that has helped me over the years since starting to do that. But I've never thought about trying to press the pads of my palm on the ball. I'll have to give that one a try and see if there's a difference in the roll and rotation. Thanks for bringing it up as I'm sure there are others that may want to try this.

[rab91787]

Oh for sure. I wish I would have read about squeezing the fingers a long time ago. By doing that and supporting the ball on the pads of my palm I can maintain a cupped wrist and relax my thumb for the first time. I hope it works because I'm running out of options. If this somehow doesn't have much of an effect tomorrow the only thing I have left to try is to find a different pro shop that can change the pitch angles of my ball in order to throw with a fully relaxed grip. I'm hoping this works rather than turning my ball into frankenstein, though.

[billf]

That's how I've been rolling it lately but wasn't sure how to put it into words. I showed one guy by putting baby powder on my hand, gripping the ball and showing him my hand where the ball took the powder away.

[Bendial]

That's my biggest challenge is holding the ball on my backswing without using my thumb to "squeeze" into my fingers. It's so frustrating.