golfrewind.com

(first post)....hi guys, im an 8-ish handicap and have a concern about my swing....its the grip. i use the overlap (varden?) anyway, at adress and takeaway, the club rests securely in my palms with fingers wrapped around. however, at the top, the club separates from the palms then comes back to them somewhere on the way down.
without the separation, the club come nowhere near parallel at the top (maybe 45 degrees to it) ...unless, of course, i dont keep a stright right arm (im a lefty). i do rotate my body, shoulders, ect...it just doenst seem that my wrists can cock back enough to get me to parallel. i get many compliments on how textbook my swing is..but this grip thing bugs me.
thanks for any advice...

You don't mention any problems you are encountering because of this grip issue. Are there any, and if so, what are they. You're probably aware of this, but I always like to remember what Harvey Penick said about wrist cock: "One way to mess up a golfer is to tell them to cock their wrists." He went on to say (in his "Little Red Book"): "When you swing back to waist high- the shaft parallel to the ground - the toe of the club must be pointed straight up to the sky," If you are doing this, your wrist will be cocked. Just go ahead and make your turn. Spend time working on set-up and making sure the clubhead is in the toe-up position when the shaft is parallel to the ground in your backswing.If you are doing that, forget about the cocking wrist thing.

I do the exact same thing as you. I wouldn't worry about it too much. If it bothers you that much though I guess you are going to have to live with not taking it back as far.

thanks, i'll be sure to check the club head position at that point. i do hit bad shots from time to time...but i also hit a bunch of good ones in between...all with the same swing. i was just saying that i cannot physically get the shaft to parrallel without the grip comming off the palms...i really dont see how anyone can do it unless the're double jointed...(im just missing something, i think)
and if i did somehow find a way to keep my grip intact at the top...well....maybe i can dramatically improve my game.

Work on strengthing the core muscles and improving your trunk rotation flexibility. It's not often that you see guys on tour taking irons all the way to parallel, in fact most of the time they are somewhere between a 3/4 swing and parallel. It doesn't have much to do with grip and "cocking the wrists" so much as it does being able to make a big shoulder turn.

I have a similar problem with my Driver and 3W. I can make a big enough shoulder turn for the irons down to the 3 or 4I, however for clubs longer than those I tend to get a lot of head movement and too much arm movement at or near the top to complete the backswing all the way to parallel. I've spoken with a few trainers about it and they've suggested a number of exercises to improve my trunk and shoulder rotation flexibility while trying to keep my head still and the left and right arm in synch.

OK...don't mean to sound picky, but both times you've mentioned coming off the palms and it gave me pause. Are you starting with a proper grip? I mean, the grip should be more on the fingers than in the palm. With the lead hand (left hand for a righty) the grip should rest across the second joint down from the tip of the fingers on the index finger and the joint where the palm connects to the hand on the little finger. Now you may be doing this already, but, like I said, you mentioned your palm in each of your posts, and it made me wonder about that. As far as the club coming off the palms...I've never noticed if it does or doesn't when I make a swing. (Oh, great...now I've got a swing thought I didn't want. ) But I don't think it's the root of a few errant shots in your game. If it were messing you up, and you do it on each swing, it would mess you up on each swing.