Free The Natural Golf Swing by George Knudson, Lorne Rubenstein Page B

The more vividly we can imagine the target, the more intensely will we react to it. You can build up your powers of target awareness at home by closing your eyes and taking yourself through your course, shot by shot.
    Having a clear image of the target in your mind gets you going. It gives you purpose, direction, and intent. How are you going to get somewhere if you don’t know where you’re going? How are you going to establish a route or a path to get Somewhere if you haven’t decided upon your destination? The more clearly you can fix your destination in your mind, the more easily will you reach your objective. Target awareness takes your mind’s eye off the ball and puts it where it belongs: out there in space. That’s real direction. That’s a goal. It helps fix in your mind’s eye the distance, direction, trajectory, and curvature you’re after with each shot.

    Start with hands compact; notice position of thumbs.

    Hands opposed.
GRIP
    Focused as you are on your target, you are also aware of balance. You want to adopt a grip that enables you to get your hands on the club in a balanced position. It stands to reason that the balanced grip is the one that most approximates the way in which your hands fall naturally. This means that you won’t have to contort your hands in any way. Think of Roberto De Vicenzo, Peter Thomson, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Gene Littler, and Curtis Strange. These golfers get their hands on the club properly. Their hands look as if they belong on the golf club.
    The natural grip is no different than a grip we would use for many tasks. It’s also the one that sets us up so that we are oriented toward our target, if, that is, we have kept our focus on the target. The back of the left hand, or the left wrist, faces the target. This makes sense, since we want to contact the ball with our clubface square to the target; that is, at an angle of ninety degrees to the target. We form the grip so that the palms are opposed, as in prayer. Why do it differently? To grip the club with the left wrist pointing to the sky, for example, wouldforce us to compensate somewhere during the motion. But we are designing a starting position that will allow us to make a simple, natural motion; without compensatory moves and extraneous gestures. We’re designing a no-frills motion, so we start with a no-frills grip. Form follows function. Less is more.
    The right hand opposes the left, as is evident in the illustrations. Put your arms in front of you with the fingers extended outward. Now put them palm to palm. This, in essence, is the grip. The hands and palms oppose one another. They are in balance with respect to the target and each other. Drop your arms down as if you have a club in your hands and the same relationship holds.
    The club, of course, intervenes between the hands. We now want to find the most straightforward means of holding the club while maintaining the relationship to the target. The hands and palms still oppose one another, as in prayer.
Left Hand Placement on the Club
    Fit the club diagonally across the palm of your left hand. It’s positioned so that when the last three fingers of the left hand wrap around the butt end of the club, the meaty part of the hand applies pressure as well as the fingers. This is a balanced, trim condition in which you can actually control the club with the last three fingers of your left hand. The fingers apply pressure from the bottom and the right side of the club, while the meaty part of the hand applies pressure from the top and the left side of the club. This symmetrical arrangement generates a sensation of control and power in the left hand. The grip pressure happens naturally when you assume the correct form. I don’t want you toactually
apply
any pressure. Applied pressure is extra pressure. You’ll find you have all the pressure you require simply by adopting the form. The form
gives
you the pressure. You need not do anything to create it.

    Left hand