Many amateur golfers hold the club with the grip laying in the palm of their gloved hand. When you hold the club predominantly in your palm, you can't release it properly in the downswing. This makes it much harder to square the clubface at impact and restricts your ability to give the shot some "pop" because you don't have any energy to release at the bottom of the swing.

A telltale sign that you're gripping the club too much in the palm is the condition of your golf glove. If it is frayed or worn in the pad below your pinky finger, or if you tend to tear them in that spot, you need to look at how you're taking your grip.

You should grip the club more across the fingers of your gloved hand. This position gives you much more freedom to hinge, unhinge, and rehinge the club as you swing back and through. Your hands and wrists can act like a lever, and the more levers you have in your swing, the more power you can generate.

If you bend into your golf posture and let your arms hang naturally, note how your hands are oriented slightly inward in relation to your body. This natural orientation should help you understand how they should be positioned on the club, with the left hand moving in first before the right.

By combining this gripping procedure with setting the handle more in your fingers and less in your palms, you'll have a much easier time squaring the clubface at impact for straighter shots and, of course, more distance.