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Why Should I Replace My Grips?
This is a good question deserving a comprehensive answer. There are many reasons why grips should be replaced. Let’s begin by making a list of these reasons and examine how each one affects your ability as a golfer. Here are some of the reasons to replace your grips.
When your grips are:
- Too slick and worn, you will have difficulty maintaining control of the clubface with your hands. This leads to poorly struck shots, resulting in a loss of confidence and eventually creating tension or muscle tightness in your hands, wrists, and arms.
- Too big, you will tend to leave the clubface open at impact.
- Too small, the tendency is to close the face excessively at impact.
- Too hard, miss-hits tend to create excessive stinging or shock waves in the hands.
- Too soft, the purely struck shots don't feel as pure.
- Not properly installed, results will be inconsistent depending on the installation error.
- Not properly aligned, it is difficult to place your hands on the club properly.
- Not all the same size, will cause inconsistency based on grip size of various clubs.
- Not all the same composition, prevents a consistent feel with all clubs.
- Uncomfortable, it's difficult to get comfortable over the ball and to make good swings.
In summary, it's important to understand the significance of the grips on your golf clubs and how their condition and conformity to your swing and physical characteristics influence your ability to control the club head, clubface angle, and ultimately the golf ball.
The grip is the only part of the golf club you touch during the swing or stroke. Thus, the grip is the feel-center of your game. Golf is a game that requires extraordinary feel in your hands in order to play the variety of shots required, from putting, to chipping, pitching, sand bunker shots, irons, woods, and trouble shots.
Ben Hogan said, "The grip (placement of the hands onto the handle of club) is the heartbeat of the golf swing." With that being the case it makes sense to have the best grips on your golf clubs that make it easy for you to get comfortable and confident with the golf club in your hands. Additionally, this confidence allows you to maintain the same steady grip pressure from takeaway through impact and into the follow through.
The most cost-effective approach a golfer can take for improving their equipment is to have a golf professional advise them on the proper grip size and weight for their clubs, then select a grip that feels good in your hands. New grips make any set of golf clubs feel like a brand new set, at a fraction of the cost. When the golf club feels good in your hands it becomes an instrument -- that's easier to play.
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