Change Your Golf Grips For Better Golf

Putting new grips on your golf clubs can be a inexpensive and effective solution to quickly give you more consistency in your game.

Most amateur golfers never change the grips on their clubs. They play for years with a set of clubs without ever changing the grips!

Whereas, some professionals have been known to re-grip their clubs at the end of every competitive round. They do this so their clubs feel exactly the same. Chances are that they don't need them re-gripping that often, but in today's tour competitions there is so much money at stake that they do not want to leave anything to chance.

How often should you re-grip your clubs?

A good general rule is:

if you play once a week, then you should change the grips on your clubs once a year. Play twice a week, change twice a year etc.

Of course, if you do a lot of practice on the range you should consider changing your grips even more frequently. You could easily hit 30 shots with your driver in a range session. In a round of golf you may not use your driver more than 10 times. So one range session a week hitting 30 drives, would equate to 3 rounds a week, implying re-gripping 3 times a year.

You will also find you have certain clubs that are used far more often than others, especially if you only play your home course the majority of the time. This is because you play the course in a certain way - same clubs for same shots, mostly governed by the length of the course. So after some months the grips on certain clubs become more worn than others.

What happens when a grip is worn?

Grips are fundamentally just pieces of rubber to enable us to hold the golf club securely. The grips have various type of a textured surface to provide more grip security and feel. As a grip is used over and over the surface rubber begins to wear. The natural oils in our hands also start to affect the grips. You will notice this as it will start to look shiny.

If you look at old used set of golf clubs that have never been re-gripped you will see that the grips are often very shiny.

Shiny grips are a problem. You have to grip the club harder when the grip is shiny so that it does not slip and turn in your hands as you take a swing. You may not even be aware you are doing it! The problem with gripping the club too hard is that it adversely affects the way you strike the ball. Your hands are simply not relaxed, and therefore, because the muscles in your hands and forearms are tense, they will slow down. In the golf swing, relaxed hands are fast hands. You need fast hands to get good distance.

It is worth checking your golf clubs at least once a month. Compare grips across the entire set. If any are beginning to wear, consider getting them renewed.

New grips feel good. They can almost feel "sticky" by comparison to the old worn grips. This can give you real sense of confidence.

Confidence builds success.

MARK PEARSON has been playing golf for over 25 years, and teaches and plays golf professionally in the UK. Mark is the author of "How to Master Putting and Putt like a Pro - a guide to golf's game within a game"

www.masterputting.com