FAQs About Golf Grips
Why should you re-grip your golf clubs?
There is nothing worse than the feeling of a worn or slick golf grip. Yet a high percentage of golfers simply ignore the grip as being a factor in the performance of the club. If a grip is worn, the golfer’s hands will tend to slip as the club is being swung, which can cost the player valuable strokes. Golf grips are made of materials that age and wear over time. They naturally degrade from exposure to heat and sunlight as well as the dirt, oils, and grime from your hands. While proper cleaning can prolong the life of a grip, there is only so long the grip can last.
Avid golfers will routinely re-grip their clubs at the beginning of each year ensuring them of maximizing their potential, while other golfer will elect to re-grip every 2 or 3 years based on their frequency of play.
Grip selection and sizing should first and foremost come down to a matter of personal preference as to what feels most comfortable to the individual golfer. The right sized, firmness and textured grip does ensure added consistency as well as confidence in the clubs they play.
Do golf grips come in different sizes?
Yes, the five most common grip sizes in order of smallest to largest are:
Don't assume just because you are a man that you automatically need a men's standard grip or if you are women, you need a lady's standard grip size. There is a reason why grip manufacturers make several different grip sizes. For example, there are some men that have small hands and prefer ladies, or the politically correct term “undersize” golf grip. You also have women with longer fingernails or prefer to hold the grip in their palms rather than the fingers. They may very well prefer one of the men's grip sizes.
Karma offers a grip sizing calculator to help you determine the proper grip size by measuring your hand and finger length for those who do not know what size grip they need.
What happens if a golf grip is too large or too small?
If a golf grip is too small for a player, they will feel that they must hold the club very firmly to secure it in their hands more than they should. As a result, this will lead to tension in the arms, inhibiting a full release and potentially compromising distance. In addition, if the player re-grips the club during the swing, this will change the position of the face relative to the target. On one shot, the face may be open; on the very next it may be closed; in any event, the result is inconsistency. Over the years, a misconception developed in fitting circles that if a grip that was too small for a player it caused him or her to hook the ball or at least hit the ball left of target as the smaller grip promoted excessive hand action.
Another common misconception involves if golf grip is too large. It has been said that this will prevent the player from releasing his hands, leading to pushes or slices. Again, this is not always the case in actual play. Much in the manner of a grip that is too small, a grip that is oversized for the player will cause misdirected shots in a random pattern. A golf grip must be sized so that the player will not tend to reposition his hands during the swing. It cannot be either too large or too small; in those cases, both distance and accuracy potentially suffer.
How much does it cost to regrip your clubs?
The #1 repair service for any golf shop is regripping golf clubs. The average price for regripping a golf club is $4.50 per club PLUS the retail cost of the golf grip. Apart from the labor, the golf shop needs to factor in the shipping cost of the grip(s) from their supplier plus any gripping supplies such as grip tape and solvent.
The average cost of a branded grip is $7.00 and greater. After installation, a freshly regripped set of clubs can cost $150 or more. However, there are two alternative solutions to lowering the cost to regrip your clubs. One is to look at brands you may not be familiar with yet (like Karma). A standard rubber grip can be roughly a third of the price of a similar name brand grip. Installation at a pro shop can run @ $70 for 13 clubs. Another way to save money is to regrip your own golf clubs.
Does Karma offer a ribbed golf grip?
Karma offers a few ribbed golf grips for those golfers needing to assist them in gripping the club in a consistent manner. Most swing grips on the market are referred to as “round grips”. As you guessed, the grip is perfectly symmetric or round. In contrast, a ribbed grip has a rib or a noticeably raised area on the back of a grip.
How is a ribbed golf grip produced?
In the grip manufacturing process, a portion of the mandrel, which is the grip is formed over, is machined flat to produce a flat area on the interior of the grip. Once the grip is installed onto the shaft this will create a raised ridge along the back side of the grip. You can see a cutaway view of the ribbed feature here.
How do you identify a ribbed golf grip?
One way of telling if you have a ribbed or sometimes called “reminder grips” is to look through the vent hole of the grip while holding it up to the light. It’ll be apparent if a flat side is present on the back half of the interior of the grip. A round grip will be perfectly smooth around the interior of the grip.
Another way to tell is to look inside the mouth of the grip. You may have to pinch the opening the see the engraved lettering inside. Karma’s round grips will either have an engraving like R60 or M60 depending upon which grip series you have. The “R” is for round and the 60 is the core size. “M” will be men’s, and these will all be round.
Karma ribbed grips will be labeled as “A60”. It is very important to realize there are no standards amongst the various manufactures on how they label their grips.
