Club Fitting Expert Reveals The One Thing All Golfers Should Check

Every day is a school day with the Kick Point team - you really can learn a lot from our resident gear experts (we recommend subscribing to the Kick Point: The Golf Gear Show podcast).

In this particular episode, Joe Ferguson sits down for a fascinating chat with TaylorMade Senior Manager, Tour, Adrian Rietveld, a man responsible for keeping many of the world’s best (and most demanding) players happy with all their equipment - Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood... the list goes on.

Here, the PGA professional and equipment performance specialist - someone who spends as much time on the PGA Tour than any player - offers some crucial grip advice for every golfer.

WATCH: Joe discusses the importance of grip length with Adrian Rietveld (from 1:01:53)

Your golf grip is the sole connection to the club. This might be a bit of an overused statement, but it really does highlight how important it is, a) to not to play with worn grips; and b) to play with grips that are suitable for you.

We could get fairly technical at this stage, but you’re best off listening to Adrian (you can watch the video above).

In short, the type and size of your grip have an impact on how you strike the ball; therefore, it makes it crucial that you get the right grips for your game, as this will help with comfort and control.

You know all this, as we talk about golf grips a lot, but Adrian has some key advice, especially for those of you who like to put new grips on your golf clubs yourself.

What you need is a spare grip.

As you put the new grip on, you should use a spare grip to make sure you get the length spot on, and you repeat that for each club.

“If one stretches a fraction more and one stretches a fraction less, it’s not consistent,” says Rietveld.

Not only can a different thickness of grip from club to club affect the feel and comfort you experience, it could also affect the level of control you have over the clubface and the way it releases through the hit, potentially having an impact on your ball striking and dispersion.

As a former custom fitter, Joe has seen how fastidious players are on tour. No one, it seems, pays more attention to their grips than former PGA champion, Y.E. Yang.

Time for Adrian to tell an amusing story.

“We’re at The Open, I forget where,” he says. “Y.E. Yang would always want his grips stretched, so much that you actually needed to hold the grip in place while the glue set.

“He would always watch you change his grips. I’m trying to get through these grips for him and every time I get it slightly wrong, he’d slap my hand.

“I remember looking at my colleague, going, ‘I think he just hit me.’ It was the funniest thing of all. It just shows how intricate it is with the grips.”

As Joe says, the gentle hand slap is just the international sign for ‘That grip is wrong’.

Anyway, Y.E. Yang knows how important it is for grips to be perfect and for the thickness to be consistent from club to club, which stems from ensuring they cover the same amount of the club when installed. Now you do, too.