'Why Do Golfers Only Wear One Glove?'
One of the questions popping up in Google searches in relation to golf was 'why do golfers wear only one glove?' Other questions included 'why do golfers shout fore,' or where does the word birdie come from? which we have already answered elsewhere on this site, So here is the answer to why many golfers wear only one glove.
Most golfers wear only one glove, but there is no rule about this. They can wear whatever they wish. Although some golf clubs can have horrendously intricate dress regulations, fortunately no club has yet thought of bringing in a regulation concerning gloves.
Wearing a glove was principally initially as a protection against getting blistered. People grip the club differently, but in the popular overlapping grip, the top hand grips the club handle and the lower hand overlaps the top hand, so has less of a role in gripping the club. It is not the lower hand which will get blistered, so there was no need to protect that.
Many players wear a golf glove these days to improve their grip on the club. Golf glove design and manufacture has got more sophisticated and there are, for example, gloves designed to give better grip in the wet as a wet, slippery grip can be notoriously tricky to play with.
Glove manufacturers have also got expert at making thin winter golf gloves designed primarily to keep the hands warm. Unlike all other golf gloves, these are sold in pairs as players will want to keep both their hands warm. A few golfers, such as Tommy Gainey and Aaron Rai, ordinarily prefer to play in two gloves not just in cold weather.
Some golfers do not wear gloves, Fred Couples did so because he got fed uo of the expense of replacing worn-out gloves when he was growing up. But in Ben Hogan's case it was because he felt playing without a glove gave him a better feel. Many golfers who do wear a glove will take it off when putting for this reason.
