The beginning of the Golf Season is upon us. As “The Masters” gets underway, we are all excited for the weather up North to get warmer and to be able to tee up our first ball of the season. But your clubs need an update, it’s time for new grips. Here is a simple way to update those warn out grips.
1. Remove old grips
- Grab the grip firmly with your non dominant hand, then slide your blade from bottom to top. Cutting down to the shaft through the whole grip.
- Spread apart the grip at the bottom and detach it from the adhesive, once you start to peel it all the way to the top, it should get easier. Remove the grip from the adhesive all the way to the top of the shaft.
- You can use a razor blade if you are getting rid of your existing grips and replacing with brand new ones. Any razor blade will work but the Mudder Grip removal tool works well with grips and lessen the possibility of slipping and cutting your fingers or hands when removing the grip.
- If you are readjusting or adding tape to the underneath of your existing grips you can use a VGroove grip remover and utilize your existing grips by putting them back on after adjusting. If you are going to use this tool to reuse your grips, simply stick the tip under the bottom of the grip and put a dab of Solvent between the grip and shaft. Slowly work your way back and forth up the shaft until you reach the very top. Twist the grip side to side sliding it off. Let dry before you regroup or add more tape.
2. Remove/Add tape
- Simply use your blade to cut and peel off the existing tape from the shaft of your club. If your tape is in good shape, just start at one end of the tape and peel off all the way down. If it’s not in good shape, just use the edge of your raiser to scrape the tape off.
- Lay your grip next to the club to see how far down you need to add tape. I usually leave about 1/2″ of grip at the end without tape. Mark it with a sharpie, or on most clubs there are elevations in the shaft that can help you eyeball where to start the tape.
- Add a clean layer of tape from this starting point, all the way to the top. At the top of the shaft, let the tape lay over by about 1/4″ and shove the excess in the opening of the end shaft.
- If you like your tape and grip to be a bit thicker than standard and didn’t purchase a midsize or jumbo grip you can simply add a second layer of new double sided tape, Crestgolf Grip Tape Roll over the first layer, or if your preexisting tape is in good shape just add another layer over the top of your existing tape.
3. Add Grip solvent to Grips
- Grab your bottle of Golf Grip Solvent. Place your finger over the small pin hole in the end of the grip and squeeze a bit of the solvent into the large end of the grip end. Place your finger from the other hand over the large hole and shake the solvent inside the grip from side to side to coat the inside of the entire grip. Do not let the solvent come out of the grip just yet! (this is very important to not waste grip solvent, we will try and utilize as much solvent as we can for multiple steps)
4. Add solvent to the tape of the shaft
- Remove your finger from the large hole of the grip, keeping your finger over the small hole in the end of the grip, making sure to tilt the grip up, as to not let the solvent drip out. Grab your club with your free hand and hold the taped end over your Painters Tray. While holding your taped club over the painters tray at a downward angle, bring the solvent filled grip over to your taped shaft and slowly pour the solvent out of the grip onto the taped shaft. Moving from the end of the tape towards the end of the shaft, dump the solvent out of your grip onto the tape. Trying to cover all of the tape with the excess solvent in your grip. Make sure to keep your finger over the small pin hole in the end of the grip. This will not only keep the solvent from pouring out the small pinhole but also create suction so that the solvent does not come out too quickly and leave much of the tape untouched by the solvent. Slowly dump the solvent onto the grip as you work your way down. Once all of the solvent has been dumped out of the grip and onto your fresh tape layers and dripping into your painters tray, remove your finger from the small pinhole and grab the bottom of the grip firmly.
5. Slide the grip over the shaft
- With your hand firmly on the bottom of your grip, angle the grip so that the end of the taped shaft is going into the large opening at the end of the grip, the angle will make it easier for the shaft to slide into the grip. Once the end of the shaft has been fully inserted into the hole in the grip, straighten the grip and pull the grip all the way over the tape on the shaft. If you have coated the inside of the grip and the shaft with enough solvent you should have no problem getting the grip to slide onto the tape. As you slide the grip down further, adjust your hand on the grip towards the top of the grip to make sure the shaft gets seated all the way to the top of the grip end. Continue to pull until the shaft is all the way to the top and then slide your hand toward the bottom making sure the grip itself has not bunched up, but is covering all of the tape and slightly further than the tape. It’s ok to have about ¼” of the grip not being touched by the tape but over the metal of the shaft.
6. Align the grip with the head of your club
- Once the grip is all the way on your shaft, now it’s time to make sure that the marks on your grip are aligned with the leading edge of your club head. Many of the grips now come with arrows or lines on the top edge of the grip as you look down onto the head of your club and we want to make sure that this sightline and grip line are accurate so your hands aren’t wonky as you set up your club at address. Take a look down the club, as you would at address, and these lines should be parallel with the leading edge of the clubface. You will have a short amount of time to make these adjustments before the solvent dries and the adhesive starts to stick. As you are looking down the club, make small adjustments to the grip and align these marks. Grab the club as you would addressing the ball and make sure that you are comfortable with the alignment of your grips to the clubface. Once you are satisfied with the alignment of your grip, You’re all done.
7. Wait 24 hours to use your clubs
- The solvent that is used for gripping clubs does not take long to start evaporating and activating the adhesive on the tape, but we want to make sure that we don’t misalign the grips before all of the adhesive is evaporated and the tape is doing it’s job on every part of your grip, we wouldn’t want any part of the grip to not be secure when taking a full swing and risk misaligning part of your grip. 24 hours is a good amount of time to wait before using your clubs.
