Hand Holding Golf Ball with Vintage Golf Gloves

Everything You Ever Needed to Know about Golf Gloves

Golf Equipment
/ By WeJustGolf

Golf gloves certainly look great. They make a player look like a true seasoned professional. But what’s the actual point of wearing a golf glove? Does a golf glove help improve your game?

The answer is: if you get the right glove, yes. A well-fitting and quality golf glove can make a meaningful improvement to your game. A poorly fitting and low quality glove, on the other hand, can actually harm your game.

So in order to make sure you are choosing well and actually doing what’s right for you, you should do some research to learn more about what to look for in golf gloves, what kind of options you have, and how to choose one that fits you well.

Sense Golf Gloves on Grass

This article is a great place to start to get a foundational knowledge about golf gloves. After you’ve finished this, read through some golf glove reviews on our site and other sites to learn more about the specific products that are on the market.

The Benefits of Wearing a Golf Glove

So what does a good golf glove actually do for you? Here are a few of the key benefits:

Protect your hand. After 18 holes, your hand is going to be raw from rubbing against the grip so often. A glove protects you from blisters and pain associated with that friction.
Added grip. Good gloves are designed with a textured surface that helps improve your grip. This is especially true as your hands get sweaty from extended play. Without gloves, those sweaty hands would lead to a slippery grip and poor swing. With gloves, your grip stays dry and secure.
Wrist support. A golf glove with wrist support will prevent one of the most common golf injuries out there: wrist injuries. It’s important to keep your wrists protected if you want to keep playing.
Training. Thanks to modern technology, you can now get a golf glove training aid that records data about your grip and tells you how to modify it for a better swing. The potential for improvement with that is infinite!

Choosing a Golf Glove

The most important thing about shopping for gloves is getting the right size. When you see them on the pros, the golf gloves look very fitted and tight but should a golf glove be tight? While they should fit like a second skin, they should not squeeze so tightly that you cut off circulation.

Man Holding Golf Gloves

To figure out the right size for you, measure the circumference of your glove hand by taking a measuring tape from the top of the bottom knuckle on your index finger and wrapping it across the rest of your knuckles, around the palm of your hand back to the starting end of the measuring tape. Choose a glove size that is closest to that measurement.

Beyond size, here are a few things to keep in mind when shopping for golf gloves:

Material: the best golf gloves are usually made of leather. This is often more expensive but it will last longer (if cared for well) and provide more of the benefits you want than cheaper material.
Try it on: don’t order your glove online. At least, try it on in the store first so you know exactly how it fits. Hold a golf club while wearing it to get a feel for it.
Get the features you need: is the grip on the fingers the most important for you? Or is wrist support your top priority? Maybe you just want something thin to protect your skin from blisters. Either way, make sure you are getting the features you want and not paying for extras that you don’t want or need.
Compromise: if you really can’t afford a leather glove, compromise by getting one that’s made with leather on the palms and a cheaper synthetic material for the rest. This way you get the advantage of leather for the grip and the affordability of synthetic material.
Know your budget. Golf gloves range on average between about $5 and $25 for a single glove. We definitely recommend going for a higher end quality (because $25 still isn’t that much) and taking good care of it so that it lasts a long time.

Caring for Golf Gloves

Once you’ve gotten a quality golf glove, it’s important to take good care of it. Store it in a golf glove travel bag when you aren’t wearing it to prevent it from damage and harsh conditions.

Washing a golf glove is also just as important as golf glove sizing and quality. A stained, crumpled glove will harm your grip. If you have leather gloves, they are most likely not safe to wash (unless the leather has been treated).

Removing Golf Gloves from Hand

If you are washing, do it by hand. Use a very mild detergent and let them hang or lay flat to dry. More importantly, don’t wash them too often. Instead, take care that they don’t get too dirty:

Don’t wipe sweat away with the glove. Salt and water get into the pours of leather and break it down.
Take the gloves off between swings. If you wear the glove only during swinging, this will cut down on the amount of sweat that gets into it and greatly extend the life of your glove.

Now that you have a basic knowledge of what golf gloves can and should do as well as what you need to be looking for as you shop, you’re ready to start looking through the different products available to find the one that perfectly suits you and will have the best impact on your game!