While checking my clubs recently one thing I noticed was that I have a collection of different grips on my clubs.
Having swapped clubs in and out of my bag over the last number of years I’ve now ended up with different golf grips on my driver and fairway woods, compared to my irons and specialist wedges.
I had never really noticed it before and so prior to deciding whether to do anything about it I did some detailed analysis on what grips the top 100 pros on the PGA Tour are using to see what the best players on the planet are up to.
Golf Pride grips are the most used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros with 86% choosing them. Lamkin grips, used by Tony Finau and Justin Rose, are the next most common chosen by 6. IOMIC grips are picked by 4 pros while SuperStroke are used by Jordan Speith and Joel Dahmen. PING and Gripmaster grips are used by only 1 pro each.
Even though there seems to be a definitive consensus among the best players on the PGA Tour that Golf Pride are the best golf grips our research still found 25 different grip models being used by the top 100.
And when it comes to the number and types of wraps individual pros have under their grips it is obvious that the best players still have very detailed requirements when it comes to which grips feel and work best for them!
Most Popular Grips Used on PGA Tour? Golf Pride Take Pride of Place
The top 100 PGA Tour pros have a noticeable preference for Golf Pride golf grips and clearly consider them to be the best golf grips available to them.
Golf Pride (GP) Tour Velvet grips are the most used among the top 100 PGA Tour pros with 33 using them including Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay and Adam Scott. GP’s MCC grips are the next most popular with 19 using them including Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland. Tour Velvet Cord grips are chosen by 16 pros.
When we last did this analysis a couple of years ago Golf Pride grips were again shown to be the most popular among this elite group with 75% using them.
So with 86% now choosing them their dominance seems only to be growing.
But as we start to delve a bit deeper into the grip choices of the best players on Tour the precision with which they approach them is obvious and as exacting as it is with all their other equipment choices.
While the Tour Velvet grip continues to be the most popular choice among the top 100 on Tour fifty five of them choose other types of Golf Pride grips.
Rory McIlroy for example uses the MultiCompound (MCC) grip as does Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland.
Tyrell Hatton meanwhile prefers the MCC Plus4 which is designed to simulate 4 additional wraps on the lower hand to encourage lighter grip pressure.
Sam Burns and Cameron Young then use the ALIGN versions of the Tour Velvet and ZGrip Cord grips respectively to help them ensure they place their hand correctly on the club every time.
In simple terms ALIGN refers to a raised ridge along each grip which allows a player to find a consistent ‘feel’ and therefore hand placement each time they pick up a club.
The great Tiger Woods meantime has preferred a standard 58 round Tour Velvet Cord grip during his career with one wrap of build up tape and 1 wrap of double sided tape applied underneath.
Others such as Taylor Pendrith, Andrew Putnam and John Huh also don’t use the same grip on all their clubs opting for different grip types on their woods and/or hybrids compared to their irons and wedges.
Pendrith for example chooses MCC grips for the longest clubs in his bag before switching to Tour Velvet Cord grips for his 3-iron through to 60º lob wedge.
It is unlikely that golf grips are ever the main topic of conversation in the clubhouse among amateur golfers across the world but it is clear from looking at the golf grips chosen by the top 100 PGA Tour players that it is something they pay close attention to.
So for the sake of completeness and satisfy any curiosity for which exact grips the top 100 pros on the PGA Tour are using here is a complete breakdown.
| GOLF GRIP | NO. OF TOP 100 PGA TOUR PLAYERS | |
| Golf Pride Tour Velvet | 33 (inc. Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Matt Fitzpatrick, Kevin Kisner, Shane Lowry, Adam Scott, Rickie Fowler) | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Golf Pride MCC (MultiCompound) | 20 (inc. Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele, Corey Conners, Davis Riley, Tom Kim, Maverick McNealy, Taylor Pendrith – woods) | Check eBay View on Amazon View at PGA Tour Superstore |
| Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord | 15 (inc. Justin Thomas, Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Jason Day, Brooks Koepka, Taylor Pendrith – irons) | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Golf Pride Z-Grip Cord | 7 (inc. Will Zalatoris, Collin Morikawa, Seamus Power) | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Golf Pride Tour Velvet Align | 4 (Sam Burns, Cam Davis, Russell Knox, Andrew Putnam – irons only) | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Golf Pride Tour Velvet Super Tack | 2 (Cameron Smith, Keegan Bradley) | Check eBay |
| Golf Pride V55 Cord | 2 (Lucas Glover, Taylor Moore) | Check eBay |
| Golf Pride Tour Wrap 2G | 1 (Daniel Berger) | Check eBay View on Amazon View at PGA Tour Superstore |
| Golf Pride Tour Velvet 360 | 1 (Hayden Buckley) | Check eBay |
| Golf Pride Victory Velvet Cord | 1 (Kevin Mitchell) | Check eBay |
| Golf Pride MCC Plus4 | 1 (Tyrell Hatton) | Check eBay |
| Golf Pride ZGrip Cord Align | 1 (Cameron Young) | Check eBay |
| Golf Pride Tour Velvet Plus4 | 1 (Scott Stallings) | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay |
| Lamkin Crossline | 2 (Adam Long, Doug Ghim) | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Lamkin UTX | 2 (Tony Finau, Justin Rose) | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Lamkin Crossline Full-Cord | 2 (Brendan Steele, Brandon Wu) | View on Amazon Check eBay View at PGA Tour Superstore |
| IOMIC X-Grip 2.3 | 2 (Hideki Matsuyama, Matt Kuchar) | Check eBay |
| IOMIC Sticky 2.3 | 1 (Lanton Griffin) | Check eBay |
| IOMIC Sticky Black Army 2.3 | 1 (Anirban Lahiri) | |
| SuperStroke S-Tech | 2 (Jordan Speith, Joel Dahmen) | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Gripmaster Roo | 1 (Lucas Herbert) | |
| PING 360 ID8 | 1 (Sahith Theegala) |
What Size Grips Do Pros Use? Don’t Forget the Wraps!
The golf grip is the only point of contact every golfer has with the club so it makes sense that it should never just be a case of any player simply living with whatever grip comes on the clubs they choose.
The best pros on the PGA Tour clearly don’t and our in-depth analysis of the golf grips used by the top 100 found that the pros clearly spend a great deal of time ensuring their grip is as comfortable and suited to them as possible.
And a key part of that relates to the size of grip the pros choose.
The majority of the top 100 PGA Tour pros use standard size grips, including Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas. Others such as Sam Burns, Tony Finau and Jon Rahm use midsize grips, but each pro will also add varying amounts of tape under the grip to create a size that matches their specific requirements.
And that final point is the key one when it comes to discussions about the size of grips the pros use.
For some pros a midsize grip is too large for their liking but a standard size grip is too small.
That is why they will add extra wraps of tape underneath in order to get that grip size absolutely spot on.
Because the number of build up and/or double sided tape wraps a player uses under their grip gives it a different width and therefore size.
And not only that, the tape they use will give the club a different weight as will a cord grip which also means it is going to be a bit heavier.
2023 Masters champion Jon Rahm for example uses only 1 tape wrap underneath his midsize Golf Pride MCC grips but Scottie Scheffler uses 6 wraps of tape under his standard 58 Ribbed Golf Pride Tour Velvet grips.
Tony Finau meanwhile opts for a near unbelievable 13 wraps under the right hand and 12 under the left hand of his Lamkin UTX Midsize Full Cord grips.
That suggests Finau is gripping the branch of a small tree rather than a golf club but his reasoning for doing this is to try and produce a near uniform thickness from grip to shaft compared to the standard taper in the lower hand.
In other cases Tour pros will opt for extra tape wraps only under the lower half of the grip.
Xander Schauffele is one such player whose Golf Pride MCC grips get progressively larger as they reach his lower hand.
While the left hand of his grip is ‘standard’ size he opts for one 4-inch tape wrap followed by a 6-inch wrap under the right hand to help him slow down club rotation and start the ball right for his ideal shot shape.
As a general rule, adding 4 extra layers of tape (in addition to the 1 wrap of double-sided tape needed to adhere the grip to the shaft) will take a grip from an Undersize to Standard, Standard to Midsize, and so on.
And you should also take note that building up grips with extra tape will stretch the rubber and make it feel firmer.
So when you start looking at what sizes of grip the pros use bear in mind that the ‘manufactured’ size they are shown as choosing does not tell the whole story.
Do Pros Use Cord or Non-Cord Golf Grips?
Watch the PGA Tour for any length of time and it won’t take long before you notice the various multi-coloured golf grips that many of the pros have on their clubs.
While all the main golf grip manufacturers produce multi-coloured grips these days the most common coloured grip is the Golf Pride MCC (New Decade MultiCompound) which is a hybrid grip with a standard lower section and cord upper section.
[Editor’s note – Hybrid golf grips are also known as ‘half cord‘ grips]
And when it comes to cord grips it is interesting to see what proportion of the PGA Tour pros use them.
28% of the top 100 PGA Tour pros use full cord grips with 19% choosing hybrid grips, which have a cord upper section and normal rubber lower section. The majority of the top 100, just over 50%, choose non-cord grips however and among this group Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet grip is the most popular.
By choosing MCC grips on his woods and Tour Velvet cord grips on his irons and wedges Taylor Pendrith was once again an anomaly with his choice of a mixture of full cord and hybrid grips in his golf set.
But why do some of the pros decide to go for cord grips, whether that is just for their top hand with the hybrid grips or for both hands with the full cord options?
Pros choose full or half cord golf grips because of the extra traction they give to stop the club spinning in their hands when their hands are sweating or they are playing in wet conditions. Cord grips absorb more moisture by virtue of the cord strands that are sandwiched and moulded between two thin layers of rubber.
The key word when it comes to golf grips is ‘feel’ and with cord grips they have a lightly sanded feel.
And it is this that adds the extra friction with a player’s hands when they grip the club compared to a standard soft non-cord rubber grip.
| GOLF GRIP TYPE | NO. OF TOP 100 PGA TOUR PLAYERS | SELECTED GOLFERS |
| Non-cord | 52 | Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Sam Burns, Matt Fitzpatrick, Hideki Matusyama, Max Homa, Jordan Speith, Kevin Kisner, Shane Lowry, Adam Scott, Cameron Young |
| Full cord | 28 | Xander Schauffele, Will Zalatoris, Tony Finau, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Cameron Young, Billy Horschel, Brooks Koepka |
| Hybrid | 18 | Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Rory McIlroy, Corey Conners, Davis Riley, Tyrrell Hatton, Maverick McNealy |
| Full cord / Hybrid | 1 | Taylor Pendrith |
| Full cord / Non-cord | 1 | John Huh |
Like every golf swing however, every player is different when it comes to which golf grip types they prefer the feel of in their hands.
I used to use full cord grips in the past simply because I saw a lot of the pros using them however I found that due to the additional roughness they caused my hands a few problems, especially when I was practising and playing almost every day.
I therefore switched back to the non-cord grips and have stuck with them since simply because I prefer the smoother feel in my hands and I have never noticed any problems with my hands slipping due to sweat or in wet weather.
Every player is different though and personal preference clearly plays its part also among the top 100 players on the PGA Tour.
[Editor’s note – We also took a detailed look at the putter grips the top 100 PGA Tour pros use which you can check out here.]
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