Replacing Your Golf Club
Grips
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Replacing your golf club grips or
re-gripping your clubs is not only a good maintenance practice
but it is also very easy to do.
Depending upon how many rounds
per year or season you play, you should seriously
consider re-gripping your golf clubs annually. Or, at the
very least the clubs that you most often
use.
Remember the amount you practice also
will have a great bearing on how often your re-grip your clubs
and which clubs will be in need of a re-gripping.
Each spring, for example is the time
to get this done. You’ll want to begin each season with each of
your clubs having the same feel to it. Since golf grips
deteriorate gradually over time, you don’t always notice that a
club is in need of new grips until they get well past the point
of needing it.
Re-gripping your clubs is not a
difficult task at all. All you need are just a couple of basic
tools and a couple hours of your time and you can save yourself
some pretty decent money.
Let’s take a look at what
you’ll need.
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Your new golf grips (of
course) |
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A utility knife (with a sharp
blade) |
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Double sided tape (available
at any retail golf shop) |
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Mineral spirits (check the
paint department) |
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Work bench with a
vice |
First place your club in the
vice with the grip fully
exposed.
I like to wrap a towel
around the shaft to keep from scratching it. Also, I like to
set the vice as close to where the grip begins so as to not to
be able to exert undue leverage on the shaft or the hosel of
the golf club. 
Take your utility knife
with just enough of the blade exposed to cut through the old
grip, cut the length of the grip.
Start with one cut down
each side. Then pull the old grip off the golf club. Use your
mineral spirits at this point to soften up the old tape and
remove the old tape from the shaft of the club. Once done, let
the shaft dry for just a couple of minutes.
Next, getting the double-sided tape
on the shaft is a matter of preference, but this is what
works for me.
I take the club out of the vice and
hold it like a plumb bob. Then I take my double-sided tape
and start at the bottom area of the where the new grip will
be and begin wrapping the tape up the shaft toward the
top.
I go up with the tape at about a 30
to 40 degree angle. I leave a small space in between each
wrap of tape so when I have reached the top of the club the
tape on the club resembles an old style barber pole look.
The key is to just take your time and not to wrinkle the
tape.
Now you’ve got
re-gripping your golf club whipped.
Once you have the double
sided tape spiraled up the shaft, simply remove the outer layer
of the tape to expose the other sticky side of the double sided
tape.
Next I put the club back
into the vice. Take your first new golf grip and with one
finger over the small opening on the top of the grip, pour just
a bit of your mineral spirits into the grip and give it a
couple good shakes the pour out the mineral spirits over the
top of your new tape job. I like to work with a bucket
underneath to catch the mineral spirits.
With the grip and the tape now
prepped with the mineral spirits, work the new grip over
the end of the shaft and slide it down the tape.
While the grip and the
tape are still wet, take the club out of the vice
grip and make the final adjustments to the golf
grip.
All of the golf grips
will either have some sort of pattern on them or a ‘nick’ just
at the bottom of the grip you can use for alignment.
And there you have it. Set that club
aside and go on to the next.
Once complete, let your new golf
club grips dry for a few hours and you’ll be all
set.
Play Good Golf!
Jeff O'Brien
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