I’ve used only Golf Pride grips for almost 30 years now with total satisfaction, except for the grips that come on stock clubs. When I grip my drivers, these are the best I’ve found for my likes. tour velvet on my irons and these tour velvet cord on my drivers.
I’ll never use any other grip for my drivers. My gripping technique: I use Acetone to clean off any tape residue. I think Acetone is too harsh for solvent IMHO but it will work if that’s all you have.
Acetone is basically finger nail polish remover and if it is strong enough to remove fingernail polish, I think it could damage my driver shafts. I worry that it will eat the carbon fiber shaft outer material if I leave it on too long and it will strip too much glue from the tape and grip interior, but that’s just me.
I use mineral spirits for the gripping process and it works extremely well. So I cut off the previous grip with a hook Milwaukee folding razor knife. The hook tip is perfect for removing golf grips, one quarter of an inch at a time.
Once the grip is removed, I use Acetone and my fingernail to get the previous grip tape off entirely. I also remove any scantron paper labels which were left on the shaft during factory assembly. The graphic stickers are cool and I leave those.
Once the shaft is clean I take the new Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord and remove the plastic and insert a golf tee into the small hole keeping in mind it needs to be secure enough to be water tight. I set it aside and grab a roll of single sided 1 7/8″ “build up” masking tape from the most popular golf assembly supply company online and side-wrap the shaft once from about 1/4″ from where the grip end will sit (keep in mind the shaft will sit about 1/8″ from the end of the grip handle once inside the grip when you’re done) and leave about one inch of free tape above the end of the shaft as I smoothly wrap the tape in place from the bottom of where the grip will end to the butt end of the shaft.
Most shafts will cause a slight overlap of the tape at the bottom but a small 1 mm gap will develop as you move toward the butt end. I smoothly press it onto the shaft with no bubbles or creases working those flat with a fingernail if they happen and then grap that 1″ of free tape and roll it like a cigarette and push it into the open hole at the butt end of the shaft.
I will do this with both layers of tape to provide for some material for my digital sensors that have to screw into the grip for my golf tracking app. The screw tip on the sensors holds better and for longer time if I do this with both layers of tape so there is a lot of tape material just inside the butt end of the shaft.
Then I do the same with the 1 7/8″ double sided tape from the same online company. I attempted to layers of singe sided “build up” tape the first time I got build up tape and my grip stopped about two inches onto the shaft like a Porsche GT3 braking hard at Nürburgring! I had to cut that off and begin again so make sure to use double sided tape on your outermost final tape layer! Again, I cut about 1″ of free tape and roll and tuck that into the end of the butt of the shaft.
If there is a little bit of crown due to these it won’t matter becuase I left about 1/4″ of play near the bottom of the grip between where the tape ends and where the end of the grip will be. The grip doesn’t need to stick all the way to the end.
Only really where your hands are. Then it’s time to dissolve the grip glue and wet down the double sided tape – all with the same batch of mineral spirits that you will use to pour into the grip and wash it around to dissolve the glue.
TRICK TO MAKE THIS AN EASY PROCESS: Before you fill the grip with mineral spirits grab the grip with your right hand (left hand if you’re left handed) and orientate it how you want the logo to go once it’s on the shaft.
For me, all of my clubs are logo down as you hold the clubs. I don’t like to see a logo when I play. So the tip is this. you’ll be attempting to push the small hole of the loose grip over the butt end of the now double taped driver shaft.
This isn’t impossible to do but if you don’t grip the grip correctly, it will bend and move and the mineral spirits will be drying out, which if left too long you won’t be able to get the grip onto the shaft easily.
So if you grip the grip properly, BEFORE YOU FILL IT WITH MINERAL SPIRITS, you will be able to immediately push it onto the shaft easily. So I grab the grip with the logo in my four right finger curves (logo down) and I line up my right index finger with the two white rings at the end of the tour velvet cord grip.
This will leave about 1/4″ of grip end remaining. This is a good distance to both allow for you to cap the end with your thumb and wash around the mineral spirits inside the grip to dissolve the grip glue; slowely poor the mineral spirits over the grip tape length; and then immediately slide on the grip over the butt end and all the way down onto the shaft in one smooth controlled and medium speed motion.
The key to good gripping is to have this good hand hold BEFORE YOU PUT MINERAL SPIRITS INTO THE GRIP. And since this hand hold method makes it difficult to plug the small hole at the butt end of the grip with your other hand, the golf tee is essential to plug that hole during the process.
You’ll remove that tee right before you slide the grip the last three inches or so onto the shaft. So here is when I prep a good foundation for the driver head to sit in while I push the grip on the club.
My garage has a one layer brick step up into my pantry. I use that brick layer to push the driver head against as I push the grip onto the shaft. I take my 1992 Masters golf beach towel and fold it up nicely for a padded foundation that will both protect the head and keep it steady as I push against the brick edge during the process.
I open the bottle of mineral spirits; grab the grip in my right hand, logo down, and put a small funnel into the open end of the grip; and poor about 30ml (I measured the volume to be 40ml so this will both leave a little bit of room in the grip and provide enough mineral spirits to pre-lube the tape prior to installation) of mineral spirits into the funnel and into the grip.
You can use a graduated shot glass to do this. The 30ml line is almost to the top and easy to find. Once the 30ml of mineral spirits is in the grip, discard the funnel into the sink and cap the end of the grip with the thumb of your hand that is already grabbing the grip.
Now, you’ve got a great hold of the grip to easily slide it onto the butt end of the shaft, AND you can cap it off with the same thumb that is gripping the grip. The golf tee should keep any of the mineral spirits from running out of the butt end and you can slosh the mineral spirits around inside the grip for a while to release/activate the grip glue (if there is any, I don’t really know, but you are at least coating the inside of the grip with the mineral spirits if there isn’t).
I usually do this for 45 seconds to one minute, max. When the grip glue is “activated” I take the golf club, butt end down, over my pantry deep sink and slowly pour out the mineral spirits over the length of the grip tape, from the left to the butt end and back if more liquid is in the grip, thinking that all of the tape must be wet down by the small amount of mineral spirits in the grip.
This will make the grip slide on smoothly. You don’t want any dry grip tape area. It should all be wet with mineral spirits from the grip. Now I immediately remove the golf tee with my left hand making sure I don’t release the grip from my right hand so there is a hole through which air can escape as you slide the grip on; and I take the club in my left hand out into the garage, just 10 feet away and place the driver head down on the Masters towel that is already in place and take the grip that has been sitting in my right hand without moving from my right hand this entire time and push the open hole of the grip over the edge of the shaft butt end and slide it down as far as I can before I release my right grip position.
Now you can let go and regrab the grip to slide it all the way on. Then line the white dashes up with the face of the driver and you’re all set! A few extra tips: As you slide the grip on, the friction of the tight grip is going to “squeegee” that mineral spirits off of the tape and deposit it onto the bare surface of your driver shaft.
This isn’t an issue if you wipe it up but it will be a mixture of mineral spirits, interior grip glue (if there was any) and sluff off tacky tape glue from the double sided tape. As the mineral spirits then evaporate, all that glue and tape residue will be left on the shaft which you can clean off with Acetone, no problem.
But a good way to minimize this is to take a paper towel (I use a blue shop paper towel) and fold it up and wrap it around the shaft and tape that around the towel so it sits just below where the grip will end up.
This will then be used to quickly wipe around the shaft to absorb that squeegeed off solvent mix as it comes off of the tape. Makes for easier clean up. Finally, when you first start doing this you are probably going to get mineral spirits on the outside of the grip, which you can clean up pretty quickly.
The more you do this, the more you’ll figure out how to put a grip on with zero solvent getting on the outside of the grip surface, which is very satisfying. Gripping is very easy, when you think about it and come up with your own techniques for making it a fun and rewarding process.
I grip my clubs once per year, at least, and these Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord grips are the best I’ve ever found. Thanks Golf Pride! Keep it up. Oh, another finally: Most driver shafts are the “60 round” diameter shafts and you should use that size unless you know you have the smaller radius shaft! Then you should examine the 58 round size.
You’re welcome!.