Best Golf Pride Grips 2024: How to choose the best grip for your game
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Golf Pride is the market leader in golf grips – but what are the best Golf Pride grips for your game?
Choosing the best golf grips can be really confusing, with so many options to choose from. There are soft ones, firm ones, sticky ones, super-sticky ones, fat ones, thin ones… and everything in between. Golf Pride grips are some of the best in the world, and we’ve explored their best and most popular offerings.
Having a secure grip on your clubs has tangible benefits to your golf game, but knowing which model is going to suit your needs for feel preference is another thing. It’s a minefield with how many options are in play, and we’d advise getting fitted for a grip like you would for a shaft or club, where possible.
Often difficult to ascertain without feeling a grip on a club, there are ways that you can narrow down the search before seeing your local golfing retailer and being presented with all the choices available.
Market leaders Golf Pride make 21 different grips alone, so they have simplified the process by using a football formation – 4-4-2 – with four choices of what you want from your Golf Pride grips, four different styles of grip, and two options with extra help that you may want from your grips. This is how it works…
Step 1: Choose what you want from your grips
Grip size
If your middle finger is just touching the pad of your thumb when holding the grip in the glove hand, that is the perfect size.
Conditions
If you often play in rain or get sweaty hands when it’s warm, you may need to factor in more moisture management.
Surface texture
Do you like your grips to feel smooth, rough with pronounced patterns for added traction, or somewhere in the middle?
Firmness
A firm grip will offer more feedback and vibration at impact, whereas a softer feel will dampen the club’s vibrations.
Step 2: Choose your preferred style of grip
Soft and tacky = The CPX
Offering maximum comfort to reduce grip tension and pressure, leading to a more fluid swing; the CPX is Golf Pride’s softest performance grip.
Hybrid or half-cord = The MCC
Hybrid technology gives enhanced stability in all weather conditions, thanks to upper hand cord fused with lower hand rubber in multiple colors.
Full-cord = The ZGRIP
Golf Pride’s firmest grip, featuring a ‘Z-shaped’ texture pattern and full cotton cord that delivers both traction and all-weather control.
Velvet and smooth = The Tour Velvet
Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet offers comfort, playability and control in all conditions. A proprietary rubber compound with a non-slip pattern texture reduces moisture and slippage.
Step 3: Choose any extra help you may need
Align Technology
A visible raised red ridge on the back of the club helps lock in your hand position at address, enhancing clubface awareness and delivering a square clubface at impact. Available on… ZGRIP, MCC, MCC PLUS4, Tour Velvet.
PLUS4
PLUS4 simulates building up the lower half of the grip with four extra wraps of tape. This reduced taper encourages lighter grip pressure, promoting less tension in the hands and creating more fluidity and power. Available on… MCC PLUS4, Tour Velvet.
Best Golf Pride Grips
Here are the best Golf Pride grips for your game, going from softest to firmest.
Golf Pride's softest grip.
The idea was to create a ‘comfort grip’ that’s super comfy to hold and has a little bit of squish.
Unlike other soft grips, Golf Pride wanted the model to be super stable (and not torque or wriggle during the swing), so it’s as credible a choice for faster-speed players as it is for a more average pace.
The Golf Pride CPX grip is perfect for players who want the best of the comfort and traction worlds, with a little bit of vibration dampening built in.
While I was hesitant at first with the style, the CPX feel has won me over. The ribbed effect helps keep control while gripping with less strength, and the softer material gives great feedback at impact.
A very soft and tacky Golf Pride grip.
Combining high-performance technology with a soft, tacky feel, the innovative CP2 Wrap delivers comfort and control for superior performance.
CP2 features Golf Pride’s exclusive Control Core technology, an inner core stabilizer that is specifically engineered to reduce torque. A larger lower hand geometry simulating four extra layers of tape in the lower hand encourages even grip pressure.
The CP2 grips are bread and butter for Golf Pride in the senior golfer category but, having spent time with them, the Wrap and Pro models are great for any age of player looking for a softer feel. I particular like the CP2 Wrap as the wrapping style reminds me of the grips I used growing up and gives me a feeling of nostalgia.
A very durable Golf Pride grip with a choice of textures.
It offers a good degree of tackiness, which will stay tacky for a long time as long as you keep it clean.
The fingers nestle between the wraps, but there is a sacrifice in moisture management. If the grip gets wet and you play in all conditions, you’ll need lots of toweling to keep a hold on this model.
I've found the tour wrap to offer incredible grip for dry conditions. Its sticky feel keeps the club perfectly where I placed it in setup, helping me know more about where the club was during my swing. Be warned though: as we've said, as soon as I had a hint of moisture in my hands I had more trouble than it was worth holding on.
On one occasion in particular, the club went further than the ball, so I'd advise avoided this grip if you live anywhere humid.
The most-used golf grip on tour.
It offers good impact feedback, it’s iconic and it wears incredibly well.
Golf Pride say grip wear depends on the player and conditions; grip pressure and how much force you generate as well as the weather conditions will affect wear, but softer grips don’t necessarily wear more quickly than firmer models.
The classic grip, Golf Pride could stop making everything else in their arsenal and I'd still be content with just this being made. There's not much to say about this that you don't already know, but I'd still like to reinforce that this is the best middle ground for feel, feedback, grip, and moisture management that I've ever tried.
Encourages lighter grip pressure for more power.
The Golf Pride MCC gets a huge amount of play among elite players, many of whom love it because of the high levels of impact feedback and the complexity of the grip’s surface.
The Golf Pride MCC is a good choice for players who want something interesting to hold, and those who don’t just want a uniform, one-texture grip.
The cotton fibers in the upper section help with moisture management, too.
Now offered in Plus4 style, a thicker bottom hand for more relaxed grip and control, as well as Teams grips letting you show your support for your favorite club or sport outside of the golf course, the MCC is not far away from replacing the Tour Velvet as the most popular model in golf.
This is my personal choice from the grips on the market and with good reason. I get great feedback out of the rubber as well as control from the corded upper section. The Plus4 makes for a softer bottom hand if needed, but the feel offered is balanced throughout.
I go normally choose the Red and White teams colors to match my shafts, but you'll see the Blue and Yellow of Team Europe every two years in September with me as well!
The fastest-growing full-cord grip on tour.
it for that very reason. The Z-Grip is all about firmness, feel and feedback, so when you hit shots, you
know exactly what’s happening through your hands.
Like many others, Collin Morikawa is a massive fan of the firmer material, the cord, and the additional feedback the Z-Grip delivers.
I struggle with the Z-Grip. The feedback is unbelievable from the firmest grip that Golf Pride sells, but you need a light touch to make the most of this one. With the unyielding construction and the cord running throughout, the Z-Grip will quickly cut your fingers and hands to ribbons with too firm of a grip or softer leather gloves.
What size golf grip should I use?
Golf Pride say there’s little evidence to support the old theory that small grips make shots more likely to go left and big grips make shots go right (for right-handed golfers). They advise using the grip size selector on golfpride.com to get in the right ball park.
Don’t be afraid to try different sizes. Often, those using standard-sized grips end up preferring the feel of a midsize or Plus4 model.
Visit the Golf Pride website here.
What golf grip shape suits you?
Helps ensure a square grip and impact position.
Align also gives a greater sense of head position and clubface aim as the hands are linked directly to the face through the reminder.
I love the consistency the Align grips offer. If you're struggling to get your hands in the same place repeatedly, this is a perfect offering while being offered in Multiple rubber firmness ratings with Tour Velvet, MCC, and Z-Grip all available.
My one caveat with Align is that I struggled to use it on wedges, where you'll want to manipulate your hand position on purpose; having a raised ridge sit under your fingers can feel jarring.
| Align grip models: | Tour Velvet Align, MCC Align, MCC Plus4 Align, ZGrip Align |
A thicker lower section reduces grip tension for more fluidity and power.
The name Plus4 relates to the idea that the lower rubber section has been 'built up' to the equivalent of four extra layers of tape, a staple request for professional golfers at tour events. Golf Pride took notice of this consistent ask from Tour players when reviewing and evaluating their success over the last few years.
For me, the Plus4 is going to become the standard request for both amateurs and professionals. It feels fantastic, to have a more relaxed bottom hand, and I genuinely feel like I have more control with a less tapered grip. I use this in the MCC grip style, but it can also be installed with a Tour Velvet pattern if you prefer an even softer grip although I will warn some that it can feel a little 'torque-y' or like it wants to twist more when gripped firmly.
| Plus4 grip models: | Tour Velvet Plus4, MCC Plus4, MCC Plus4 Align |
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About the author
Rob McGarr
Contributing Editor
Rob McGarr is a freelance contributor at Today’s Golfer.
He has been a writer and editor for over 15 years, covering all manner of subjects, including golf (obviously).
You can follow him on YouTube where – depending on what day of the week it is – he’ll either be trying his best to get his handicap down to scratch or shoving his clubs in a cupboard, never to be seen again.
He’s also on Twitter and Instagram, which is pretty ironic considering he generally loathes social media.
Rob, who plays off a four-handicap, lives in Devon where he plays at a variety of courses, including Royal North Devon and Saunton, while also being a member at Royal Norwich in Norfolk.
Rob uses a Callaway GBB Epic Sub Zero driver, Ping G 3-wood, Callaway X Forged UT 18 2-iron, Ping i25 irons, Cleveland RTX-3 wedges, Bettinardi BB1 putter and the Bridgestone Tour B XS golf ball.
You can get in touch with Rob here.
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Best Golf Pride grips
