[PHOTOS: J.D. Cuban]
How many rounds does your golf glove last? For many golfers, it’s not long enough. According to one teacher, consistently ripping gloves in the heel pad is a major warning sign – not that you’re playing too much golf, but that you’re fighting a common swing flaw.
Jason Guss, one of Golf Digest’s Best Teachers in Illinois, sees lots of average players wearing out the heel pads, but rarely low-handicap players. Why? Some teachers note that holding the grip too much in the palm of your lead hand, as opposed to the fingers, can cause this glove issue. Guss agrees that’s a factor, but he has a different theory.
“Good players don’t rip gloves in the heel pad because when you hit the centre of the face, the face doesn’t move through impact, therefore the grip is not twisting through impact,” he says.
When the ball is struck out of the toe, the force on the clubface twists the club open. The opposite happens on heel strikes – the clubface is twisted closed through impact.
This twisting, and the subsequent interaction with the ball, is called gear effect, and it’s the reason why shots off the toe tend to curve from right-to-left (for a righty) and heel strikes often curve left-to-right.
What’s less obvious is gear effect’s… effect on golf gloves. “There is around 2,000 pounds of force on the golf club when you hit a golf ball,” Guss says. “And the person is holding the club and that’s twisting in there. You’re not strong enough to stop it.
“If you’re constantly hitting the ball in the toe or heel and the grip is twisting in your hands, that can rip gloves fast.”
Guss explains that when the club twists at impact, the grip also twists against the glove, and this friction causes the heel pad to rip. It’s also why Guss says great ball-strikers almost never wear out this heel pad, since they frequently find the centre of the face, when this twisting doesn’t occur. “If you find the centre of the face more often, you won’t feel the need to squeeze the handle so tightly to stop the club from twisting,” he says.
The solution is to learn how to find the centre of the face more often. One of Guss’ favourite drills to do that is to tee up a driver and tee up a second ball next to it. If you struggle with heel strikes, tee up this second ball just outside the toe of the club. If you have toe misses, tee up a ball lower, just inside the heel of the club.
Then, swing and hit the original ball, without striking the other ball. If you hit the ball off the toe or heel, you’ll knock the other ball down. Repeat this a few times to train your body to move more effectively to find the centre of the face.
Your ball flight will straighten out and your gloves will finally last more than a few rounds.
