No matter how good or bad someone is at the game of golf, every single golfer cares about enhancing their golf game as much as possible, with all the methods possible: from the studs on the bottom of the golf shoes to wearing a glove. So, why do golfers only wear one glove?
Most golfers do not wear two gloves because it may cause them to lose their grip on their club when swinging. The point of wearing a glove is to reduce the friction between the club and the leading hand, and using two gloves does not improve the golfer’s grip; it may negatively affect the grip.
Golf gloves are one of the items in golf that people use to improve their game in any way possible while protecting themselves at the same time. There are a few reasons why golfers wear gloves in the first place and why they do not wear two gloves. Stick around to learn more about the use of gloves in golf.
Why Do Golfers Not Use Two Gloves?
Wearing golf gloves is not unique to golf. There are many sports where the athletes wear gloves that you may not even realize until they get pointed out to you. American football, baseball, mountain biking, and many other sports have athletes using gloves to enhance their game or add protection.
However, something unique to golf is that golfers usually wear only one glove on the golf course, not two like any of the other sports that use gloves. It seems pretty nonsensical to only wear one glove, right? Surely if one golf glove is noticeably helping your golf game, then two gloves should help your golf game twice as much as one. But this is not the case.
The golf glove got introduced as a protective measure. It was not introduced to improve grip or anything of the sort. The lead hand (the one highest on the golf club) is the hand that grips the club the hardest of the two hands and therefore experiences more friction between their hand and the club.
Golfers wear a golf glove to protect a golfer’s hand against the friction that occurs when you swing many times and your golf grips rub on your hands. This means you are less likely to get blisters or cuts on your lead hand. However, golf gloves do not improve grip in average weather conditions, so using multiple gloves can result in you loosening your grip on the club, and no golfer wants to send the club flying further than the golf ball.
But it all comes down to preference. If you want to protect both hands, there is no problem with wearing two gloves; but make sure to hold on to the club. Wearing one golf glove has been the norm since gloves got introduced in golf, but you will not break any rules by wearing two gloves.
When Should You Ever Wear Two Golf Gloves?
Obviously, non-golf gloves were created for protection against rain and freezing temperatures. However, if you want to play golf in the rain or a quick nine holes in Antarctica, wearing two golf gloves may improve your game.
There is nothing worse than connecting incorrectly with the ball when swinging a golf club on a cold day. The club will rattle and send a sharp pain through your arm as if you have been struck by lightning. Wearing a golf glove on each hand will prevent this, so it is good to wear two gloves when the weather is threatening your game and your hand’s comfort.
Does Not Wearing A Golf Glove On One Hand Improve Your Game?
For ages, wearing one glove on the leading hand and no glove on the trailing hand has proved to (on average) better a golfer’s game, more than wearing zero or more than one gloves. This improvement is because it feels better for golfers to have one hand free to make slight deviations in a swing to control the ball and ‘feel’ the swing as much as possible.
Professional golfers are very clearly the best at controlling and shaping their shots and controlling things like distance and height of the ball flight. However, to have this control, their trailing hand (with the help of many other parts of their swing) has to be contorted in such ways that may not be able to be effectively done if they do not have the right ‘feel’ of the swing.
Gloves can prevent this ‘feel’ that professional golfers talk about. This need for that ‘feel’ in a golf swing is why many of the best golfers do not putt or chip around the greens with a glove on, so they can manipulate the ball and club as accurately impossible. In addition, many golfers would likely choose not to wear a glove if it meant they could play a lot without getting any blisters or cuts.
There have also been a few professional golfers that have worn multiple gloves throughout their career or no gloves at all. The amount of golf gloves you want to wear is entirely up to personal preference. Fred Couples went through his playing career without any gloves, winning three majors and 63 PGA tournaments throughout his entire career.
One positive about only wearing one glove that does not affect the swing is being able to fetch a tee or your phone from your pocket. Golfers wear gloves on their left hand can make it hard to get stuff out of your pocket!
Many golfers have experienced putting a tee or a phone in their pocket next to the hand with the glove on, then trying to get the tee out of their pocket with their glove still on their hand. Of course, if you had two gloves on, you would constantly have this infuriating experience of struggling to get your tee out of either of your pockets.
Why Do Golfers Only Wear One Glove Conclusion
There are no rules against how many gloves you can wear on your hands when playing golf. You can have no gloves, the traditional single glove, or gloves on both hands. It is entirely up to a golfer’s personal preference and circumstances like the weather or how gloves negatively or positively impact your golf game.
The vast majority of golf professionals use one glove on their less dominant hand, called the leading hand. For right handed golfers this would be the left hand. This hand experiences the most friction between the hand and the club, and therefore the players want to protect their hand from blisters and cuts.
However, using two golf gloves may cause you to loosen your grip and lose ‘feel’ while using no gloves can cause you to hurt your hands which will negatively impact your game.
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