Nothing brings a fantastic round of golf to a screeching halt quite like the stinging, sharp pain of a fresh blister. Whether it’s on your thumb, palm, or heel, that tiny pocket of pain can derail your focus and your swing. This guide gets right to the point, giving you practical, easy-to-follow strategies to keep your hands and feet comfortable and blister-free, so you can focus on enjoying the game and shooting lower scores.
Before jumping into solutions, let's quickly understand what causes a blister. It's not a mystery, it’s a simple combination of three factors: friction, moisture, and pressure. When your skin is repeatedly rubbed against another surface (like a golf grip or the inside of a shoe), the top layer of skin separates from the layers beneath, and the space fills with fluid. That’s a blister.
In golf, this happens for a few common reasons:
The good news is that by taking control of these three factors, you can almost entirely eliminate blisters from your golf experience. It all starts with having the right equipment and using it correctly.
Your equipment is the interface between your body and the golf club. If any part of it is wrong - the glove, the club's grip, your socks, or your shoes - you're setting yourself up for friction and pain. This is the easiest area to fix and offers the biggest returns on prevention.
A golf glove is not a fashion accessory, it’s a vital piece of performance equipment designed to do one primary thing: improve your grip so you can hold the club lighter. A poorly fitting glove can be just as bad as, or even worse than, no glove at all.
The saying "fits like a glove" is the goal here. A new glove should feel like a second skin. It needs to be snug across the palm and fingers with no extra material bunching up. When you velcro the tab, it should only cover about 75% of the landing pad. If it covers it completely, the glove is too large and will allow your hand to shift inside it - hello, friction!
Conversely, a glove that's too small might seem secure, but it can tear easily and create pressure points at the seams, leading to blisters in weird places like between your fingers. When trying on a glove, make a fist. It should feel snug, not constricting.
For ultimate protection, owning a couple of gloves is a smart move. You can rotate them during a hot, sweaty round or a long session on the driving range to always have a dry, reliable surface to grip.
Hand blisters get most of the attention, but a painful blister on your heel or toe can make walking 18 holes an absolute misery. Just as with your hands, preventing foot blisters comes down to managing moisture and friction with the right gear.
This is probably the single most important tip for foot care in golf. Cotton socks are terrible for athletic activities. Cotton is a sponge, it absorbs sweat and holds it right against your skin. Moist skin is soft, fragile, and far more susceptible to blistering. When your cotton sock gets damp, it leads to that dreaded slipping and sliding inside your shoe, creating friction with every step and every swing.
Instead, invest in golf socks made from moisture-wicking materials like Merino wool or synthetics like polyester and nylon. These fabrics pull sweat away from your skin to the outer layer of the sock where it can evaporate. Your feet stay drier, and the friction is drastically reduced.
An ill-fitting golf shoe guarantees foot pain. If your shoes are too big, your heel will lift and rub against the back of the shoe with every step - the classic recipe for a heel blister. If they are too narrow, your toes will be squeezed together, creating painful blisters between or on top of your toes. You should have about a half-inch of space between your longest toe and the end of the shoe, and your foot shouldn't slide side-to-side.
It’s also important to wear the same type of sock you'll play in when trying on new shoes. And don’t forget a break-in period! Never wear brand-new shoes for an 18-hole round. Wear them around the house for a few hours, then to the driving range. Let them soften up and mold to your feet before subjecting them to a 4-5 hour walk.
Now that your gear is sorted, let's talk about the biggest technique-related cause of hand blisters: gripping the club too hard. So many golfers grab the club with a "death grip," thinking that more pressure means more control. The opposite is true. An overly tight grip creates tension in your arms and shoulders, kills your clubhead speed, and rapidly wears down both your glove and your skin.
Think of it this way: your bare hand on a slick, old golf grip during a swing will slip. To prevent that, you subconsciously squeeze harder. All that squeezing generates incredible friction and pressure, the primary ingredients for blisters on your thumb and palm.
A good golf grip is firm, not tight. The classic coaching analogy is to hold the club with the same pressure you'd use to hold a full tube of toothpaste without any squeezing out. You want it secure enough that it won’t fly out of your hands, but light enough to allow your wrists to hinge freely and release the club through impact.
If you're constantly getting blisters, the first thing to check is your grip pressure. Practice holding the club at an address with just enough pressure to support its weight. During your swing, that's the feeling you want to maintain. Less tension means a faster, smoother swing and much happier hands.
You can have the best glove in the world and perfect grip pressure, but if the grips on your clubs are old, hard, and slick, you’ll be forced to squeeze them too tight. Grips wear out over time. They lose their natural tackiness. If your grips look shiny, feel hard, or you can't remember the last time they were replaced, it's time for a new set. Fresh, tacky grips allow you to hold the club with much lighter pressure, giving you more confidence and saving your hands.
The final step is to build a few simple habits that proactively protect your skin before any "hotspots" have a chance to form.
Mastering blister prevention is all about controlling friction and moisture through better equipment and better technique. By ensuring your gloves and shoes fit perfectly, choosing moisture-wicking socks, and learning to hold the club with a relaxed, confident grip, you can transform your on-course experience and keep your focus where it belongs: on the next shot.
Just as getting your physical setup right prevents discomfort, getting your mental and strategic setup right during a round prevents bogies. That nagging uncertainty over club selection or how to play a tricky lie can create tension that translates directly into a tighter grip. When we’re not sure what to do, we tense up. We built Caddie AI to help eliminate that uncertainty. By giving you instant, expert-level feedback on everything from course strategy to executing a tough shot from the rough, we help you feel confident in your decision. That confidence allows you to relax, commit to your swing, and let the club do the work - leaving blisters, and doubt, behind.
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