How to Tell if Your Golf Grips Are Too Small

Using a golf grip that’s too small for your hands can quietly undermine your entire golf swing, leading to frustrating misses and a lack of consistency. Before you start dissecting your downswing or changing your takeaway, it's worth checking this fundamental connection to the club. This guide will walk you through the clear indicators that your grips are too small and provide a simple, definitive test you can do right now to find out for sure.

Why Grip Size Is More Important Than You Think

Your hands are the only part of your body that touch the golf club, making the grip your command center. It dictates how you can transfer energy, control the clubface, and feel the clubhead throughout the swing. If that connection isn't right because the grip is improperly sized, you’re forced to make subconscious compensations that can wreak havoc on your mechanics. Think of it like trying to write with a pencil that's far too skinny - you’d have to squeeze it awkardly and your handwriting would suffer. Golf is no different.

A grip that is too small for your hand size encourages the hands and fingers to become overly active during the swing. Instead of the big muscles of your body - your torso and shoulders - powering the rotation, the smaller, faster muscles in your hands and forearms take over. This is a recipe for inconsistency. This overactivity often leads to an early release of the club, or a rapid rotation of the hands through the impact zone. The result? Uncontrolled shots, especially the dreaded hook that seems to appear out of nowhere.

Ultimately, improper grip size affects the three things we all want more of: power, accuracy, and consistency. When your grips are too small, you tend to choke the life out of the club with excess tension, which restricts a fluid, powerful swing. Getting this one piece of equipment right lays the foundation for a much simpler, more repeatable motion.

The Telltale Signs: How Your Swing and Body Warn You

Your body has a way of telling you when something isn't right. You just have to know what to listen for. Pay attention to your ball flight, the feelings in your hands, and even the calluses that form. These are all clues that can point toward an issue with your grip size.

Sign #1: You Continuously Battle a Hook

This is the most common and classic symptom of golf grips being too small. A hook (a shot that curves hard from right to left for a right-handed golfer) is often caused by a clubface that closes too quickly through impact. When a grip is too thin, it allows your hands and fingers to wrap too far around the club. This gives your bottom hand (the right hand for a righty) too much influence, allowing it to easily roll over your top hand as you swing through the ball.

Think about snapping a towel. A thin, rolled-up towel is a lot easier to snap quickly than a thick, fluffy one. The same principle applies here. The smaller grip allows for a faster, often uncontrolled, rate of rotation in your hands. If you consistently find yourself aiming right just to watch your ball make a sharp left turn, your grips should be the first thing you investigate.

Sign #2: You Have Excessive Hand and Wrist Tension

Take a moment to notice your hands the next time you set up to the ball. Are your knuckles turning white? Do your forearms feel tight and rigid? This "death grip" is a natural reaction to a grip that feels insecure in your hands. Because the diameter is too small, your hands have to clench down forcefully just to feel like they have control of the club.

Proper golf swings rely on a feeling of freedom and fluidity in the hands and arms, allowing the club to hinge and release naturally. When your hands and forearms are riddled with tension, that entire system locks up. You lose your sense of feel for the clubhead’s weight, and your ability to generate effortless speed is severely limited. Golf is a game of letting go, and grips that are too small effectively force you to hold on too tight.

Sign #3: The Club Twists in Your Hands on Off-Center Hits

Have you ever hit a shot slightly toward the toe or heel and felt the club violently twist or shudder in your hands? While some feedback is normal, grips that are too small amplify this problem significantly. A properly fitted grip allows your hands to envelop the club securely, providing maximum surface area contact and leverage to keep it stable through impact.

When the grip is too thin, there are more gaps between your hands and the grip itself. This reduction in contact and control means you have less ability to resist the twisting forces that occur on miss-hits. The result is a shot that not only feels terrible but also flies much further offline than it should. You’ll find yourself blaming your swing, when the root cause might be a simple lack of stability caused by your equipment.

The Simple 3-Step Grip Test: Get a Definitive Answer

Reading the signs is a great start, but there is a straightforward physical test that can give you a clear yes-or-no answer. This industry-standard method is used by club fitters everywhere and only takes about 10 seconds to perform.

• Step 1: Grab a Mid-Iron
  Take a club out of your bag like a 6, 7, or 8-iron. These clubs have a standard length and lie that works well for this test. Stand as if you are about to address a ball.
• Step 2: Take Your Lead-Hand Grip
  For a right-handed golfer, place your left hand on the club in your normal gripping position. If you’re a lefty, use your right hand. Settle your hand on the club with your typical grip pressure - don't squeeze it any harder or lighter than you normally would.
• Step 3: Check Your Fingertips
  Now, look at where the fingertips of your middle and ring fingers are resting. This is the moment of truth.
  • The "Just Right" Fit: In a perfectly sized grip, the tips of your middle and ring fingers should be lightly brushing against the fleshy pad at the base of your thumb (also known as the thenar eminence). They should make gentle contact, but not press in firmly.
  • The "Too Small" Verdict: If the tips of your middle and ring fingers are digging into or embedding themselves in your thumb pad, your grips are too small. There should be no significant indentation. This overlapping condition is precisely what allows your hands to become too active and choke the club.
  • For Comparison (Too Big): If there is a noticeable gap between your fingertips and your thumb pad (you could slide a pencil in there), your grips are likely too large. This restricts hand action and often leads to a block or a slice.

This simple check removes all the guesswork. If your fingers are digging in, you've found a major opportunity for improvement in your game.

The Solution: Your Next Steps to the Right Grip Size

So, you’ve discovered your grips are too small. The good news is that this is one of the easiest and most affordable fixes in golf, and it can have a profound impact on your ball striking and confidence. You have two primary options.

Option 1: Build Up Your Grips with Tape

A quick and effective way to increase the size of your current grips is to have a club-fitter or shop technician add extra layers of grip tape underneath them. Each full layer of building tape adds approximately 1/64th of an inch to the diameter. Adding two to four layers can often be enough to transition a standard grip into what feels like a midsize grip. This is a great way to experiment with a "thicker" feel without committing to a full set of new grips just yet.

Option 2: Install New, Properly Sized Grips

The best long-term solution is to get a new set of grips in the correct size. Grips come in four main sizes: Undersize, Standard, Midsize, and Jumbo (Oversize). If the test showed your standard grips are too small, you'll likely feel a massive improvement by switching to Midsize grips. Not only will you get the correct diameter, but you'll also get the benefit of fresh, tacky rubber, which can further reduce the subconscious need to grip the club too tightly.

Don't underestimate the power of this change. Moving to a grip that fits your hands correctly can feel a little strange for the first few swings, but the results often speak for themselves: less tension, a smoother swing, and a ball flight that flies much straighter.

Final Thoughts

Checking your grip size is a fundamental but often overlooked step in improving your game. If you're struggling with hooks, excessive hand tension, or general inconsistency, the simple finger test can quickly tell you if your equipment is part of the problem. A simple switch can free your hands, smooth out your swing, and get you back to hitting more solid, predictable shots.

Once your equipment is dialed in, the next step is building confidence in how you use it on the course. I know that even with the perfect grips, questions always come up - about club selection, reading a weird lie, or choosing the right strategy for a tough hole. That's why I've been working on Caddie AI, your personal on-demand golf coach. You can ask it anything from "How much do I choke down on this grip for a knockdown shot?" to analyzing a photo of your ball in deep rough, and you get instant, expert advice right when you need it.