What Do Thicker Grips on Golf Clubs Do?

Switching to thicker grips on your golf clubs can have a surprisingly powerful effect on your ball striking, but it's not a change you should make without understanding the consequences. This is a deliberate equipment adjustment that directly influences the mechanics of your golf swing, for better or for worse. In this guide, we'll walk through exactly what thicker grips do, who they can help, who they might hurt, and how you can test the theory for yourself without spending a dime on new grips.

The Core Concept: How Grip Size Affects Your Hands

To understand the high-level impact of thicker grips, think about holding a pencil versus holding a baseball bat. It’s far easier to manipulate and “flick” the pencil with your fingers and wrists. The baseball bat, however, forces you to use your larger muscles - your hands, arms, and shoulders - to move it. This is the exact principle at play with golf grips.

Your golf swing is ideally a rotational action powered by your bigger muscles (your torso and hips), with your arms and hands along for the ride. However, for many amateur golfers, overly active hands and wrists get involved at the wrong time, trying to "help" the club hit the ball. This is often where things go wrong, leading to inconsistency and common misses like hooks and pulls.

A standard or undersized grip allows for maximum dexterity and an easy, full release of the clubhead through impact. This is great if you have a well-timed swing, but it can also promote that "flippy" or "handsy" action if your timing is off.

A thicker grip (midsize or jumbo) fills more space in your hands, which naturally restricts the small muscles in your fingers and wrists from taking over. It effectively "quiets" your hands, forcing you to power the swing with the rotation of your body. It serves as a mechanical governor on your hands, encouraging a more connected, body-driven swing.

The Benefits: Why Golfers Switch to Thicker Grips

Knowing that thicker grips quiet the hands, we can see who stands to gain the most from making the switch. Golfers who try thicker grips are typically looking for solutions to one of the following issues.

1. Reducing Hooks and Pulls

This is the number one reason many golfers experiment with oversized grips. A hook (a shot that curves sharply from right-to-left for a right-handed player) is often caused by an overactive bottom hand (the right hand for righties) that causes the clubface to shut too quickly through impact. The hands get "flippy," closing the face and sending the ball left.

By fitting a thicker grip, you inhibit the ability of that lower hand to rotate over so aggressively. Because it's harder to twist the club, the clubface is more likely to stay square to the target through the hitting zone. This small change can immediately straighten out a persistent hook, turning it into a gentle draw or a straight shot.

2. Promoting a Body-Driven Golf Swing

The best golfers power their swing with their body, not their arms. I often tell my students that we want to create a swing that is a "rotational action of the golf club that moves around the body." When your hands are too active, they can become disconnected from this rotation, leading to a weak, "all-arms" swing with inconsistent results.

When you have thicker grips, your hands take more of a passive role. You almost have no choice but to engage your torso to get the club moving. This promotes that feeling of the hands, arms, chest, and hips all turning together through the impact zone - a mark of a powerful and repeatable golf swing. For players struggling to get away from lifting and swinging only with their arms, thicker grips can be a tremendous training aid for feeling what a connected, body-powered release feels like.

3. Increasing Comfort and Reducing Grip Tension

For some golfers, the benefit is purely about comfort. This is especially true for players with:

• Large Hands: If you wear a large or extra-large glove, a standard grip might feel like you’re holding a toothpick. This feeling often causes you to grip the club too tightly in your fingers, creating massive tension in your forearms and killing your ability to generating clubhead speed. A larger grip simply fits better, allowing you to hold the club with much lighter pressure.
• Arthritis or Hand Pain: Tightly gripping a narrow object can be painful for anyone with arthritis or joint pain. A thicker, softer grip disperses the pressure across a wider area of the hand, requiring less clamping force to maintain control. This reduction in pressure can significantly relieve pain and allow golfers to play more comfortably and for a longer duration.

Less tension is always a good thing in the golf swing. A light, pressure-free grip allows for a smooth takeaway and effortless speed. If a thicker grip is what allows you to hold the club without a "death grip," it will positively impact every other part of your swing.

The Potential Downsides of Oversized Grips

Of course, there is no single solution in golf that works for everyone. While thick grips can be great for some, they can be a serious detriment for others.

1. Causing Slices and Blocks

Remember how a thicker grip restricts the hands from closing the clubface? This is a great thing if you're closing it too much (hooking), but it's a disaster if you already struggle to close it enough. Players who slice the ball (a left-to-right curve for right-handers) often have the opposite problem - their clubface is open at impact. A thicker grip can exacerbate this issue, making it even harder to square the clubface. This can turn a manageable slice into an unplayable block that shoots dead right off the clubface.

2. Loss of Feel and Finesse in the Short Game

While taking the hands out of the full swing is often beneficial, it can be a problem around the greens. Delicate chip and pitch shots rely heavily on the sensitive touch and feel in your fingertips. Some players find that jumbo grips deaden this sensation, making it difficult to judge distance and control the subtle nuances of short game shots. This doesn't happen to everyone, but if you value a high degree of touch and feel in your scoring clubs, you might find thick grips to be a bit clumsy.

How to Know if Thicker Grips Are Right for You

So, should you make the change? Before you rush to the pro shop, here’s a simple checklist to run through.

1. Analyze Your Common Miss

• Do you predominantly hook or pull the ball left? Thicker grips are a fantastic thing to try.
• Do you predominantly slice or block the ball right? You should probably avoid thicker grips and might even benefit from an undersized grip.
• Is your ball flight generally pretty straight? Stick with what you've got unless you fall into a category below.

2. Do a Quick Hand Measurement

This is the classic pro shop test. No tape measure needed. Hold a club with your normal grip (with your glove on if you wear one).

• Look at your top hand (the left hand for a righty). The tips of your middle and ring fingers should be just barely brushing against the bottom pad of your thumb.
• If your fingertips are digging hard into your palm, your grips are too small. You are a prime candidate for a midsize or jumbo grip.
• If there’s a gap between your fingertips and your palm, your grips might already be too large.

If you have arthritis, large hands, or hand fatigue, you might benefit from thicker grips for comfort reasons alone, even if the hand measurement test doesn't strongly indicate you need them.

The DIY Test: Try Before You Buy

Instead of immediately paying to regrip all 13 of your clubs, you can simulate the feel of a larger grip cheaply. Grab your 7-iron and some athletic tape or electrical tape.

Start wrapping the tape around your existing grip, building it up layer by layer. There is a general rule of thumb for this:

• 3-4 extra wraps of standard masking or athletic tape closely simulates a Midsize grip.
• 6-8 extra wraps will get you into the Jumbo/Oversized category.

Take it to the range and hit 15-20 balls. How does it feel? Pay close attention to your ball flight. Are your hooks starting to straighten out? Does your miss to the right get worse? Does the decreased tension lead to a feeling of more freedom in your swing? This simple, five-minute experiment will tell you almost everything you need to know about whether thicker grips will work for you.

Final Thoughts

Thicker golf grips are not a magic bullet, but they are a powerful tool for change if your swing has specific tendencies. For golfers who fight a hook, suffer from hand tension, or have larger hands or arthritis, moving to a midsize or jumbo grip can offer immediate relief and lead to a more consistent, body-driven golf swing.

Trying to navigate equipment choices like this on your own can be confusing, but you don't have to guess. Deciding between a standard, midsize, or jumbo grip is exactly the kind of question where we designed Caddie AI to help. Instead of searching forums for conflicting opinions, you can describe your game, your common misses, and your hand size right in the app and get a simple, personalized recommendation in seconds, any time of day.