If you’re thinking, “I don’t care how to clean golf grips, I just want to see how MyGolfSpy justifies such a useless task,” let us be the first to tell you: Cleaning your grips will keep them in good shape for longer. It’ll also make them less slippery, which means you can relax your hands and—maybe—hit better shots.
Of course, with so many tack-restoring approaches scattered around the fairways and sand traps of the internet, it can be hard to find the actual best way to clean grips. Look no further. We tested several methods and are confident we’ve figured it out.
Basic golf grip cleaning tips
The recommended methods below will work regardless of whether you’re cleaning rubber, cord, or some sort of synthetic polymer, but you may find one works better for you and your grips than it did for us. As long as you like how it feels, that’s all that matters. Cleaning each grip took one to two minutes so you’ll probably end up leaving them to dry for longer than you spent scrubbing.
Warning: Do NOT submerge your grips. Dunking them risks water getting into the butt end of the grip and into the shaft where it can corrode your club from the inside. Greg Cavill, Golf Pride‘s global head of engineering, recommends holding each club with the hole pointing down as much as possible, especially when there’s a risk water will sneak inside.
Method No. 1: Soap and warm water
By far the most popular grip-cleaning method, the classic combo of warm water and soap is hard to beat. It’s Old Reliable, and we think it’s the best of the bunch given its versatility and simplicity. Every club felt noticeably more tacky and fresh when we were done.
What you’ll need
- Dish soap (or any other kind of soap)
- Warm water
- Old toothbrush (or any soft brush)
- Bucket (or sink)
- A source of non-soapy water
- Clean, dry, lint-free towel
How to clean your grips
1. Mix the soap and water. Fill your bucket or sink with a small amount of warm water. You won’t need much—we started with about an inch in the sink. Add a few squirts of soap (about a teaspoon if you want to get precise) and stir the water until you’ve got suds. We used Dawn dish soap, but you should be fine with whatever you have.
- Note: We also tried shampoo because someone on a forum recommended it. It worked just as well as dish soap and our grips smelled luxurious. But because shampoo is more expensive, it’s not our preferred choice.
2. Scrub the grip. Get your brush wet with warm, soapy water and scrub the whole grip. We liked working the grip top to bottom best, as it limited the number of times we had to rotate the shaft. If your grips aren’t that dirty, you might be OK with a damp towel instead of a brush.
- Note: Your choice of cleaning tool may depend on the grip material. A brush is good for rubber and cord but softer grips may only require a towel. Lamkin, for one, recommends a washcloth only for squishy materials.
For what it’s worth, we tried a few tools but still liked the old toothbrush best. A towel dipped in soapy water cleaned grips a little faster but was harder to control and didn’t clean deep into the textured surface of our rubber grips. A dish sponge didn’t clean as well as the toothbrush and left bits of sponge all over the grip. We also tried soaping up our hands and using those to clean some grips but that barely did anything.
3. Rinse off the soap residue. Using a hose, faucet or some other source of non-soapy water, rinse the grip clean, keeping the hole at the end of the grip pointed down. Leftover soap can be slick and you don’t want your driver rocketing out of your hands down the fairway.
4. Wipe the grip dry. The drying method that worked best for us was squeezing the clean towel along the grip, then closing our towel hand and pulling it up and down a few times.
5. Let the air finish the job. We trust you were thorough with the towel but water is sneaky. Set each finished club aside, out of the sun, for at least 20 minutes before refilling your bag.
Method No. 2: Windex
Yes, the iconic window cleaner. The steps here are basically the same as with soap and water but instead of filling a bucket and soaking a brush, you spray Windex onto a towel and scrub the grip clean. Then, as above, rinse with clean water and dry with a different towel. Easy.
That said, there was no noticeable difference between the grips we cleaned with Windex and those we scrubbed with soap and water. That gives us enough confidence to recommend it as a backup or last resort, but Windex is more expensive than dish soap. If you choose to spray it directly onto each grip, you end up wasting a good bit of it.
Method No. 3: Rubbing alcohol
Isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) popped up a few times in our research. It didn’t clean the rubber grips noticeably better or worse than soap and water but we had to use a lot more of it. The fumes also hit pretty hard and it looked like some of the rubber came off with it. Over time, this stuff will break rubber down, and that’s the opposite of what we’re trying to do here. We don’t recommend you try this.
Method No. 4: Sandpaper and other abrasives
Roughing up a dirty grip might sound good in theory and we found people recommending 80- to 120-grit sandpaper and abrasive sponges like Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser multiple times. If your grips are super-slick and standard cleaning isn’t helping, you can try these at your own risk. There’s a high possibility of user error and you could end up damaging your grips more than you revive them. The last thing you want to do is take the grip off down to the shaft when all you need is a quick buff.
We tried 100-grit sandpaper on one dirty grip and one clean one and didn’t notice a difference. That, combined with the amount of rubber dust it produces, makes it unappealing.
What to do after you clean your grips
The least amount of grip care you should be doing is storing them out of the sun in a place that doesn’t experience extreme temperatures or humidity. Grips degrade more quickly when exposed to these elements, says Clare DeBlaay, SuperStroke’s LPGA, Epson and LET Tour representative.
Beyond that, Golf Pride’s Cavill recommends cleaning your grips thoroughly every six weeks to keep them fresh. If you don’t play often, that’s roughly 10 rounds.
If you really want to do the most, wipe your grips clean every time you use them. After all, while professional golfers aren’t constantly cleaning their grips, their caddies are, DeBlaay says. She recommends bringing a half-damp towel with you as you practice or play. After using a club, wipe the grip with the wet side, then dry it with the other. It’ll take a few seconds, but doing so may extend the life and quality of your grips.
How we tested grip-cleaning methods
We cleaned a set of at least 15-year-old Golf Pride Pro Velvet rubber grips that had never been cleaned. None of them was exceptionally grimy but it was pretty easy to group them into three groups of “slick,” “kinda slick” and “not bad, actually,” by feel alone.
Do you have an approach you like that we didn’t try? Let us know and we’ll take a look.
