Best Golf Gloves For Grip & Comfort: 2023 Buying Guide

Flexibility With Nylon Insert

The golf glove features a dynamic nylon insert to increase flexibility and stretch when you wrap your hand around the club’s grip. The insert runs from the outside of your hand, on the side away from your thumb, and stops at the middle knuckle. You’ll find the insert really helps out with additional flexibility when you are wrapping your hand around irons and hybrids.

Exceptional Breathability

You won’t find a better glove for breathability. TaylorMade has given the Tour Preferred plenty of venting holes along the knuckles and fingers to keep your hand dry and cool during your round. The venting has been strategically placed for maximum airflow to reach the fingers and palm of your hand.

Brand recognition

FootJoy, ironically, is the premier golf glove brand on the market. In many golf shops, it’s the only brand of glove available. However, I believe you’re paying a bit of a premium for the brand name because of its dominance. 

You can get a glove that’s just as well made from a major manufacturer like Callaway at a much better price. 

Durability

The best way to prolong the life of a golf glove is to take it off between every shot and to let the glove rest for a day after you use it. 

With the low price of the Callaway Dawn Patrol, you can easily afford to buy several and use them in a rotation if you’re planning to play back-to-back days. Giving the glove a day to fully dry out after a round will really extend its life.

The Dawn Patrol is a well-made, all-leather glove. It’s quite durable, lasting for over 15 rounds before starting to show signs of needing to be replaced. For the average golfer, that means it’ll last several months.

Fit

The Callaway Dawn Patrol fits perfectly: snug, soft, comfortable. The velcro tabs grab well and allow for a perfect-feeling golf glove. 

Put it away when the rain comes

This is not a golf glove for rainy weather, however. When the rains come, the glove absorbs water quickly and the club suddenly starts to feel quite slippery. 

Getting a Cabretta leather golf glove soaking wet is also a good way to reduce its lifespan. If it starts raining or the glove starts getting sweat-soaked, I’d suggest stowing it in your bag and using one designed for wet-conditions use.

Outstanding Gripping Power

When you want the driver to stick in your hand, the StaSof comes through with outstanding gripping ability. The tact on the fingers and palm of the glove locks the grip in your hands for full confident swings. During our time with the glove, our hardest hitting testers never felt their drivers slip in their hands while wearing the Footjoy glove.

On short pitch shots and wedge swings, the StaSof performs beautifully, offering a boatload of feel and touch. For low handicappers, the softness mimics the best tour-level gloves on the market today.

Wonderful Fit

With a tailored fit, the StaSof runs against the hand closely but does not restrict movement. When you close your hand, making a fist, the leather provides terrific flex that works with your natural grip of the golf club.

You should note that the premium nature of the StaSof does mean that the performance stays high, but once the delicate leather begins to break down, you’ll need to reach for a new glove. If you are not a serious golfer, the added expenditure to keep a fresh glove may be too much to bear for your budget.

Color options at half the price

While it runs a few dollars more than the classic white Dawn Patrol glove, it still comes in at half the popular G-Fore glove line price. 

Performance-wise, I’d call the Callaway OptiColor glove excellent.

It is soft, comfortable leather gloves with a great grip and feel. The Callaway OptiColor has traditional perforations to increase breathability and help diffuse heat, though I’d still recommend removing the glove between shots.

Stand out

So if you’re looking for tour-level performance and some interesting splashes of color to highlight your carefully chosen golf outfit, the Callaway OptiColor is our pick for a top-notch golf glove whose looks really stand out. 

A new glove every round

If you’re the type of player who wants to emulate tour pros and sport a new glove every round, you’ll need to find a glove like this to fit your budget. The MG Dynagrip fits well and provides an excellent grip. 

It’s soft and snug, with perforations on the fingers for breathability. It’s advertised as having thin leather for a better feel, and the leather is indeed thin and feels great.

That’s a bit of the problem, though: the thin leather makes it more susceptible to holes and tears. Most gloves I’ve used don’t have an issue with tearing, but the MG DynaGrip had a tendency to rip lengthwise along the thumb or the outer part of the hand after 4-6 rounds.

Playing on hot days and rainy days shortened the life even further, as the paper-thin leather just seemed to disintegrate when it got wet.

Keep a spare in the bag

For the occasional player or the golfer who loves the feel of a new glove every couple of rounds, the MG will fit the bill, and it won’t dent your budget too hard. 

However, make sure you keep a spare or two in your bag, as when the MG DynaGrip starts to go, it really falls apart and becomes unusable quickly.

A glove like the Mizuno or Callaway reviewed earlier may develop a small hole on a contact point, but it can at least be used until the end of the round. The MG tends to tear and become completely unwearable when its lifespan runs out.

Fat fingers

It’s pretty much universal: pull a new glove out of the package, put it on your hand, and make a few fists to stretch it out and get a feel for the glove. 

When you do that with the Bionic, your fist will feel incredibly strange. The inside of each finger has a pair of pads that flank your knuckles, and they’re thick and noticeable. 

Bionic claims that this helps distribute grip pressure more evenly on the club and reduce grip pressure overall. It definitely encourages a lighter grip, as grabbing it too tight will cause the pads to press uncomfortably into your fingers. 

Fat palms

The Bionic StableGrip also has an added pad in the palm to enhance its durability. The whole feeling of the glove is “thick hands” – I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Some players may find performance negatively affected as the feeling can cause the hands to release differently than normal.

Arthritis relief

A major advantage of the technology in the Bionic StableGrip is that golfers with arthritis find it incredibly helpful. Whereas it might be too painful to play with a traditional glove, the Bionic glove makes it possible to grip the club and play without pain. If you know someone who thinks they have to give up golf due to arthritis, give them a Bionic glove. It might allow them to keep playing.

Ultimately, it’s up to you

The Bionic StableGrip is one of the more divisive gloves on the market: some golfers swear it works great and helps their game. Others put it on and take it off immediately without even swinging a golf club with it. It’s just that odd feeling. Ultimately, it comes down to personal feel.

Chill, baby, chill

The focus of the Under Armour CoolSwitch is right there in the name: keeping it cool. The interior coating works surprisingly well at keeping your hand cool, and the moisture-wicking fabric lining the fingers helps keep your hands nice and dry.

This is a great glove if you want to leave your glove on the whole round instead of taking it off between each shot. Even if your hand starts sweating in the heat, the glove does a great job of dissipating that heat.

Quality Control

One of the CoolSwitch gloves tested to fit perfectly and seemed quite durable. Unfortunately, another one was too long in a couple of the fingers and had some loose stitching that came apart after just a few rounds.

I was surprised by this lack of quality control because most Under Armour apparel I’ve used has been absolutely top-notch. I know that manufacturing irregularities happen, and hopefully, the glove I got was just an aberration.  

Great feel

The CoolSwitch’s Cabretta leather palm provided a great, soft grip. And I love the integration of the flexible material with the leather – it feels like you’re barely wearing a glove at all. 

Having a glove that helps keep your hands cool and stay dry while providing a great grip means the Under Armour CoolSwitch merits your consideration.

Two gloves?

The FootJoy RainGrip is sold as a pair of gloves instead of a single glove for your lead hand. Some golfers may balk at the idea of wearing two gloves (unless you’re Tommy Two-Gloves himself), but when it starts raining, you should do anything you can to maintain a good grip.

If you’re playing through a rainstorm, you’re either very dedicated, playing great, in a tournament, or in a hurry. No matter your reason for not waiting out the rain or coming back another day, you’re going to have to deal with wet grips despite your best efforts with umbrellas and towels. 

The FootJoy RainGrip gloves used as a pair provide an excellent grip even if your grips are soaking wet. The proprietary material FootJoy uses actually gains tackiness the wetter it gets, so you shouldn’t experience any slippage with these.

Warmer than leather

I’ve also played my share of cold weather golf, and the toughest part of that is keeping your hands warm. It really stings if your hands get cold and you hit it a little thin. 

The FootJoy RainGrip gloves don’t get icy cold like leather gloves can when it’s cold out. And since they come in a pair, you can wear both and they’ll keep your hands fairly warm.

If you’re playing in 40-degree weather, I’d suggest going with full-on winter golf gloves. But when it’s high 40s/low 50s and just a little too chilly to be comfortable, the RainGrip gloves will come in handy.

Outstanding Fit

Another positive worth mentioning on the Wilson glove is the cut. There’s no wasted material here that makes the glove loose on your hand. Instead, Wilson has finely crafted their base golf glove to fit snugly against your fingers without being too tight. In fact, Wilson boasts that these best golf gloves come with pre-curved fingers to help introduce a custom fit with your hand. Simply put, we loved the fit of this Wilson glove.

If you are looking for negatives, we were a little disappointed with the lack of mesh venting in the glove’s knuckles. While that isn’t a deal killer in our eyes, we did want additional airflow at times. But never did we feel that the glove became too wet or needed to be air-dried during the round.

Long-Lasting Durability

We love this glove for senior golfers because of its affordable price with long-lasting durability. The Wilson glove does an admirable job at keeping your grip tight against the club while providing exceptional comfort for casual golfers.