Golftown Journal

Sam Snead struggled with putting yips for over half a century, trying side-saddle and mallet putters. Ernie Els suffered a horrific six-putt from 2 feet at the 2016 Masters, later blaming performance anxiety. And who around Pinehurst will ever forget Rory McIlroy missing two putts from inside 4 feet in the final three holes of the 2024 U.S. Open on Pinehurst No. 2?

Who knows? Maybe a Reverse Taper Grip from Golf Pride, invented and designed in a lab on the outskirts of Pinehurst, might have helped.

Since 2019, Golf Pride has operated out of its Global Innovation Center on land next to Pinehurst No. 8 that was conceived and shepherded from soup to nuts by company CEO Jamie Ledford. The company was founded in Akron in 1949 by a golfer named Thomas Fawick, who believed that molded rubber would offer better traction and durability than traditional leather. Fawick soon introduced the slip-on grip, revolutionizing the industry and creating the modern regripping market.

The company was acquired by Eaton in 1968 and moved to North Carolina a year later, with operational headquarters in Southern Pines and a manufacturing plant in Laurinburg. The latter shut down in the early 2000s, and now some 50 million grips a year are produced out of company facilities in Thailand and Taiwan.

Ledford, a golfer since his boyhood days in the Pacific Northwest, had a decade of experience as director of consumer products for Starbucks Coffee Company and in business development with Callaway Golf. Among his priorities on taking the Golf Pride presidency was to find a better home for the business, which operated out of a nondescript commercial structure off U.S. 15-501 in Southern Pines. Word got around town, and one day he got a phone call from an executive at Pinehurst Resort suggesting that some unused land along the entry road to Pinehurst No. 8 north of the village might be an idea for Golf Pride.

The 36,000-square-foot facility combines traditional Pinehurst brick and wood architecture with a modern open-office interior, with plenty of natural light and graphics displays that tell the company’s history. There are offices in one wing and a manufacturing operation in another, where ideas for new grips can be turned into workable prototypes within days. Most significantly to the public, there is a “retail lab” where golfers can bring their clubs and get fitted for new grips and watch as they’re installed.

The company sought to make the process as easy and expedient as going to the barbershop and getting a haircut.

“We’re here to innovate and create new grips,” Ledford says. “We built this facility as a bit of a statement of purpose for Golf Pride in the future. We’re 77 years old this year. But it’s really easy for a brand that’s 77 years old, that’s been number one for a long time, to just kind of focus on the past and lose its way. And this place is really built on what our future is. I’ve been pleased how it has rejuvenated Golf Pride and given us a whole new boost of energy.”

Much of that energy has revolved around Ledford and his team energetically proselytizing on the marriage of hands and clubs, and expanding its product line with cutting-edge ideas. Its Align Technology uses ridges on the underside of the grip to help lock your hand placement for consistency. The MCC Grip is a hybrid that fuses moisture-wicking brushed cotton cord in the upper hand area for all-weather traction with high-performance rubber in the lower area for feel and responsiveness.

“We just wanted it to be the single best place in the world to get your clubs regripped,” Ledford says. “Grips matter. The industry is built around clubheads and shafts and balls. But the grip is our only physical connection to all this other gear. It’s the most overlooked and unappreciated equipment category in golf. Golfers are making choices about what grips they want, much like running shoes for your feet.”

The putter comes in at the finish line.

Rolling a golf ball 8 feet on slippery grass with a slight break down a slope is the most sensitive action in the game. It’s where the marriage of hands and club is most important.

“Putting is 100 percent feel,” says Bruce Miller, Golf Pride’s putter grip product manager. “The putter grip is your only connection. Putting is like a surgeon with a scalpel. It’s all about slow, smooth, deliberate motions and pace of stroke. The grip shape, size and taper absolutely have an effect.”

The Reverse Taper grip is the company’s best answer so far. The grip is thicker on the bottom, the concept being that the thicker lower area prevents the bottom hand from squeezing too tightly and leading to a wrist breakdown at impact. That taper configuration is opposite from a popular putter grip that is thicker at the top, thinner below.

The research generated by Miller and his team showed that a high percentage of players isolated the issue to the lower hand, the one farthest from the shoulders. Feedback from golfers tested and quizzed was that the lower hand invited the most “flipping” or “yippyness,” and it was the lower hand that would misbehave and decelerate or “give it the gas” through impact.

“We tried to zero in on the hands and think about the role that each of your hands plays in a good putting stroke,” Ledford says. “That led us to this counterintuitive place of making the bottom of the grip bigger, reversing the taper. Initially, we were a bit concerned about flipping convention on its head, but the user testing was so strong, we had to go with it, and it has been steadily building a following.”

“By providing the player with more ‘meat on the bone’ in the lower part of the putter grip, it assisted them in evening out their hand pressure and avoiding the lower hand jumpiness,” Miller adds.

You have to wonder what old Sam Snead would have made out of the Reverse Taper Grip. His putting woes were so gnarly he took to hitting a putt like you would a croquet ball — straddling the line of the putt (which led the USGA to outlawing that down-the-line stance in 1968).

“I’ve gotten rid of the yips four times, but they hang in there,” Snead said. “You know those 2-foot downhill putts with a break? I’d rather see a rattlesnake.” PS

Lee Pace has written about golf in the Sandhills for more than three decades from his home in Chapel Hill. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.