Golf’s newest TikTok star is going viral for these relaxing regripping videos
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Welcome to Play Smart, a game-improvement column that drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from Game Improvement Editor Luke Kerr-Dineen to help you play smarter, better golf.
With the weekend coming into sight (and hopefully a few rounds) after a busy work week, I always like using these Friday columns to take it down a notch. Mondays are for the hard-grafting, nitty-gritty game improvement stuff. Fridays are for a more leisurely form of game improvement, which brings us to today’s topic: Some relaxing and helpful re-gripping videos.
I’m a big fan of TikTok, and there’s a growing golf scene on the platform which, if you’re TikTok-curious, you should definitely check out (shameless plug alert: You can follow me on the Tok right here!).
My new favorite follow is Ethan Welsh, who has amassed almost 680,000 followers thanks to his meditative club re-gripping tutorials, where he narrates himself installing different types of grips on different types of clubs.
Here he is replacing a red Winn grip on a putter, which has almost 10 million views.
@ethanjameswelsh That’s a 10 ##golf ##golftok ##griptok ##fyp ##filthygolf ##golfgalaxy ##jabroni ##foryoupage ##philly ##followers ##satisfyingvideo
♬ Relax – Karma Keyz
Here’s some SuperStroke-on-SuperStroke action, which cracked more than 1.5 million likes.
@ethanjameswelsh ##golf ##golftok ##griptok ##fyp ##filthygolf ##golfgalaxy ##jabroni ##foryoupage ##golfclubrepair
♬ original sound – Ethan Welsh
And here’s a handy tip about what to do if you accidentally put tape too far down the golf shaft, which is tracking 3 million views.
@ethanjameswelsh ##golf ##golftok ##filthygolf ##fyp ##foryoupage ##golfgalaxy ##golfgrips @golfpridegrips
♬ original sound – Ethan Welsh
Swing Evaluation for GOLF.com Readers
Regripping your own clubs is actually easier than you might think. I taught myself to do it and now I regrip my clubs every season, and am always tinkering around with different kinds of putter grips.
If you’re getting into the regripping game, you’ll learn a few things from watching Ethan’s videos:
– First, you’ll obviously need to buy a grip (or grips). We’ve got a bunch of grips in our Pro Shop you can buy right here.
– Outside of the grip itself, you’re going to need grip solvent (lighter fluid works too), a knife, and wide double-sided masking tape.
– A recurring theme in Ethan’s videos are that the right tools are important, because they can save you time. He recommends a vise and hook blade, though you don’t *need* those things.
– Once you’ve got all those things you simply cut off the old grip, remove the tape, put a new layer of tape on the shaft, pour over some fluid and slide the new grip straight on. Here’s a step-by-step process.
It’s a handy, easy skill to have in your back pocket. And also, as Ethan’s videos show, a strangely therapeutic one.
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Luke Kerr-Dineen
Golf.com Contributor
Luke Kerr-Dineen is the Game Improvement Editor at GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. In his role he oversees the brand’s game improvement content spanning instruction, equipment, health and fitness, across all of GOLF’s multimedia platforms.
An alumni of the International Junior Golf Academy and the University of South Carolina–Beaufort golf team, where he helped them to No. 1 in the national NAIA rankings, Luke moved to New York in 2012 to pursue his Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. His work has also appeared in USA Today, Golf Digest, Newsweek and The Daily Beast.