Golf Pride pays homage each spring to its long relationship with Masters champions by releasing a limited-edition, Augusta-themed MCC Align grip.
The Honorary Starter is available for a limited time and features a special green-and-white color scheme with yellow accents plus Align technology to promote consistent hand placement on the club.
The innovative MCC Align hybrid grip combines rubber and cord for all-weather performance. Align technology features a raised ridge to assist hand placement and improve swing consistency. The heightened clubface awareness throughout the swing promotes a square clubface both at address and impact.
Golf Pride has been in the hands of 38 Masters winners since Gay Brewer in 1967, including 17 consecutive winners from Larry Mize in 1987 to Mike Weir in 2003.
The Honorary Starter, in standard size, is exclusively available for $12.99 while supplies last on GolfPride.com.
The limited release coincides with the launch of Golf Pride’s first brand awareness campaign to “Respect the grip,” educating golfers on the proven benefits of re-gripping clubs.
“(Grips) aren’t valued until they start to have a negative impact on a golfer’s performance,” said Eric Gibson, global CMO at Golf Pride. “Nothing’s more vital to a golfer than their connection to their equipment.”
New grips can drive an extra two yards of carry to a player’s game, based on a study conducted by Golf Pride testing the impact of worn vs new grips with adept players using the exact same clubs.
The testing revealed two key elements that add up to the yardage gains – less slip in your hands leading to more centered strikes and more confidence in the grip fostering more authoritative swings.
“Less micro slippage and the confidence factor … we feel like both of those were contributing to more centered hits on the clubface and essentially more Smash Factor to get better carry distance,” said Jamie Ledford, Golf Pride president.
Ledford said the ongoing research results illustrate the importance of grips relative to performance and has given the 74-year-old company a “new sense of purpose” moving forward in product design.
“A lot of people still see grips as handles for clubs and we really believe that it’s performance equipment,” Ledford said. “Your hands are your only physical connection to your game and that might not sound like much but it's a pretty big kind of paradigm change for us as a category leader in production. What it’s done is unlocked a lot of fresh creativity and about how grips do matter to your game.”
PHOTOS COURTESY GOLF PRIDE