Give the Clinch Tactile Glove and the Claw Max a Hand and They'll Respond in All Conditions

Fred Couples plays golf naked.

Just on his hand. (What did you think I meant? Get your mind out of the gutter.) Fred famously doesn’t wear a golf glove. Never has, never will.

The Fredster is a unicorn in golf. Most of us use gloves because we think they make our grips feel stronger and more powerful.

We definitely live in a Make-Glove-Not-War world.

In major league baseball, only about a dozen major leaguers don’t wear batting gloves. And that trend came from golf, thanks to former Boston Red Sox star Ken (Hawk) Harrelson. The Hawk once played golf all morning on a game day and badly blistered his hands. So he wore a golf glove to hit and homered off pitcher Whitey Ford. The rest is history, except The Hawk didn’t get royalties for his pioneering move.

Golf gloves, like golf clubs, have never been better and there have never been more options. Here are two new ones I’m hooked on, CaddyDaddy’s Claw Max and the Clinch Tactile Glove.

The Claw Max first came out in 2019 and was an instant winner. I immediately liked the silicone-based ribbing across the palm and the fingers from the microfiber material. It had a tacky feel. My palm felt glued onto the club, and so did the fingers.

The original Claw gloves were semi-indestructible. I wore the same one for several dozen rounds before I finally wore out the ribbing on the key touch points.

The new Claw Max glove is out and better than the original. It’s got the microfiber palm ribbing with silicone coating. The company says it won’t blacken, tear or crack. I don’t doubt it.

“We had a hard time sourcing the top-hand synthetic material that felt soft, kept its color and was still machine-washable,” says Rod Dunlap, one of CaddyDaddy’s co-founders. “We finally sourced the right fabric from South Korea after looking for a couple of years.

“One thing our customers like is that the Claw Max is machine-washable. Your hands sweat so the machine-washable aspect is nice, it keeps the glove looking new.”

My only complaint? Claw Max and its grippy palm has ruined me for wearing a traditional soft, cabretta leather glove. Cabretta leather feels like another layer of skin but I now prefer Claw Max’s gripping stability.

On the plus side, the Claw Max is super durable. When I said I used mine for dozens of rounds, I was not exaggerating.

“Our customers easily average 30 rounds of usage,” Dunlap said. “I just had a guy email me on one of the forums. He had our original gloves with the original logo, he wore one on each hand, and he had more than 100 rounds on them. They still looked good but he said the fabric on the top hand had finally started to wear out.”

The Claw Max sells for $24.99 and can be found at ClawGlove.com or that place called Amazon.

I am also bullish on Clinch Golf’s Clinch Tactile Glove. I thought it was just another cotton rain glove like all the major manufacturers make. The Clinch Tactile Glove proved me wrong. (Well, it was inevitable that I would finally be wrong once in this lifetime.)

Yes, the Clinch Tactile Glove is designed to defeat moisture. Clinch Golf is a Portland-based outfit and if you’re not a good mudder in Oregon or you’re not willing to get wet, you don’t play a lot of golf. Portland averages 36 inches of rainfall per year, just an inch-and-a-half less than Seattle, America’s Umbrella Central.

So golfers in the Northwest need rainproof gloves. The Clinch Tactile Glove isn’t cotton, even though it’s as soft as cotton. It is actually a proprietary fabric of a poly-spandex blend, called CrushGroove. (I like the name. It sounds like a boy band. Or a new soft drink.) Clinch says the glove has an internal thermoplastic urethane overlay. That gives it a snug, comfortable feel.

I broke out the Clinch Tactile Glove (let’s call it the CTG for short) during a recent round in the Pittsburgh area. It was a hot, unusually humid day and I’d already sweated through two brand-name cabretta leather gloves. How is sweat different from rain, I thought? My hands are wet either way. So I pulled out the CTG.

One swing with my driver on the next tee was a why-didn’t-I-think-of-this-sooner moment. The club didn’t slip in my grip. So I wore the CTG for the rest of the round.

I liked the CTG’s soft feel—almost like high-tech golf shirt material. It ranks among the most comfortable gloves I’ve ever put on.

Matt Mahoney, Clinch Golf co-founder, said, “Golf equipment is constantly evolving and most everything has been innovated except the golf glove. Moisture will always be a factor in a golfer’s game. Hands get wet, it affects the grip. We wanted to solve this problem through thoughtful design and innovative fabrics.”

Clinch Golf accomplished its mission. I’m impressed and fascinated at how this glove works so well. Also, you can work your phone screen while wearing it. I made a small wager online using my glove hand to test that claim. (But Brooks Koepka did not win the British Open, unfortunately. It was a costly test … but the editor ought to let me expense it, right?) (Editor's note: Probably not.)

The CTG retails for $25, available from ClinchGolf.com. It is available in six sizes and four colors (green, black, gray, blue).

So here’s my current glove-hand schedule: 85 degrees and under, no rain, I go with the Claw Max; over 85 degrees or unusually humid or raining, it’s the Clinch. I wonder if that makes me the new Tommy Two-Gloves?

Memo to Fred Couples: You don’t know what you’re missing. With the Claw Max and the Clinch Tactile Glove, your hands would be in good hands.