How to Clean Golf Gloves

Golf gloves are some of the most useful pieces of equipment to have in your gear bag. While they aren’t as necessary as high-quality clubs and the right golf ball, they can do wonders to your grip and protect your hands from blisters.

And if you have golf gloves, there’s a high chance that they will get dirty after a few games.

Even with the best care, the gloves can still accumulate dirt. This means you will have to clean your gloves from time to time.

But keep in mind: cleaning your gloves the wrong way can ruin them, which is not something you want.

That’s why we’ve made this complete guide to the safest, easiest, and most effective way to clean golf gloves. That way, you can keep using your favorite glove without worrying about looking dirty or un-neat on the course!

Read on to learn more.

Why Do You Need to Clean Golf Gloves?

Golf gloves are designed to last you more than a couple of rounds on the course. However, if they get noticeably soiled and dirty, it might get in the way of performance. When your gloves are dirty, they won’t be able to grip the club as well, which defeats the purpose of having a golf glove.

Over time, your glove accumulates dirt and sweat from your playing. So, it’s best for golfers to clean their gloves when they notice they are dirty. That way, you can rest assured that you get the best grip your golf gloves have to offer.

How To Clean Golf Gloves: A Step-by-Step Guide

In our experience, we’ve found that the best way to clean golf gloves is by hand. This means that you shouldn’t use a washing machine or any fancy tools. In fact, you can even use this method to clean your gloves while you’re still on the course!

So, here are the different steps you should take when cleaning your golf gloves:

Rinse the Gloves While Wearing Them

This method doesn’t require any soap or machinery. To start the process, all you have to do is wet your glove with cold water. Remember, hot water isn’t good for leather gloves, and since most gloves are made of leather, you want to use cold water as much as possible.

Additionally, make sure to rinse the gloves while you’re wearing them. The reason you want to do this is that you want the glove to retain its shape and size while washing. Water can cause the gloves to shrink and lose their shape, but keeping the glove on will prevent that.

If the gloves have gotten very dirty, you can try dipping them in a bowl of cold water with a little bit of leather soap. But once you’ve got it nice and wet, we still recommend putting the glove on to keep its shape.

Brush Off the Dirt

The next step is brushing off the dirt. Wetting the gloves is supposed to remove the loose dirt and soften the dirtier areas of the glove. So, once it’s wet, you should be able to brush off the visible dirt using a towel or a brush. You can do this while wearing the glove to make sure it doesn’t shrink or lose its shape.

That said, remember to be gentle when brushing out the dirt. If you brush too aggressively, you risk damaging the glove and even ruining it completely. So, keep it soft, gentle, and patient when brushing off the dirt from your glove.

If you didn’t use any soap when wetting the glove, you can proceed to the next step. However, if you used soap on the glove, make sure to rinse off all the soap before drying it. Soap can damage the leather of your gloves, so you don’t want it to stay on the leather for too long.

Dry the Gloves

After you get all the dirt off the gloves, the next step is drying them. When doing this, it’s important to let the gloves dry as naturally as possible, without introducing heat since heat can shrink the glove.

Once you brush off the dirt, we recommend wearing the glove. When it’s on, you can clench and unclench your fist to get rid of the excess water and ensure that the glove retains its shape. After doing this, you can take the glove off and leave it to dry in a cool and dry environment.

One of the worst mistakes you can make when cleaning golf gloves is wringing them, leaving them out in the sun, or throwing them in the dryer. All of these things can greatly damage your glove and that is why we recommend taking it slow, letting your gloves dry naturally.

Additionally, when the glove is drying, make sure it isn’t scrunched up. Ideally, you need to dry it without folding it or messing with its shape. This is why we recommend wearing the gloves at least once before leaving them out to dry completely.

Apply Conditioner

If you used leather gloves on the course, you have to make sure to apply conditioner after it dries. Soap and water can damage the leather over time, which is why you need to replenish the oils that were lost in the process with leather conditioner.

To do this, you need a small microfibre cloth to rub in a bit of the conditioner on the whole glove. Make sure that you don’t miss any spots between the fingers as you would like a thin but even coating on the glove. This will ensure that your glove lasts a long time and won’t get dirty that quickly.

Can I Use a Washing Machine to Clean My Golf Glove?

If you have a washing machine at home, you might be tempted to just throw your glove in the wash. If you’re in a real hurry and don’t have the time to do it by hand, this can be an okay last resort. However, if you want your gloves to last you more rounds on the course, we highly advise against washing them in a washing machine.

This is because the washing machine’s cycle can be pretty rough and your gloves could shrink during the process. But if you must wash your gloves in the machine, there is a proper way of doing so to reduce the chances of shrinking or the glove losing its shape.

To start, do NOT use warm water. Warm water can shrink leather gloves and damage them, so make sure the machine is in its cold water setting. Additionally, make sure to not use too much soap as soap can also damage leather.

Once the wash is over, make sure the glove doesn’t go in the dryer. Instead, you should let it dry naturally like in the method above. When doing so, make sure to wear your glove at least once before it dries so that it will dry out in the same shape as it was before cleaning.

There is a way for you to clean your golf gloves with a washing machine. However, this is not the most ideal method as doing it wrong may result in ruined gloves that you will no longer be able to wear.

So, keep this in mind whenever you think of tossing your gloves in the washing machine.

Common Mistakes People Make with Golf Gloves

One of the biggest mistakes you can make with golf gloves is overcleaning them. You aren’t supposed to clean your gloves after every use as the process can slightly damage your gloves and doing it too much will result in ruined golf gloves. So, make sure to only wash your gloves when necessary.

On top of that, it might be best to avoid getting your gloves dirty in the first place. While the gloves should naturally get dirty over time, there are many things that golfers do that cause the gloves to get dirty more often and quicker than usual. Here are some of the things you might be doing on the course that are actually dirtying your gloves:

• Wiping off sweat – It’s very common to sweat while playing golf. And since your aim and focus is very important, most golfers will wipe the sweat off their forehead before it gets into their eyes. However, make sure you don’t do this with your golf glove as the salty sweat that gets caught in the gloves could dirty and even ruin your gloves in the long run.
• Wearing your gloves the whole game – The thing about many modern golf gloves is that they are breathable. This means that it can sometimes feel like you aren’t wearing a glove, which is why some golfers leave it on the whole game. However, you should take the time between holes to take off your gloves and air them out. When you do this, the gloves accumulate less dirt and will stay clean for a much longer time.

Conclusion

Golf gloves are very important pieces of gear that can improve your grip on the club and also do wonders to your scores on the course. However, there are times when your glove can get dirty, especially after multiple uses.

You aren’t supposed to clean your gloves too much. And when you do, there is a proper approach to doing so. So, before you take out your gloves for cleaning, make sure to follow all the steps in this guide to ensure that you clean them effectively without ruining the material or fit.

And if you do so, you’ll find your golf gloves will be clean and ready to be used for many games to come!