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How To Golf With Blisters?

golf blisters on hand
golf blisters

Playing golf with blisters is no fun. In fact, most things are less pleasant with blisters on your hands or feet, and I have a blister at the moment of writing this article.

Jokes aside (I do really have a blister though), you are probably wondering how to golf with blisters in the most comfortable, painless way possible. In this article, you will learn all of the methods to comfortably golf with blisters.

What is a Blister in Golf?

A blister is a small accumulation of serum under your skin, caused by friction, rubbing or burning. Blisters are painful when pressed, and the skin over the liquid usually dies. When blisters pop, your flesh is exposed, causing risks of infection. Blisters usually appear on either your hands or your feet.

How To Golf With Blisters?

Add Padding to your Hands

Ideally, to let your blisters heal, you should take a 1-2 week break from golf.

However, you did not come to this article to hear that. If you are going to golf with blisters anyways instead of letting them rest, then the most important thing to do is to add padding.

For example, you should wear gloves on your hands that have blisters to cushion the golf club in your hands. With direct contact against your skin, golf clubs are much more likely to pop your blisters, dig into them, or give you more blisters.

If you do not know how to choose a golf glove size, read our article: How To Size A Golf Glove?.

On top of wearing gloves, you can wear a bandaid directly on your blister to ease pain and prevent infections if your flesh is exposed. Thicker bandaids will reduce the blister pain more than thinner bandaids.

Furthermore, there exist special bandaids that are specifically meant to help with blister pain. Although they are more expensive than regular bandaids, blister bandaids offer the best blister relief money can buy, even if it is not as much as one could hope for.

To avoid the bandaid from moving, you can wear a golf glove over it, or tape it down with some sort of athletic tape.

Add Padding to your Feet

If you are unlucky, and have blisters on your feet, you need to make sure you have the right golf shoe size. Shoes that are too big or too small will give you blisters either because your foot is moving too much in the shoe, or there is too much pressure against your feet.

If you do not know how to choose a golf shoe size, read our article: How To Size A Golf Shoe?.

Furthermore, there exist anti-blister socks that are designed to reduce the chances of having blisters.

Anti-blister socks add extra layers in key areas on your foot, and use moisture-wicking material to remove sweat and moisture from your skin. The breathable material and the other factors allow to prevent blisters and reduce pain if you already have them. We highly recommend Anti-Blister Socks.

Skip Practice Shots

The second way to golf with blisters is to shoot less shots. If you have blisters, you need to give them time to rest, so you should probably avoid practice shots. By skipping practice and only shooting in tournament play, you are giving your blisters at least a little time to heal.

If you are taking more than 300-500 practice golf shots a week, your hands will hurt, your blisters will not heal, and you will likely get more blisters.

Next, don’t pop your blisters if you can help it. Popping your blisters will expose your flesh, setting you up for a risk of infection. If you let your areas affected by blisters rest, the blisters should go away naturally within 1-2 weeks.

If your blister does pop, let it drain. Shortly after, clean it thoroughly with water to make sure there are no contaminants on your exposed flesh. Next, apply disinfectant, and wrap up the blister with a bandaid.

At night, remove your bandaid to let the blister breathe. If you keep your bandaid on overnight, some more of your skin will die, and you will finder your finger all white the next morning. The pain of a popped blister is more intense, but if covered up well, it should hinder your performance less than a bubbled blister.

Final Thoughts

Although the methods outlined and described above will help ease your blister pain, whether on your hands or feet, it is best to prevent blisters from appearing in the first place.

It is important that you give your blisters 1-2 weeks to rest and heal naturally, and to avoid friction, and practice shots as much as you can. Wear padding, such as bandages and gloves, on your body parts that are susceptible to getting blisters.

If you would like to know the best ways to prevent blisters so that you will never experience blister pain again, read our article: How To Prevent Golf Blisters?.

Conclusion

There you go! After reading this article, you have learned that the best way to not feel blister pain is to prevent them from appearing.

You have also learned that blisters should not be popped, and that if they do, you need to disinfect them and wrap them up with bandaids.

Finally, you learned that to reduce blister pain and still be able to play golf, by wearing gloves, anti-blister socks, bandaids, and other types of padding.

How often do you get blisters from playing golf? What do you do to soothe your blisters? Let us know in the comments down below!

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How To Prevent Golf Blisters?

golf hand blisters
hand blisters golf

Playing golf with blisters is no fun, but can you prevent them? The short answer is yes, but the long answer is more nuanced.

In this article, you will learn how to prevent golf blisters in order to play golf comfortably and pain-free as much as possible.

Why Do I Get Blisters When I Play Golf?

Blisters arise from excessive friction or rubbing of your skin, usually on your hands, or your feet.

On top of friction, excessive sweat & moisture on your hands or feet will increase the chances of you getting painful blisters.

If you have a bad golfing grip, or you hold your club too tightly, you are setting yourself up for more blisters than you need to have. To learn the correct golfing grip, read our article: How To Hold A Golf Club Correctly?.

Furthermore, by training your golf shooting too hard, your hands will get overused, and you will get blistered. Your hands can only take so much beatings in a week. For example, if you take 500 practice shots in a single week, your hands will get sore, as well as show redness.

On top of those symptoms, you will possibly get blisters as well, which will prevent you from getting good practice in for the next 1-2 weeks. Try to keep your practice sessions at the driving range in the 50-80 total shots range.

If you do not wear golf gloves, then you playing golf without an extra layer of cushion that can absorb the pressure of the club in your hand. Not wearing golf gloves makes you more likely to get blisters. If you do not know how to choose a golf glove, read our article: How To Size A Golf Glove?.

Finally, you can get blisters on your feet as well.

If you wear golf shoes that are too big, your feet will move in the shoes, and will scratch against the shoe material, producing blisters.

If you wear golf shoes that are too small, the shoe material will put too much pressure on your feet skin, which will produce blisters as you move around and walk.

If you do not know if you have the correct golf shoe size, read our article: How To Size Golf Shoes?.

How To Prevent Golf Blisters?

To prevent golf blisters, you need to avoid the habits that increase the likelihood of getting blisters.

Wear Extra Padding

For example, you should wear a golf glove on your hands that commonly get blisters. Try to remember the last time you got a blister on your hand after playing golf. Which hand was it on? To prevent blisters, you should make it a habit to wear a golf glove on that hand.

Next, if you get blisters on specific parts of your hand, say your index finger, you should add padding to it before playing golf. Different padding options include Golfer’s Tape, bandages, athletic wrap, bandaids, etc.. One of our favorite padding solutions among those mentioned is Golfer’s Tape.

If those previous padding options do not satisfy you, there is one more solution called Athletic Cloth Finger Sleeves. These are cute little sleeves…for your fingers!  These finger sleeves offer the advantage of being fully reusable, and they do not require adhesion, so they will not fall off once you sweat. If your blisters only ever appear on your fingers, then Athletic Cloth Finger Sleeves are the option for you.

Look for the Precursor Signs of Blisters

Before blisters actually appear, you kind of know that they are coming. Before blisters get materialize, your hands or fingers generally get red and sensitive. You might also see your skin start to bunch up, as if your skin had been pinched.

When these precursor signs of blisters appear, you should cease to use the affected skin areas, and let them rest. If you are in the middle of a practice session at the driving range, you need to end your session if you do not want blisters.

If you are going to keep using the affected areas anyways, at least wear some type of padding, as recommended in the previous section of this article. Any type of padding should help cushion your golf club in your hands.

If the blister is starting to appear, but not full blown yet, you should buy Blister Bandages. Although expensive for bandages, these Blister Bandages are designed to protect your blisters as much as possible from getting worse, and from letting you feel pain.

Keep Your Skin Dry

Moisture and sweat are a huge catalyst for getting new blisters, so it is important to keep your hands dry.

Dry your hands with a cloth regularly; take out your hand of your golf gloves if you have to.

In addition, your hands are not the only place where moisture lies. If you think out of the box, you will realize your golf clubs grips also accumulate moisture. Therefore, to minimize the chances of getting blisters, regularly wipe down your golf club grips during play.

Avoid playing in extremely warm weather if you wish to minimize moisture, and thus, your chances of getting blisters.

Also, consider wearing socks with breathable material rather than thick socks. Favor socks in which you will sweat less. Moisture in your shoes is a great way to get painful foot blisters.

Hold your Golf Club Correctly

You need to be holding your golf club with the correct technique if you wish to limit the amount of blisters you will get. Resting your golf club on the wrong part of your hands will create painful pressures that will bunch up your skin and cause blisters.

If you do not know how to hold a golf club with the right technique, read our article: How To Hold A Golf Club Correctly?.

In addition, you should not grip your golf club too firmly. The more pressure you exert on your golf club, the more your hand skin will tend to bunch up and create blisters.

In fact, your top hand should have the most pressure on the golf club grip, and your bottom hand, a little less pressure. Do not grip down on your golf club the hardest you can. Grip your golf club firmly, but do not get excessively tense in your arms & shoulders.

Maintain your Golf Club Grips

If your golf club grips are used up, the will be less comfortable, more irritating in your hand, and can dig into it. A golf club grip that is irritating and digging into your skin will cause blisters.

If you have an old or worn out golf grip, make sure to buy a new grip right away to replace the old one, and you will have less blisters.

Wear Golf Shoes and Socks that Fit

If your golf shoe is too big for you, your foot will move in it, and get irritated by the movement against the shoe fabric. This will cause painful blisters.

If your golf shoe is too small, your foot will be excessively pressed against the shoe fabric, and you will get irritations and excess friction when you walk or move even a little. This will cause painful blisters.

To avoid blisters on your feet, you mainly need to wear golf shoes that fit your foot right. If you do not know how to choose the right size of golf shoes for you, read our guide: How To Size Golf Shoes?.

Furthermore, you need to be mindful of your sock selection when you are playing golf. Ideally, you should avoid socks that do not go up your ankle. Without fabric on your ankle, the shoe material can dig into your skin when your ankle joint rotates, causing irritation and blisters.

To get added protection from blisters, you should buy Anti-Blister Socks.

Anti-blister socks add extra layers in key areas on your foot, and use moisture-wicking material to remove sweat and moisture from your skin. The breathable material and the other factors allow to prevent blisters and reduce pain if you already have them. We highly recommend Anti-Blister Socks.

How To Treat Golf Blisters?

There are not many ways to quickly treat golf blisters if they do arise. Unfortunately, it usually takes 1 to 2 weeks of rest and zero friction to heal blisters.

The only other thing you can consider besides rest is to add padding to your blisters in order to ease the pain and not worsen the blisters.

One great padding solution is dedicated Blister Bandages, relatively expensive bandages that protect your blisters well from pain, but will not really speed up the healing process.

Whatever you do, do not pop the blisters because that will expose your flesh to contaminants. If your blister pops, clean the flesh abundantly with water and then disinfect it.

Add a bandaid or Blister Bandage on top of your blister, and take it off while you sleep. Add another bandaid or Blister Bandage the next morning, and keep doing so until your blister heals.

If you would like to learn more in depth about playing golf with blisters, as well how to treat them, read our article: How To Golf With Blisters?.

Conclusion

There you go! After reading this article, you have learned why you get golf blisters, how to prevent blisters, and discovered many padding products that can ease your pain and recovery.

You have also learned how to treat golf blisters on your hands and feet.

Have you had blisters before from playing golf? What are your home tricks to prevent blisters? Let us know in the comments down below!