I worked hard all week, looking forward to playing golf on the weekend. Now I’m sitting here at home on a weekend full of rain. Guess what? The radar shows rain for the next 10 days, too. Nice. Well, what better topic than talking about the best golf rain gear on the market?
I won’t lie – I don’t even play golf in bad weather anymore. When I was a competitive golfer, rain never stopped me. Bust out my rain gear and tons of dry towels and I’m ready to go. Now? I’ll wait for a perfect dry day to play golf. Pouring down rain is just too frustrating to play in, especially if you typically walk instead of ride.
I’ll break this article into a couple different sections, depending on what you are looking for.
The Best Golf Rain Suit (Jacket & Pants): Swisswell Men’s Rain Suit
You truly can’t go wrong with the Swissell golf rain suit. It was my favorite “value” purchase when I was a serious golfer, and I wrote an entire article on it, as I consider it the best value rain gear under $50. It runs around $40, and you’ll be good to play in bad weather as soon as it comes in. It comes in six different sizes to fit any golfer that is tired of soaking wet clothes during a light rain.
The Swisswell golf rain jacket comes in four different colors, but I’ve always sticked with the standard black when it comes to rain gear (for unknown reasons). It’s by far the highest reviewed golf rain suit on Amazon, and for good reason. Comparable men’s rain suits from name brands (Adidas, Footjoy, Nike, etc). are well over $100 and are practically the same product. The name brands are typically a little bulkier if anything, which make it just that much harder to play golf in when it rains.
If you buy this product and don’t like it for whatever reason, just let me know… I won’t do anything about it, but I would still like to know about your experience.
Tackiest Rain Gloves: Footjoy RainGrip
In my opinion, there are only a couple of products that are MUST-HAVES for a golf bag. The Footjoy RainGrip golf gloves are one of them. If you want to be able to confidently hit a golf shot in the rain when your grips are wet, pick up a pair of these.
Here’s a more in-depth article about the best rain gloves for golf.
They seem to work BETTER in the rain than in perfect condition. The rain hitting them makes them stick to your grips even better, which is weird and awesome at the same time.
There is no question about it. The hardest part about golfing in the rain is simply holding on to the club. I have a (very, very, very light, partly laughable) small degree of PTSD about swinging the club and losing hold completely of the grip in tournaments, leaving the club head in the ground of flying 40 yards forward. Very embarrassing. Very frustrating. The main reason? I wasn’t wearing my rain gloves, because rain wasn’t even in the forecast. Make a note of this: ALWAYS carry rain gloves with you, no matter the forecast. Keep them in your bag ready to go. They absolutely DO make a difference in your ability to hold onto the club.
They come in both black and white, so don’t feel like you have to go with the standard black color of rain gloves unless you just want to. I like the black color to be able to easily differentiate them from my standard white gloves.
By the way, they also make a RainGrip Xtreme version, which has a 3m sticky material to even further enhance your grip during a downpour. They are about $10 more expensive and much harder to find. The normal RainGrip work just fine in my opinion, though.
If you are tired of sweaty hands while playing golf, here’s a complete guide to get rid of sweaty golf hands.
The Best Golf Grips For the Rain: Grip Master – The Roo Leather Grips
If you want tacky grips in the rain, you need leather grips. Leather is more expensive upfront, but you may save money in the long term due to their durability.
The best leather grips (in my opinion) are Grip Master – The Roo leather grips. They more moisture, sweat or rain, the more tacky they become. They are a bit pricey but they’ll outlast your clubs. They allow you to have a loose hand pressure but still plenty of control on the grip. If they get wet, just rub a towel on them and you’ll have to fight to un-stick the towel! That’s how sticky they can be.
I’ll be honest though. I don’t recommend choosing a grip that just performs best in the rain. How often do you play in the rain anyway? I suppose if you live in a super rainy area this may be important to you. But are you actually PLAYING GOLF in the rain that often? Probably now. I’d honestly recommend just carrying the Footjoy RainGrip gloves in your bag and wearing them whenever it rains. 90% of golfers will be fine with just that.
The Best Golf Towels: All of Them. And Extra.
A towel is a towel. Yes, you read that right. The best towel that you can use while you golf in the rain? All of them. And lots of them. As long as they are dry.
Old bath towels. Towels that you take to the beach. White towels. Colored towels. All of the towels. The only necessity is that they are dry and large enough to use many times to make sure you can keep your grips dry before you hit a shot.
Again, you need LOTS of golf towels when you play in the rain. Keep the towels in your bag or covered under your cart. Just keep them dry and keep them accessible. If you leave one out in the rain a little too long, it’s done for the day. You’ll need another (dry) one now. Don’t find yourself on the course during a rain with too little towels. Keep them in your car ready to be transferred to your bag at the start of each round if needed. That’s enough talk about towels, don’t you think?
Cool Umbrella Accessory: Bag Boy Golf Umbrella Holder
Just like towels are towels, an umbrella is an umbrella. I’m not going to recommend a specific umbrella for you. Just get one that is big enough and strong enough. There… that was easy. BUT, I will recommend this great umbrella attachment.
If you walk with a push cart (which I would highly recommend for all golfers for the added exercise without carrying your bag on your shoulder), get the Bag Boy Umbrella Holder. It will attach to any push cart, assuming that your current push cart doesn’t already have an umbrella holder.
Easy to install. Easy to take off. Easy to adjust. Made with strong materials so it won’t break anytime soon. Great item overall to help hold any umbrella and keep you warm while freeing up a hand.
