Garsen Quad Tour Pistol Putter Grip
Garsen Golf introduced an interesting “Quad” grip shape with the intention of keeping the golfer’s hands quiet during the putting stroke, but with a more traditional hand placement. This unique shape has a flat bottom and top line to help square up the club face on every putt. The new Garsen Quad Tour Pistol grips utilize that same concept while offering the signature trapezoid shape, but now in a pistol profile as well. Should you prefer a more oversize option, see the Quad Tour Pistol NT. Players preferring a slimmer feel should check out the smaller Pistol TPE. So for those keeping track at home, you can now get Garsen’s Quad Tour design in a tapered, non-tapered, and pistol profile!
The Looks
The Quad Tour Pistol NT grip features Garsen’s signature striping with a “scaled” texture. I find the aesthetics to be a nice blend of tasteful but enough distinct character to let you know it’s a Garsen grip as soon as you see it. The colorway is a simple black and white, but then there’s a splash of silver to give it a little extra flair!
The Quad Tour Pistol TPE, however, has a totally different texture and color pattern. This grip aims to give you a traditional smooth rubber feel, but with all of the Quad Tour Pistol benefits. As such, the texture has a smooth look and the grip is all black save for white branding on the sides and a white butt cap.
How Does it Feel?
To steal straight from Garsen, the new Quad Tour Pistol NT “offers a wider diameter than the standard quad tour pistol line” as well a “more pronounced pistol shape at the butt end”. Additionally, the Garsen Quad Tour Pistol NT comes in at 55 grams which is 23 grams lighter than the standard Quad Tour Pistol. I felt this lighter weight, especially in the oversize profile, was fairly noticeable. That “scaly” texture mentioned above also makes the grip feel a bit more connected in your hands. Texture preferences are extremely subjective in putter grips, but I do like this one. My only concern might be its durability as I’ve never really used one frequently enough to see how well it wears. (Leave a comment if you can tell us!)
Personally, I prefer the feeling of the Garsen Quad Tour Pistol TPE. Really, it’s more for the size of it. While I play a somewhat oversized grip as my regular gamer, the NT was a bit too big for me so the slimmer TPE got along with me much better. And while I enjoyed the texture of the NT, I did enjoy the response and tackiness of the TPE as well.
I would be remiss to not speak to how the trapezoid shape feels. This wasn’t my first rodeo with the Quad Tour shape so I knew what I was in store for which made my adjustment period much shorter. That said, it still took some time. The big advantage in the feel department is that the shape’s versatility to fit anything from a claw grip to a traditional style. There’s a lot to be said as far as “consistently indexing” and “lining up” this shape, but we’ll cover that in the next section of this review.
On-Course Performance
The whole concept behind Garsen’s Quad Tour shape is that you should be able to line up to your target better and be consistent with your grip because of the straight lines and edges. I found grip consistency to be a very real benefit of the Quad Tour Pistol grips. In fact, I sort of had this feeling like “there’s only one way to really grip the club”. To be clear, you can use cross, traditional, or claw grip, but I’m saying that I really felt like my hands could only “land in the same place” every time I gripped the putter. I can’t speak for everyone else out there, but that’s a pretty positive result in a putter grip for me.
As far as consistently squaring the face of the putter, I felt that went hand in hand (do I have a pun here?) with the consistent grip placement. I suppose the flat edges do create a sense of symmetry, but I felt the real benefit came from gripping my putter the same each and every time as mentioned above.
According to Garsen, their Quad shape brings your elbows into your body and pulls your shoulders back using a more traditional hand placement. They say this relieves tension in your shoulders and arms while also making it difficult to use too much wrist. As a result, your putting stroke should be much quieter with more use of your shoulders and arms. Again, I can’t speak for everyone, but I did find the trapezoid shape to promote a quiet putting stroke and it really forces you to focus more on tempo. I could see players that are more “feel” putters and prefer to have more wrist action needing to go with a different shape.
Final Thoughts – Garsen Quad Tour Pistol Putter Grip
If there’s one thing you have to give Garsen Golf credit for, it’s their knack for interesting putter grip shapes. Whether it’s trapezoidal Quad Tour in this review or tear drop of the Max Tour, these shapes are functional and provide innovative options that deviate from the generally accepted “standards” in the industry. From my experience, I feel Garsen definitely succeeds in their goal to help you make a smooth quiet putting stroke with their grips. The Quad Tour Pistol grips also add an element of alignment and consistency to make your putter both more reliable and more accurate.
