How to Use Lead Tape on Any Golf Club to Dial In Ball Flight

If you look at any modern driver, you’ll see weight ports in very specific positions on the sole of the club. Driver manufacturers are always boasting about how they’ve saved weight from certain areas of the club, and strategically repositioned it into those weight ports.

Any draw-baised driver – one designed to eliminate the nasty slice from your game – has as much weight as possible positioned in the heel of the club, near the shaft. That’s because extra weight near the heel helps the club head rotate through impact, eliminating the open face at impact that creates a slice.

If you want to add lead tape to your driver head to fix a slice, put the tape on the sole of the club head on the heel side, near where the shaft connects to the club head.

On the other hand, if you want to promote a fade or prevent hooks and pulls, put the lead tape on the toe side of the driver. The extra weight on the toe will fight the club’s tendency to close through impact, helping you keep the face neutral or slightly open to promote a fade.

If you want to hit your driver higher or lower, lead tape can once again help you do it. Again, let’s look at modern drivers for a clue as to how to do this. Today’s low-spin drivers brag about moving weight as far forward as possible. That shifts the center of gravity (CG) forward and lowers launch and spin. Translation: use lead tape forward on the driver head to lower your launch and spin.

Conversely, if you want to use lead tape to help you hit your drives higher, place the tape in the back of the club head. That will move the CG farther back and promote a higher ball flight.

Using lead tape on irons is similar to using it on your driver, with one huge caveat. Your irons are shaped much differently than your driver. That said, when you see lead tape on irons it’s on the back of the club head rather than the sole.

If you’re simply using lead tape on your iron to adjust the swing weight, it’s a good idea to center the tape along the middle of the iron.

However, if you want to create a shot shape bias, you can favor the toe or heel side.

Adding lead tape to the heel of your iron will help you create a draw bias. On the other hand, adding the lead tape to the toe side will influence a fade bias.

Lead tape, however, has a much smaller impact when used on irons than when it’s used with a driver because the overall weight of an iron head is much greater than that of a driver. That means a few strips of lead tape represent a much greater percentage of a driver’s overall head weight than an iron’s.

There are a few reasons you might want to add lead tape to your putter. You could add it simply to increase the swingweight of your putter. If you cut down your putter shaft, if you want more stability from your putter head during the stroke, or if your putter head feels light to you and you want improved distance control, adding lead tape can help solve the problem. 

Adding lead tape to your putter can also be a temporary solution to adjust to playing a course with slower greens.

Since a putter’s balance and starting line bias is determined through the hosel, it’s most common to use lead tape consistently across the sole of the putter, rather than loading up on one side to create a bias like you might with a driver or irons.

One of the great advantages of using lead tape on your golf clubs is that it can easily be removed. That allows you to experiment and tinker with different biases temporarily without making permanent changes to your expensive golf clubs.

You can remove lead tape by carefully scraping it with a razor, peeling it off, then cleaning the tape residue. If you’re having trouble, try briefly heating the tape with a heat gun to soften the adhesive before peeling it off.

1. Adding weight to your club head makes your shaft play softer (less stiff)
2. Lead tape can be used as an impermanent way to experiment with different weight placements before opting for a more permanent solution
3. Adding weight to your club head will change the swing weight and feel of your club
4. Adding weight to your club head may reduce your swing speed, while adding weight to the butt (counter-balancing) may help increase your swing speed
5. For safety reasons, always wash your hands well after working with lead tape and never store it in your golf bag

The beauty of playing golf in this day and age is we have the advantage of launch monitors and golf simulators at our fingertips. That means when we decide to make adjustments to our golf clubs, those decisions are (at least they should be) data-driven, and not anecdotal.

If you’ve identified a trend with your trajectory or shot shape, or you want to try a different swing weight, using lead tape can be a great solution, or at the very least, a great way to test a theory as to whether adding a shot shape or trajectory bias can help.