Bender Gloves Review

Say the name and an image comes to mind of a riot of color, defying the stereotypical staid golf clothing conventions. Orange. Blue. Yellow. Green.

Bender Gloves aren't endorsed by Rickie Fowler, but they ought to be. Defying the stereotypical staid white glove convention, Bender Gloves instead come in a riot of color: orange, blue, yellow, green, pink and red.

They're more than just a pretty face, though. Bender's are well constructed gloves and should hold up for a great many rounds. They've also got a nice feel. I was surprised to learn from the site information that it is not cabretta, but a synthetic leather. This was a decision apparently driven by the need to make the glove more colorfast.

After playing several rounds, my Bender Glove seems to be holding up well. Lower quality gloves, I've found, lose their shape quickly and start to fray at the seams. I've seen none of this with the Bender Glove. There's no undue wear on the palms, either.

Across the back of the Bender Glove is a bit of elastic fabric that stretches as the hand flexes. Elastic along the fingers prevents the glove from bunching. Finally, there's a pad on the palm designed to help prevent slipping.

One thing I noticed is that the wrist on the Bender Glove doesn't extend as far up the wrist as some others I've used.

I was initially concerned that the blue dye would somehow wear off on my hand, but that turned out not to be the case. I actually got a little sweaty in last week's 80 degree weather and there was no sign of anything rubbing off.

The one quibble I had was that when I first opened the package, there was a strong chemical odor that took a couple of days to dissipate. The folks at Bender say they've resolved that issue.

Bender Gloves are priced very reasonably at $14.99, with free shipping from their website. They've also got a 14-day size exchange policy.

Licensing agreements would prevent Bender from saying so, but I have no such restrictions, so I'll suggest that these gloves are a nice way to sport your favorite team's colors. Blue for WVU or Michigan, Orange for the Texas, Oklahoma State, etc. It'd be really cool if Bender could eventually expand into dual-color gloves.

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