These are two of the most-fitted grips in golf, from the same maker, and choosing between them isn’t a quality question — it’s a fit-and-weather one. The Tour Velvet is the default grip in the game: an all-rounder rubber blend that does nothing badly and costs the least of the majors. The MCC Plus4 is a cotton-cord hybrid with a built-up lower hand, built for hands that get wet. One honest note before anything else: the Tour Velvet listing we track is a single grip in the standard size, and the MCC Plus4 listing is a single grip in the midsize— a real difference in physical diameter that matters as much as the material, and we’ll come back to it.
Choose the Tour Velvet if…
You play in fair weather, wear a glove, and want a grip you never have to think about. Golf Pride describes the Tour Velvet as delivering “comfort and moderate feedback for all-around playability”, which is exactly what a grip you don’t think about should do. The uniform plus-sign texture gives usable, dependable traction when it’s dry, the firm feel is reassuringly conventional, and it is the cheapest of the major-brand grips — so a full 13-club re-grip stays genuinely affordable. It is also available in every size and core, so getting the right fit is easy. For the largest number of golfers, this is the correct grip, and it’s the winner of our grip roundup for exactly that reason.
Choose the MCC Plus4 if…
Your hands get wet — from sweat, humidity or rain — or you strangle the club with your bottom hand. The MCC Plus4’s brushed cotton-cord upper, in Golf Pride’s words, “fuses moisture-wicking cotton fibers” with rubber below, which is the standard answer to a grip that goes slick in the heat. The “Plus4” part is a larger lower-hand diameter that Golf Pride says “simulates the feel of building up the grip with four extra wraps of tape” — it encourages a lighter hold and quieter hands without going full midsize everywhere. If your grip pressure spikes or your hands sweat, this is the grip that fixes it, and it is the design that started — and still leads — the whole cord-hybrid category.
How they’re actually different
Three things separate them. Traction in the wet is the big one: cotton cord earns its grip mechanically, with texture, so the MCC Plus4 holds on when a plain rubber Tour Velvet gives up traction in real heat, heavy sweat or steady rain. Feel and comfortrun the other way: cord is abrasive, and if you play a lot without a glove or your hands are soft, the MCC will tell you about it, while the Tour Velvet’s smoother rubber is kinder. Size and priceare the third: the listings differ — standard Tour Velvet against midsize MCC Plus4 — so the MCC is physically bigger in the hand before you even count the Plus4 build-up, and it costs roughly twice a Tour Velvet, so a full-bag re-grip is a noticeably bigger bill. Match the size to your hand and the material to your weather, and the choice makes itself.
Skip the decision entirely if…
Neither is the right grip if your problem is a sore or arthritic hand. Both of these earn their traction partly through texture, and texture is the enemy of a hand that already aches — the answer there is a soft polymer or high-tack rubber grip like the Winn Dri-Tac or Golf Pride’s CP2 Pro, both ranked in our grip roundup. And if all thirteen of your grips are simply worn out and the budget is tight, the honest move is a fresh full-bag set rather than agonising over two premium grips — fresh budget grips beat worn premium ones every single time. Sort out when to re-grip in the first place with our guide to when to replace your grips.
