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View compareAbout the Owner & Family
My name is John Leonetti, and I’m the owner of Birdie Golf Grips. I’ve been golfing for over 24 years, and the game has been a lifelong passion of mine. I began rubber development for Birdie Golf Grips in 2024 and officially launched the brand in July 2025.
I’m incredibly fortunate to have a beautiful, successful wife who supports my ideas and ambitions—no matter how ambitious (or occasionally crazy) they may be. I couldn’t do this without her encouragement and belief in what I’m building.
We have two amazing children: my son, Henryk (8), and my daughter, Vivienne (4). Henryk has a natural engineering mindset and an impressive competitive streak—he recently won his city swim championship and, as we like to joke, now has a title to defend. When he’s not swimming, you’ll usually find him deep into a LEGO build.
Vivienne, on the other hand, is fearless. Her passion and drive are incredible to watch, and she brings intensity to anything she sets her mind to. She loves golfing with me, helping regrip clubs, and racing BMX. At four years old, she already keeps me on my toes.
Thank you for taking the time to read our story. I look forward to continuing to serve golfers by relentlessly innovating and building what I believe can be the best-performing golf grip on the market.
How Birdie Golf Grips Started
Birdie Golf Grips
was founded in 2024 after I began reviewing golf grips sold on Amazon. I wanted to understand how full sets could retail for around $30, while regripping with major OEM brands like Golf Pride, Lamkin (now part of SuperStroke), and other established players in the grip industry typically costs a minimum of $90 for grips alone—excluding installation.
That curiosity sent me down a long rabbit hole into material science: polymers, elastomers, rubber compounds, fillers, and the full manufacturing stack behind grip performance. As I began testing and dissecting products, the root cause became clear—the quality of materials and formulation is what truly separates premium grips from bargain alternatives. Major OEMs invest in high-grade rubbers, engineered fillers, and tightly controlled processes to produce grips that maintain tack, feel, and durability over time.
By contrast, many low-cost grips rely on inferior rubbers and fillers to minimize cost. While they may feel acceptable out of the box, they often lose tackiness and feedback within a few weeks of play. The result is accelerated wear, degraded performance, and more frequent replacement cycles. At that point, the question becomes obvious: are golfers really saving money, or simply paying less upfront to spend more over time?
A bit about my background: I graduated from culinary school in 2003 and spent 18 years as a professional chef, including five years as a restaurant owner in Washington State. I sold my restaurant in 2020 during COVID and transitioned into software engineering, where I’ve worked in the tech industry since. Golf has always been a passion of mine, and I knew I wanted to build another business around something I genuinely care about. With the shirt and hat space already saturated by large brands, I focused on a category where innovation and value still mattered—the grip.
My goal with Birdie Golf Grips is simple: to give golfers a high-quality alternative that performs like premium OEM grips, lasts through real play, and doesn’t make routine regripping prohibitively expensive. The grip is your only point of contact with the club—it should never be the weak link in your game. That belief is what led to our motto:
Grip Better. Play Better.