Golfers who are attempting to find another level of performance or simply uncoil the kinks in their swings should consider one of the following training aids. All are relatively new and each has the potential to shore up inefficiencies in your swing as you ready yourself for the course.
Tour Striker Impact Sling
Remember that scene in The Legend of Bagger Vance where Bagger introduces Rannulph Junuh to the concept of the field by having the struggling golfer study Bobby Jones’s pre-shot routine? The caddie’s emphasis on proper rhythm and tempo—and Jones’s ability to “settle himself right into the middle of it,” as Bagger described—is exactly what golfers are likely to gain by using the Tour Striker Impact Sling. The training aid isn’t much to look at, but don’t let that dissuade you. Comprised of a golf grip handle and weighted resistance bands, the device not only conditions golfers to find a tempo to their swing but drills in proper contact with the ground at the low point of the swing. Ultimately, it reinforces good rhythm and establishes a foundation for how a sound swing should feel. “When they learn how to swing something like this,” says Tour Striker’s founder, Martin Chuck, “all of a sudden moving a golf club makes a whole lot more sense.” tourstriker.com
Kavooa Pro
The Kavooa Pro is the handiwork of Dylan Horowitz, a 20-year-old collegiate golfer who created a makeshift version of the device when he was 16. Born from those rudimentary forms, which relied on repurposing toy Star Wars lightsaber replicas, the polished, commercially manufactured iteration of Horowitz’s training aid is comprised of an adjustable tri-pod with two lateral arms that can be strategically positioned in a number of ways to address common mistakes that the vast majority of amateur golfers make. For example, the device can help players stabilize their head throughout the swing, which minimizes lateral movement and improves ball striking. It can also guide players into correct transitions so they don’t come over the top at the start of their downswing. If you sway too much, the Kavooa Pro can help keep you grounded, but it can also reinforce forward shaft lean and train you to approach the ball with a steeper angle of attack. kavooagolf.com
Pur Truth Prepare
Pur Golf specializes in training aids that tackle one of two facets of the game: proper alignment for full shots and all aspects of the putting stroke. According to David Swan, Pur Golf’s founder, the Pur Truth Trainer—a comprehensive putting aid—is a system that incorporates (or replicates the effectiveness of) all major putting drill accessories (chalk lines, eye-line mirrors, etc.) but attempts to package them in a more effective manner. “We are not here to tell you how to putt,” Swan says. “You can take whatever your putting philosophy is and this will reinforce it.” The most impressive component of the device is one that the company now offers as its own training aid, the Truth Prepare. Think of it as a bowling alley blended with a ski slalom gate, only the left and right poles of the gate are free standing and spin end over end. It’s a simple device that takes all the mystery out of how a golfer hits a putting stroke. Meaning that if you pull or push a putt, the ball will hit one of those two gates and you’ll get instant feedback. The width of the gates and their proximity to one another is adjustable, which means you can continue to challenge yourself as your putting stroke improves. When positioned in its most difficult setting, the “truth gate” allows for mishits that are no greater than one-quarter of a degree off the club face. According to Swan, that level of accuracy is what’s need to make a 23-foot putt. pur.golf
Perfect Hands Golf
Speed trainers are great in theory. They disconnect the mental aspect of hitting a golf ball and free the body up to just swing. But they almost always incorporate a device that doesn’t mimic the weight, shape, or feel of a golf club. Perfect Hands Golf changes that by utilizing acceleration bands that connect to a proprietary glove via a powerlifting-like belt worn around a user’s midsection. “When you’re training with Perfect Hands, you’re swinging your actual clubs,” says Mario Karagianis, the CEO of Perfect Hands Golf. “It’s the weight of your actual clubs and how your clubs’ shafts truly move through the air during your swing. So you’re training based on your actual swing [with your actual clubs] in real time.” Moreover, the system is designed in such a way that based on strategically placed rings where the bands connect to the glove, golfers can also dynamically retrain their bodies to correct swing plane miscues that either have them swinging too far from the inside or coming over-the-top. Best of all, the training programs are designed to have players first take several aggressive, full-motion, pendulum-like swings while connected via the resistance bands, then replicate the motion untethered while actually hitting a ball. It’s a sequence that, with time, can recondition players to free their minds from all the swing thoughts that normally circulate inside their head and instead trust their bodies to simply execute. perfecthandsgolf.com
Sure Golf Tour-Feel
“The key to the golf swing is not to create width,” Dan Frost says, “but to maintain it.” With that in mind, Frost created the Tour-Feel, a radius trainer that is comprised of a wearable harness that utilizes the lead shoulder as an anchor and, with the thumb of the top hand looped through a resistance band (when gripping the club), it allows golfers to make a full swing, feeling tension when the proper amount of width is created. As Frost explains, understanding where and how width needs to be created in the golf swing is important, but executing it is a different matter. “Information is one thing,” he acknowledges, “feel is another.” Best of all, the device ensures that players always have a baseline feeling to strive for, so even as they get more comfortable with the correct motion of the swing, the resistance band still offers proper feedback. “Eventually, you’re going to have a deep memory of that feeling so that when you aren’t even using the Tour-Feel you can sense it, you can feel it,” Frost explains. “That’s what good training is. It’s learning, it’s training, and it’s the transfer.” sure-golf.com
Have you ever used any golf training aids? Tell us about your experience in the comment section.
