Flat Ball Golf Swing Training Aid

I saw the Flat Ball trainer at a pro shop the other day and thought they were a good idea. Essentially, the soft, flat disks teach you to pick the ball off the ground. If your swing comes in behind the ball, your club will skip up over the disk. If you come in on top of the ball, you’ll flip the thing into the air. They only way you can get the disk to fly forward is to hit it on the quarter inch wide high side. They’re soft, so you can theoretically use them indoors.

Sean foley - the next generation blu-ray/dvd

Now that Tiger is winning again, Sean Foley’s swing theories don’t seem so out of sync.

The Orange Whip Golf Training Aid

Orange Peel Golf Training Aid

I tested the Orange Whip for a bit at a local pro shop the other day and liked the way it felt. With a very flexible shaft and a heavy ball at the head, the Orange Whip encourages a rhythmic swinging motion and complete follow through. The device is also supposed to help with strength and flexibility.

Then, I did a bit of digging and found that the same company also has an intriguing product called the Orange Peel. The Peel is a foot plane that shifts your center of gravity to help you get a feel for the proper swing plane. It looks interesting.

The problem I’ve found with any swing trainer, however, is that while it feels good in the shop—or sounds good in theory—I don’t seem to be able to make any long term progress with them. The Orange Whip has a thirty day guarantee, but with other products that doesn’t seem to be enough to do a full check. Still, I’m seriously considering getting the whip.

Videos below:

Putting Alley
Also at Amazon: Original Putting Alley

Grade: A
Teacher’s Comments: Looks simple, but it isn’t.

There are two keys to good putting: reading the line, and delivering the ball to that line.

I don’t know if there’s any way to teach a person how to read a green. That, I think comes from experience and an innate sense of the green.

Delivering the ball to the line, on the other hand, is entirely teachable. A smooth stroke and a straight face at impact are two critical elements.

The Putting Alley is a terrific tool for practicing your putting stroke. It consists of a hard plastic putting surface with a narrow raised groove in the center. The groove on one side is a half an inch wide, and an inch on the other. The goal of the exercise is to deliver the ball to the cop area at the end without having the ball fall into the gutters on the sides.

It is harder than you would think, and very quickly exposes the flaws in your stroke. Observing the direction in which the ball falls off the track (and fall it will), will tell you whether your putter’s face was open or closed at impact. If you can master making a perfectly straight 27 inch putt, you will improve your scoring immensely. Imagine how your scores would fall if you never again missed a two-and-a-half-foot putt.

I’ve practiced with the Alley for a couple of weeks and think that I have straightened out my stroke quite a bit. I have always been a good putter, but if I continue practicing with this over the winter, I think I will be positively deadly.

The Putting Alley comes in four different versions. There are three wood versions for $159 (Beech, Cherry and Walnut), and a tough plastic model (seen in the photo above) for $50.

This golf training aid is priced right and would make a great Christmas gift.

Recommended.

Hank Haney Pro Stix Training Aid

A plain stick turns out to be one of the most versatile training aids around. Stick these in your bag and use them for alignment, swing plane checking and more.

Tru Align

Grade: A

Update: You can take advantage of the summer 2012 sale on these by typing TAG25off as the promo code at checkout.

Observe a group of pros at a tournament driving range, and you’ll notice that they all seem to be working (at least in part) on alignment. Each and every one will have an alignment aid set up, whether it be a spare club, an old shaft, or some more high tech device. That the pros won’t practice without an alignment aid probably means you shouldn’t either.

You can put together your own collection of Rube Goldberg alignment tools, but I was lucky enough to recently acquire a product called The Tru Align Swing aid. I will admit to not not going to the range very often (when I have golf time, I prefer to play), but I made several special trips to try this device out and I like it very much.

The Tru Align consists of an orange plastic rod on a flat black base to which is connected a smaller white rod via a sliding, swivel joint. When using it, you slide the white rod down out of its housing and swivel it to a right angle. The orange rod sits on its base, pointing down the target line. The white rod points at your ball. That helps you set not only the alignment to the target line, but also the ball position. Then, as you hack away at the range balls, you can slide the ball indicator back and forth to fresh turf.

The Tru Align is very slim and very light, and actually should fit quite well into your bag for toting to the range. It’s also quite unobtrusive, unlike some of the medieval torture devices I’ve seen the more desperate golfers wielding. I’ve actually considered carrying the Tru Align on a future round and just setting it up in the fairway. I may try that this fall when the weather is cool and the local courses depopulated.

Recommended.

Correct Grip Golf David Leadbetter Training Glove

Grade: A
Teachers’ Comments: A good glove, and an even better training device.

I have a friend whose pro marks up his gloves with a sharpie to remind him where to place his club, how to align his thumbs, etc. It’s a good idea and serves as a constant reminder of the constant grip.

The David Ledbetter Correct Grip Glove permanently enshrines that idea in a glove with built-in grip reminders. The white glove has sewn-in black patches to indicate proper positions in a classically correct golf grip. You can see the positions in the photos below:

The bottom line for me after several uses is that the Correct Grip glove just plain works. While I know full well how to properly grip a club, the glove serves as a constant reminder. I am certain that it has improved my consistency and I intend to use it on a regular basis. 

On its merits as a regular glove, the Correct Grip also gets good grades. It’s constructed of Cabretta leather and is quite comfortable. The large fits as expected. It also seems durable. After several rounds,  I have noticed no wear and certainly no tear.

The GolfBlogger enthusiastically recommends this glove.

For more information, you can visit the website here.