Buying a golf training aid can be a bit of a leap of faith. You don’t want to spend your hard-earned dollars on snake oil, hoping for a swing breakthrough that never comes. Identifying a product that will help you from one that won’t is no easy task.
There are some tell-tale signs to look for, however. Spend the time to research your purchase and you can avoid the pitfalls of gadgets and gizmos that will fail you and your golf game. Here are three things to look for when trying to spot a bad golf training aid.
Golf Training Aid Knockoffs
With most consumer products, there’s a good idea and there’s everyone else that’s trying to make a buck off it. Golf training aids are no different. Sure, every now and then someone does come along and build a better mouse trap. (See The Stack System versus Super Speed for an example.) But by and large the golf training aid landscape is littered with knockoffs that are imperceptibly different from the first article. They are cheaper though and therein lies a golfer’s dilemma.
Consider the uber-successful Tour Striker Smart Ball. It’s available on Amazon right now for $47. Scroll just a little bit and you’ll find the “Smart Ball for Golf Swing Trainer” for just $15.99.
Or perhaps the “Swing Trainer Ball” for $17.99 is more to your liking.
Clearly, the knockoffs abound. A little advice: pay more and buy the real thing. You’re already taking a chance that a golf training aid will help you rather than be just another gimmick. Now you’re being told to spend more when there looks to be a cheaper alternative that does the same thing? Yes, and with good reason. For starters, how about rewarding the guy or gal who conceived of the idea originally? They took on the many expenses involved in creating the thing and bringing it to market, and that spirit of risk-taking and entrepreneurship should be rewarded.
If you’re unmoved by that particular argument for capitalism, here’s one that will move you. You should instantly question how that alternative product is so much cheaper than the original article. The answer is almost always found in lower material and build quality (along with those guys having avoided all the costs of bringing a new idea to market). That means it’s not going to operate as it should, or last very long, and in the long run you’ll be spending more.
You’re On Your Own
Buy a Tour Striker Smart Ball and you’ll receive the training aid of course, but you’ll also receive access to coaching from Tour Striker founder Martin Chuck himself. Your purchase includes a 12-video series of training protocols demonstrating how to get the most out of your Smart Ball. Similarly, a purchase from Leadbetter Swing Aids is accompanied by instructional videos for using their products to improve your game.
The knock-off versions will not be similarly supported. You’ll get the product, such as it is, and will be left to your own devices. In some cases, that might not seem like the end of the world. “Hold ball between arms” is pretty straightforward, right. But the knowledge and coaching of exactly how to use the tool to improve your game is not so obvious, and that’s the reason you bought the thing in the first place isn’t it? What you’re really trying to buy is lower scores. Buy the golf training aid with the highest chance of delivering that. It isn’t the knock-off, it’s the one that comes with supporting instruction.
Band-Aid Fixes
The critical factor in a golf training aid being worth your money is whether it translates to your full swing when you stop using it. If you take it off or set it down and instantly lose the feels, or if despite prolonged use you see no benefits on the course, then you’ve wasted your money. The challenge is discerning which golf training aids teach something that will stick.
The golden rule: ignore the golf training aids that lock you into place or restrict you in some manner. The aid is doing the work in that case. Back to the Smart Ball: you must hold the ball in place, so you’re doing the work. If you don’t maintain the arm structure, the ball will fall. If you’re going to see a benefit from a golf training aid, it must require you to do the work rather than the aid doing it for you.
Golf training aids work, but not all of them. Be a discerning consumer before shelling out funds in your pursuit of golf improvement. Avoid the knock-offs, find products that are supported by training and instruction, and ensure the product puts you to work if you want to buy a training aid that will work.