Swing improvement secrets: best golf training aids revealed
The best golf training aids offer exercises in specific skill improvement. They exist to help you improve individual segments of your game — from your grip and swing path to your putting stroke and chipping accuracy.
In truth, the only foolproof way to play better golf overall is (obviously) to play more golf. The process demands boundless patience as you pursue impossible perfection, but it’s not like you’re digging ditches when you’re out on the course working on your game. If you need to upgrade a certain portion of your play, from drives to your short game, then it’s a good time to step up.
This collection highlights some of the most popular golf training aids on the market, with an eye explicitly aimed at particular areas of golf. From tee to green, you’ll find a suggestion here to fix any weaknesses you may struggle with on the links.
Top 10 best golf training aids
Staff favorite: Lag Shot Driver
Best budget: Alignment Ball
Best for chipping: Chippo
Best for good contact: Divot Board Golf Swing Trainer
Best for putting position: PuttOUT Compact Putting Mirror
Best for the bunker: WhyGolf Bunker Mate
Best for full-swing practice: BirdieBall BirdieBalls
Best for putt aiming: Short Game Gains Precision Putting Laser
Best for overall short game: Callaway Short Game Set
Best multipurpose: GolfForever Swing Trainer
How we chose the best golf training aids
We love golf, so we love to practice golf — whether we’re playing the game or tinkering with elements of our performance via targeted devices like the items you’ll find here. When trying out these products, we looked to test not only if they functioned properly but if they targeted the specific skills they were supposed to train and improve. Suffice it to say, if an item is listed in this collection, it does its job. How much you improve using it for exercises largely depends on how often you practice.
Staff favorite: Lag Shot Driver
Staff favorite: Lag Shot Driver
Benefits
— Teaches release of the golf club
— Encourages good tempo
— Aims to add 20-30 yards of distance to your drive
Drawbacks
— Requires ample patience
Ask most golf coaches what the hardest thing to teach a less experienced player is, and they’ll say it’s releasing the golf club. That’s the moment when human effort gives way to physics, and that “swish” or “whip” of the golf club through the ball generates effortless power instead of the powerless attempt to hit the ball.
The Lag Shot collection of swing aids is wobbly golf clubs with flexible shafts that force you to whip that club through the ball instead of trying to guide the club head through a forced movement. What feels impossible at first soon becomes the ideal way to swing a golf club.
Designed to help: Tempo and release | Material: Plastic, rubber, metal
Best budget: Alignment Ball
Best budget: Alignment Ball
Benefits
— Strong visual elements
— Durable materials
— Improves trajectory and consistency
Drawbacks
— Expensive to lose
— Overseas item
It can be shocking how many amateur golfers fail to aim their shots properly. They’re so wrapped up in their grip, balance, tempo, and other swing elements that they fail to look up and get a sense of where they’re aligned to hit the ball.
The Alignment Ball provides strong, simple visual guidance that forces you to consider where the ball is aimed and where you must move your body alignment to follow that aim — whether on the fairway or the green.
Designed to help: Putting | Material: Rubber, plastic
Best for chipping: Chippo
Best for chipping: Chippo
Benefits
— Effective training tool
— Makes a game of it
— Good build quality
Drawbacks
— Difficult and demanding game
If you cross cornhole with golf, in comes Chippo. You set up the board with its three net targets and chip away at them from chipping distance off the grass or a mat. Score accordingly as you make it a game with friends or challenge your accuracy with your wedge on your own. It’s well-built with high-impact plastic, so it travels well if golf is part of your outdoor summer gatherings.
Designed to help: Chipping | Material: Plastic, turf, rubber, foam
Best for good contact: Divot Board Golf Swing Trainer
Best for good contact: Divot Board Golf Swing Trainer
Benefits
— Encourages ball-forward contact
— Clear visual indicators
Drawbacks
— May wear thin with frequent use
“Hit the little ball before you hit the big ball.” There are no wiser words in all of golf. Good contact means you strike the ball first and divot after ball contact. The Divot Board Golf Swing Trainer indicates where your club contacted the ground, either before or after the ball. If you’re grounding early, it’s time to work on your tempo, release, and forward momentum.
The speed and violence of even the smoothest of golf swings can wear a Divot Board thin over time, so they sometimes warrant replacement. However, wearing one out means you’ve logged a lot of promising contact practice.
Designed to help: Swing impact | Material: Rubber, plastic
Best for putting position: PuttOUT Compact Putting Mirror
Best for putting position: PuttOUT Compact Putting Mirror
Benefits
— Teaches body and eye alignment
— Encourages smooth, even putts
Drawbacks
— Must be handled with care
Most good putting stances over the stroke involve the eye-line setting up more or less directly over the ball so you can look right at your aiming line. The PuttOUT Compact Putting Mirror reflects your face back at you as you look down on the ball, ensuring you’re standing in the right position. There are also guidelines to encourage the straight back and forth of a good putting stroke.
The only obvious drawback is you’re dealing with a mirror here. If you need to move it between practice areas — although the product is labeled scratch-resistant and shatterproof — we’d recommend being careful.
Designed to help: Putting | Material: Mirror, rubber base
Best for the bunker: WhyGolf Bunker Mate
Best for the bunker: WhyGolf Bunker Mate
Benefits
— Offers no-mess bunker feel
— Portable
Drawbacks
— Gets beat up quickly
The trick to hitting good bunker shots is considering the fluffy, sticky resistance of the sand and hitting your shot twice as hard as you might from that distance but half as fast, so the club can pass through the sand gently. Since it’s unlikely you’re going to build a bunker in your home — or to prevent you from emptying a kid’s sandbox — WhyGolf serves up the Bunker Mate.
A fluffy fabric mat set atop a heavy rubber mat, the material snags your club head more than any plastic mat. You have to make a smoother motion to hit a ball from it, much as you would in the sand. The nature of so many sand wedge shots can beat up the fabric surface, but it saves you from having to sweep up sand.
Designed to help: Sand play | Material: Rubber, fabric
Best for full-swing practice: BirdieBall BirdieBalls
Best for full-swing practice: BirdieBall BirdieBalls
Benefits
— Allows for safe full-swing practice
— Durable
— Affordable
Drawbacks
— Doesn’t offer much educational data
A BirdieBall acts like a golf ball over a short distance. It doesn’t teach you anything an ordinary golf ball wouldn’t, but it allows for practice in any environment, whether in your backyard, at a park, or in your neighborhood.
It’s just a short, hollow tube about the size of a golf ball. You can toss it on the grass or a mat and swing away at it as you would any dimpled pellet. The aerodynamics of the hollow shape allows it to travel like a golf ball, but only for about 30-40 yards maximum — no matter what club you swing. Grip and rip it almost anywhere.
Designed to help: Full swing | Material: Super polymer
Best for putt aiming: Short Game Gains Precision Putting Laser
Best for putt aiming: Short Game Gains Precision Putting Laser
Benefits
— Simple yet effective
— Portable
— Affordable
Drawbacks
— Can’t travel with it
— Doesn’t teach green reading
It’s a simple idea. You use a laser projector set on a tripod to shoot a target line across a green so you can learn to putt a proper straight roll. It can’t teach you how to read the angles and undulations of a green, but it gives a clear target for you to practice a true target line.
However, the putting laser demands you develop aiming and green-reading skills while practicing with the laser. If you become too reliant on its guidance, you’ll likely miss the actual course badly.
Designed to help: Putting | Material: Plastic and optical projector
Best for overall short game: Callaway Short Game Set
Best for overall short game: Callaway Short Game Set
Benefits
— Multipurpose set
— Affordable
Drawbacks
— Doesn’t travel well
— Could use a full-size hitting net
While its elements are simple (a small short-game net target, a mat, and some practice golf balls), all the essential pieces are there for an effective short-game practice kit. The target isn’t hearty enough to travel with you, but it’ll serve well in your in-house short-game area. The mat would work for swing practice with any club in your bag. Still, you’d need to buy a full-size hitting backdrop (such as the products from Net Return) to make this Short Game Set that ambitious.
Designed to help: Short game | Material: True-turf surface, heavy-duty rubber base (mat)
Best multipurpose: GolfForever Swing Trainer
Best multipurpose: GolfForever Swing Trainer
Benefits
— Offers tempo training
— Builds strength
— Serves as a warmup device
Drawbacks
— Complicated to master initially
You can use the GolfForever Swing Trainer in multiple ways: Stretch or warm up with its weights club bar, build your strength with its resistance bands and free app that guides you through conditioning training, or refine your tempo by swinging the heavier bar like you would any golf club. Figuring out the fitness functions and the related inclusions takes a while, as there’s a lot of setup and takedown minutiae, but it’s worth it in the end.
Designed to help: Tempo and strength | Material: Steel, latex cords, nylon, rubber
Take time to train
No matter how much research and development goes into a golf training aid and how well it’s constructed, a tool’s effectiveness comes down to how well and how often you use it. Once you identify the problem in your game, you can find a practice device to target it for improvement.
However much you improve will come down to how well and often you practice with the golf training aid of your choice. Put any of these ideas to work on your imperfections consistently, and you’ll shoot better golf — at least until the next flaw surfaces and you have to pound that nail down. That’s just golf.
How to pick the right golf training aid for you
Just as the saying insists, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” you’ll find the right training aid when you identify your golf shortcomings.
What do you want to do better on the golf course (aside from shave strokes from your score)? Do you need to learn to release the driver or swing with a better tempo? Are you pulling your putts because of an uneven stroke? Are you chunking your chips? Do you simply want to up your accuracy? Decide what you want to improve before you look into which training aid will do the trick.
Price
The brands designing and selling the most popular golf training aids know they’re making products for the average golfer looking to improve — not the professional or scratch player tinkering with an already excellent game. As a result, these brands keep most of their costs in the reasonably priced range (in the low hundreds, if not cheaper). Price should not be a crippling issue with most common golf training aids.
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