Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you become a smarter, better golfer.
We’ve covered the BAL.ON Smart Kit before, but if this is the first you’ve heard of it, here’s a quick rundown. The training aid — produced by German multinational company Continental — is a nifty piece of tech that is worn in your shoes and utilizes pressure soles and other hardware to give you realtime feedback on swing metrics such as weight and pressure shift.
Pretty cool, eh?
I got the chance to use the training aid at Cabot Citrus Farms in a short lesson with BAL.ON ambassador and GOLF Top 100 Teacher Mike Dickson, and the capabilities of the tech blew my mind. However, you don’t need to be at the driving range or simulator to experience the benefits of the product. In fact, you can use the BAL.ON Smart Kit to teach yourself proper weight and pressure shift from the comfort of your own home.
Use BAL.ON at home
Weight and pressure shift are essential elements of the swing, particularly if you want to produce consistent power. If you analyze any of the top players in the world, you’ll see that their pressure shifts in their feet a ton during the swing.
“We need our pressure moving,” Dickson says. “Especially if we want to hit it far and probably hit it straighter.”
With the BAL.ON Smart Kit, you can teach yourself this movement without even heading to the driving range. All you need to do is put the hardware in your shoes and start making swing rehearsals in your home.
“If I go to the top of my golf swing, what I find a lot of times is people have their trail foot rock out,” Dickson says. “It’s in my pinky toe, and I tell people all the time, it’s like a pitcher pushing off the rubber. … Your pinky toe can’t push off.”
The beautiful thing about the BAL.ON Swing Kit is that you don’t even need a club in your hands to practice this feeling. All you need to do is get in your golf posture and rehearse your swing. Then, you can see on the screen in front of you where your pressure is throughout the swing and work to fix it.
Check out the video above for even more demonstrations on how to use the BAL.ON Swing Kit to work on your swing from home.
