Best Golf Training Aids for lower Scores 2020

Golf is hard. You know it, I know it, and the guys on the PGA Tour know it better than anyone. 

It’s a sport that requires you to constantly hone your skills through practice, so when it comes time to hit the links you feel confident that your swing is the best it can be. Golf training aids make the process of translating practice to lower scores much easier.

With this in mind, there are a lot of golf training aids out on the market today, and you want to make sure what you buy impacts your game best. I’m happy to walk you through this guide, where we take a look at some of the best aids on the market right now. 

Best Overall Pick: Tour Striker Smart Ball

Our Alignment Pick: Callaway Alignment Stix

Putting Aid pick: Genuine EyeLine Golf Putting Alignment Mirror

Key Benefits of Training Aids 

In golf, your work is really never done. You can play and practice 7 days a week and still poke holes in your own game, or feel you have some key aspects you really need to improve. Both Professional and Amateur golfers will see benefits from using training aids.  

Hone Your Craft

Most golfers have parts of their game they love, and areas that need plenty of improvement. golfers have natural ability in some aspects of their swing, but they lack success in their posture, swing plane, swing speed or other areas. For me, I most often need to work on my alignment and how I grip the club. These issues are all common, and all contribute to your consistency and the quality of your game. 

Practice Anywhere

Golf training aids conveniently give you the opportunity to practice some aspects of your game from just about anywhere. Many people don’t have the luxury of being able to go to the driving range or hit the course every day, or even every week, and frankly not being able to put the time and practice in can hold you back. Being able to practice putting at home, or work on your timing/ swing speed can have a pretty remarkable impact on your game. 

Increase confidence

Just like with any other sport, practice makes perfect. Golf training aids will not only make your practices more productive, but they’ll also encourage you to practice more, since you can specifically target where you’d like to improve the most. The more you practice, the more confident you’ll become in your game, and you’ll see your scores slowly start to drop. A large amount of your success in any sport is your mentality, and having the confidence in yourself is almost just as important as having the physical ability to perform well. Golf is a mental game, and the more structured your practice, the more confident you’ll be.

Buyers Guide: What to Consider

What am I looking to Improve? 

Golf is not a cut and dry game by any means, and for that reason there are tons of different training aids on the market. First thing’s first, do some self evaluation and decide where you want to improve. Is it your swing speed, for more distance? Is it your timing and getting your body through, your grip, or your swing plane? If you’re having trouble answering this question on your own, I’d suggest having a lesson with a pro, and seeing where they think you need to improve most. 

Value Over the Long Term 

Before you choose a certain golf training aid, think about how much use you’ll get from this aid, and how you’ll be able to use it as your game improves. Some of the best golf swing aids on the market are well priced, and will always provide value whether your handicap is 2 or 22. 

Will This Be Effective For Me? 

The whole point of buying a golf training aid is to see the results of your labor. The best aids will translate real results onto the course. Make sure what you’re buying is solving a problem you have, and not just a bit of clever marketing.

The Best Golf Training Aids: Our Picks

Best Overall: Tour Striker Smart Ball

The Tour Striker Smart Ball is a highly effective training aid, and can make a huge difference on your ball striking ability. This aid is designed to get your body and arms to work as one unit, and get your body through your swing; this is something that most amateurs really struggle with, and the impact this Smart Ball has on your striking will aid your distance, ball flight, and accuracy. Another huge benefit of using this aid is that it promotes a natural inside out swing path, helping you draw the ball more naturally. 

The Tour Striker Smart Ball acts as a necklace that you place around your neck and keep the ball in between your elbows. By having the ball there, your elbows will rest against the ball, keeping your arms in the appropriate position throughout the swing. This can help you out with the dreaded Flying Trail Elbow, and the “Chicken Wing”.  

The Smart Ball can help to lengthen and strengthen your body pivot, which is a pretty fundamental part of the golf swing that many people execute poorly. If you struggle to get through the ball with your body, and don’t have the ball striking you’d like, this may be a good option. 

Pros
  • Adjustable size based on inflation
  • Easy to assemble and use
  • Improves takeaway, swing plane and body movement
  • Appeals to a wide range of golfers
  • Promotes inside out swing path
Cons
  • Connector can be fragile
  • May need to re-inflate as you use it

Best For Alignment: Callaway Alignment Stix

Alignment Sticks are really straight forward, but wow they can make an impact. Most of the time when something is wrong with my swing, it’s got to do with my alignment. I like these Callaway Alignment Stix because they’re well made, and reasonably priced compared to other similar sticks.

Use Alignment sticks like these for your fundamentals. Practice using these while you’re on the range, as you cant use them on the course. These alignment sticks can help you with your ball positioning, ball striking, swing plane and general setup. I recommend every player have these in their bag, as they really help you improve your fundamentals.

The Best for Speed: SKLZ Golf Tempo Trainer

I find the SKLZ Golf Tempo Trainer to be one of the more valuable training aids on the market, as it actually targets two main areas for your golf swing; grip and swing speed. The training grip on the SKLZ Tempo Trainer is perfect for working on your hand positioning, which is one of the most important parts of your golf swing. 

It’s also convenient that this tempo trainer can be shortened or extended to mimic either iron or wood length. By using the SKLZ Golf Tempo Trainer, you can improve your swing plane and swing tempo, a couple key attributes to a good swing. To get the best use from this product, I’d recommend using it while warming up on the driving range, or right before your round to prime your golf muscles. If speed is your mission, this is a great option. 

Pros
  • Affordable
  • Can be used both indoors and outdoors
  • Hand position grip makes this a multifunctional aid
  • Great Value at a reasonable cost
  • Compact- travels well
Cons
  • Only suitable for right hand golfers
  • If you have big hands the training grip might feel small

Best Impact Trainer: SKLZ Smash Bag Golf Impact Swing Trainer

The SKLZ Smash Bag Golf Impact Swing Trainer produced helps you learn the feeling of good impact. Improving your club positioning at impact is essential to hitting a great shot, and using this impact bag can reduce the number of shots you hit fat, thin, or off-line. The visual feedback aspect of this bag is quite helpful, as you can see where your clubhead is upon impact and actively make adjustments to come through square. 

The SKLZ Smash Bag is made from a PVC nylon material, and is durable enough to successfully withstand swings of any strength. This bag is very mobile and does not come prefilled; it’s easy to transport for that reason. You’ll want to fill it with towels, t-shirts or other items of similar fabric. If you want a visual feedback system that helps you improve your impact, I like this one. 

Pros
  • Can be used anywhere
  • Fill the smash bag with anything
  • Provides you a target map
  • Helps you improve your impact
Cons
  • If you hit it too hard, the fabric may wear out easily
  • Flipping over can be annoying

Best Data Driven Training Aid: Blast Motion Golf Swing Trainer

The Blast Golf Swing Trainer is a more technical approach to improving your game, using technology to provide you with valuable data about your swing. If you want to know more about your swing tempo and use measurable data to improve, this is a good option. 

To boil it down, the Blast Motion sensors track your full swing and putting stroke metrics. Once it gathers the information, you have the ability to fully view the metrics on your phone with a handy and user-friendly app. Many users find the device more valuable for putting, as it can really help you hone in your tempo, and tell you if you rotate the putter face during the stroke. For a full swing, it will measure your swing speed, smash factor, backswing/downswing times, energy transfer and a few other decent metrics. 

You can also take and analyze video recordings of your swing in the app, allowing you to replay the video in slow motion or regular time to let you analyze your skills more closely.

Pros
  • User-friendly, with an easy install and a smartphone app
  • Lets you video record your swing and replay it in slow motion
  • Tons of Trackable Data
Cons
  • More expensive than some of the other trainers on the market
  • App based products can cause some users issues

Best Putting Aid: Genuine EyeLine Golf Putting Alignment Mirror

The Eyeline Golf Putting Alignment Mirror is one of the most popular putting mirrors on tour, and has been for years. Putting mirrors are great tools to ensure proper alignment when you set up to make a putt. You see many players use a putting mirror to help them make sure they are properly set up, which is step 1 to a great putting stroke. Using the Eyeline Golf Putting Mirror will help you build confidence in your putting stroke. It’s also really easy to put a couple tees into the slots of the mirror for you to execute a gate drill, which helps you come through your putt square. If you struggle with hitting putts on target, this will probably help you significantly.  

Pros
  • Portable, and can be used practically anywhere
  • Contains slots for the Gate Drill
  • Affordable
Cons
  • Can’t really think of any

Best High End Swing Trainer: SuperSpeed Golf Training System

The SuperSpeed Golf Training System is the most popular swing speed trainer on the market, used by more than 600 tour pros globally. SuperSpeed boasts that in a matter of weeks you can see up to 30 yards difference in your drives by using these weighted clubs and video training lessons. 

This system comes with a light, medium and heavy training club, as well as hours of video for you to watch. SuperSpeed recommends using this system 3 times a week for about 10 minutes. Frankly, the results speak for themselves, as most users report an increase in swing speed and distance after following this system for a few weeks. If you’re looking for a high end swing speed system, this will be best, as the video lessons add another dimension to this product. 

Pros
  • Genuinely improves swing speed quickly
  • Comes with video instruction for productive practicing
Cons
  • Tough to measure progress without a TrackMan for swing speed
  • More expensive than most swing speed products

Wrapping up

Overall, each of these golf training systems is able to help you improve your game with continued use. A lot of what makes a golf training aid best is specific to you. Based on our findings, the clear winner is the Tour Striker Smart Ball; this appeals to the widest audience of golfers and genuinely helps you incorporate body movement and timing into your swing best, to maximize your striking ability. If you nail this action, you’re going to hit longer straighter shots, without question. 

I hope you enjoyed this review, thanks for reading!

Related Posts