Here Are The 10 Best Golf Training Aids (Read This Before Buying)

This overly rigid shaft may be a little off-putting to golfers with slower tempos, as it seems to flow better when you swing back and through with a quicker tempo. 

However, it’s still very useful to loosen you up before a round or a driving range session, and if you use it on off days it’ll definitely help your strength and balance.

These tempo aids are designed to be carried in your bag at all times (and it’s legal to do so — just don’t use them during your round!).  

Tour use

There’s a reason the SuperSpeed system has made its way into the golf bags of many of the best players on the planet. Xander Schauffele, Phil Mickelson, Charles Howell III, In Gee Chun, Graeme McDowell and countless others have been spotted using the

SuperSpeed trainers. But this isn’t a training aid that only benefits the pros — I’ve seen players of all calibers hit the ball farther after a single ten-minute session.

Three-club system

The system is incredibly simple. Each set (available in Mens, Seniors, Juniors, Ladies, even Pee-Wee and Long Drive) consists of three color-coded shafts each with a small, cylindrical metal weight at the end. Two of the clubs are slightly lighter than a typical driver, and the third is slightly heavier.

For the first 30 days, you follow the beginner protocol, which consists of swinging the clubs as hard as you can while progressing from the lightest to the heaviest. There’s a bit more to it than that, but it takes ten minutes at most. You can do it in your back yard or the parking lot or the driving range — anywhere with enough room to swing a driver.

The YouTube videos that SuperSpeed provides are simple and to-the-point, and demonstrate the drills clearly and easily.

Overspeed Training

So what does it do? It increases your swing speed and improves your balance and strength. It does this through “Overspeed Training”, using lighter-weighted clubs to train your brain that the golf swing can be faster than it’s wired itself to think. All you have to do is follow the protocol and you’ll see faster swing speeds and more distance.

Everyone who I’ve seen use this has seen an immediate swing speed increase of at least 3 mph, which translates to about 3-5 yards of driver distance. If you stick to it for 12 sessions over 30 days (3 times a week, 10 minutes each time), you’ll have a speed increase of 5-7mph. Some of my students have been doing it for a year and have gone from flying it 225 off the tee to getting 265-70. It’s amazing.

Haven’t I seen weighted clubs before?

I know that weighted clubs are nothing new, but this system of using lighter clubs to increase speed is something I’d never heard of previously, and it just flat-out works. Be sure you don’t hit the ground when swinging the SuperSpeed clubs, as that can cause the shaft to snap. Don’t do it with anyone standing in front of you in case this happens.

This is my pick for the top training aid of 2020 for golfers who want results now. I think every golfer should have a set.

Variety is the spice of putting practice

If you’re golf-obsessed like me, you’ve spent many an afternoon sitting on the couch watching a golf tournament. Inevitably, after a little while, I get the itch to go hit balls, or putts, or something. But I also want to keep watching the tournament!

So I unroll my putting mat, grab a few balls and start rolling putts in. It’s a great way to kill time during commercials and to keep your stroke fresh during the off-season.

Many of these at-home artificial turf putting mats are rectangles with just one hole at the end. While these are acceptable, I’m not the biggest fan of them because they wind up grooving exactly one look and length of putt. It winds up being very repetitive, and the rectangular nature almost overly guides your alignment. They just don’t present enough real-life usefulness.

The kidney bean shape and multiple hole options of the Putt-A-Bout putting green allow you to create numerous different angles and lengths of putts. It’s not nearly as repetitive and, as such, is more beneficial. It’s also more likely to keep your interest, and a training aid can only help you if you keep on using it!

The mat is a thin material, so it works best on top of a carpet to give it some heft. Putting on hardwood will be quite fast and possibly bumpy. You can also put thin layers of fabric under the mat to recreate subtle breaks if you’d like.

A mild incline

My main issue with the Putt-A-Bout is that the incline around the holes should be higher. It’s necessary to have an incline so there’s actual holes to catch the ball, but it’s also helpful to train you to hit putts firmly enough to get all the way to the hole. The Putt-A-Bout has a minor incline, but it’s not quite deep enough to catch all the putts that would actually go into a normal golf hole. Having a carpet under the holes will also help catch more balls, as they’ll frequently bounce out if you’re putting on hardwood or in a concrete garage.

And I must warn you — if you have a cat or a dog, they’ll really get in the way! The mat will be covered in fur and you’ll barely get any putts in before the animals are interfering with the balls and the putter. If you’ve got pets, it’s best to use a putting mat behind a closed door. Or maybe at the office.

Safety device? Yep. Once I had an alignment stick in my golf bag, nearly invisible because of a shadow on the bag. I bent down to grab a ball out of the pocket of my bag, and the alignment stick hit me square in the lens of my sunglasses. If I hadn’t been wearing sunglasses, it would’ve gone straight into my eyeball. So keep these in that carrying tube when you’re not using them!

Get your setup set up

The most simple use for these is to get your setup right. Lay a stick on the ground parallel to your intended target line and set your feet up with your toes lined up on the stick. Most of my students are surprised to find that they’ve been aiming nowhere near their actual target.

If you set up with your body parallel to the target line, you’re much more likely to make a good swing. If not, your subconscious will take over and likely overcorrect, resulting in bad pushes, puls, slices and hooks.

If you’re ever lucky enough to go to a PGA Tournament in person, stop by the driving range. You’ll see most players have alignment sticks lying at their feet. Even the guys who do it for a living use these to make sure their setup is on point.

Guide your swing plane

But you can also use these for other purposes. If your swing is producing a slice, you can plant a stick in the ground in a spot where an over-the-top motion will hit the stick. It’ll train you to swing from the inside, fixing the slice.

There are numerous other applications, and the videos provided by Shaun Webb are a very useful tool that help provide guidance and ideas for drills using the alignment sticks.

You may not notice immediate improvement, but if you use an alignment stick every time you hit golf balls, over time you’ll start more and more of them in the right direction. They’re a must for every golfer.

Shortcut to warmed-up

Many golfers arrive at the course with barely enough time to slap on their golf shoes, run to the golf shop to pay the greens fees, hit a putt or two and then sprint to the first tee to start their round. This rushed pre-round routine is a formula for a bad score: you’ll be stressed, tight, and likely to start off with some bad numbers on the first few holes.

While I understand that it can be difficult to carve out even two hours for a quick nine holes, I hate seeing players taking short, tight swings on the first tee. Inevitably, they’ll hit a bad tee shot, take a mulligan or two, and start fuming before they’ve even reached the first green.

In a perfect world, we’d all arrive at the golf course 45 minutes early, hit some balls at the range, some chips, some putts, and arrive at the first tee loose, energized and ready to go. But if you find yourself with just a few minutes, the Orange Whip can help you warm up and avoid those first tee fiascos that can ruin your day before it even starts.

Dynamic Stretching

Rather than static stretching on cold, tight muscles and tendons (which can actually cause more harm than good), a few minutes with the Orange Whip can warm up your muscles and stretch you out while ingraining a good swinging tempo in your mind for the day.

A full warm-up session with the Whip will involve some wrist rotations, some one-arm swings and finish up with some rhythmic full-swings. But even just swinging the counterweighted, flexible Orange Whip back and forth for a minute or two will prove immeasurably helpful to start your round.

Strength and Balance

The Orange Whip is useful for more than simply a warmup tool — using it on off days will strengthen your golf muscles and improve your balance. But the biggest benefit I see is as a warmup tool, and it’s one of the best I’ve seen. Gone are the days of swinging two clubs together to loosen up!

The only players that won’t benefit are those like Sungjae Im or Hideki Matsuyama, who have very different tempos between their backswing and downswing. Players with a pronounced pause or very slow backswings may find that the Orange Whip throws that delicate rhythm off.

Ramped-up design

There’s no such thing as too much putting practice. It’s such an important and valuable skill for a golfer that if someone asked me if they should spend six hours a day practicing putting, I’d tell them to go for it — as long as they don’t go crazy doing it. But most of us can barely scratch out six minutes a day to practice putting. Having a portable putting target like the PuttOut will help you get those crucials putting reps in.

Putting and short game guru Dave Pelz recommends hitting putts with enough speed to roll 17 inches past the hole if they don’t go in. This can be difficult to practice, especially when you’re putting inside on a putting mat or a carpet. The PuttOut Pressure Putt Trainer is designed to get you to hit a putt hard enough to go 17 inches past the hole, and it does a good job of it.

Straight in

Many players I teach also have the most trouble with straight putts. Some golfers just always see curves, and others see straight lines best. For those who see curves, it can be difficult to hit straight putts. The PuttOut Pressure Putt Trainer really only works straight-on, so it can be very helpful to players whose nemesis is the straight, 3-foot putt.

5 minutes a day with the Puttout Pressure Putt Trainer should see you hitting more aggressive putts, rattling them off the back of the cup instead of wishing them in. And it’s hard to find a more portable training aid.

Get your eyes right

Many of my students are confused when I suggest to them that they get a putting mirror to help with their putting alignment. Some assume it’s some sort of body-length mirror with lines to show where they should bend their knees and waists. Others just don’t get why a mirror on the ground will help. But after a few putts with the mirror, it begins to dawn on them how this may help.

If you walk by a putting green at a professional tournament, you’ll see pros everywhere with mirrors on the ground, starting their warm-ups by getting their eyes properly aligned over the ball. If your eyes, are in the right spot, you’ll greatly increase your chances of starting the ball on its intended line.

When a student keeps pushing or pulling putts, the culprit is usually that they’re seeing the line wrong because of improper eye position. For a right-handed player with right-eye dominance, most golfers will putt best with their eyes just inside the line. If your lead eye is dominant, you’ll probably need your eyes directly over the ball, or possibly just outside the line.

It can be very frustrating to have a straight putt, think you’re aimed right at the hole, and see your putt slide by, several inches away from where you thought you were aimed. And that’s where the Shaun Webb Putting Mirror comes in. You place the ball in the cutout and take your normal stance. You’ll be able to see exactly where your eyes are in relation to the ball.

Then hit the putt, and you’ll see if it goes where you thought were aimed or if it winds up left or right of the target. If it’s consistently missing to one side, adjust your eye position until the ball starts going where you’re looking. At that point, you’ve found your proper eye position.

Consistent use is key

What gets so frustrating is that this eye position can be tough to duplicate day-to-day or even hole-to-hole! I suggest to my students that they use a putting mirror for at least a few putts prior to every single round. You’d be surprised at how often your setup has shifted a bit from the last time you practiced. The more you use the mirror, the more consistent your setup and your putting will become.

I particularly like the Shaun Webb mirror for several reasons: the price is right, the construction is solid and durable, and it’s got cleverly placed holes. The holes will let you anchor the mirror to the ground using tees on a putting green, and you can also use them to perform the classic “gate drill.” This helps groove your stroke while also getting your setup locked in.

Other holes let you guide your preferred stroke path with tees. A little experimentation will help you figure out exactly how much arc you’d like for a good, repeatable putting stroke. The putting mirror is incredibly useful, but it’s not exactly fun. I have a hard time hounding my students to remember to use it every time. The ones who do? They see results.

Encourages aggressive putting

The SKLZ Putt Pocket Putting aid is a clever alteration to a classic putting tool: the hole-shrinker. Since I was young, there were rings you could place in holes to shrink the target. These are designed to both help people who have trouble hitting their putts way too hard, and to make the hole look bigger. If you warm up putting to a half-sized hole, the actual hole will look larger out on the course.

I’ve always been a bit wary of the traditional hole-shrinkers. It can encourage timid putting, as the smaller hole requires the ball to be rolling more slowly to actually drop. Good putts can roll right over the hole and not drop, so aggressive putting is discouraged.

That’s why I’m a fan of the SKLZ Putt Pocket aid. It isn’t just a hole-shrinker, though it can be used as such. Its best use is to demonstrate how the break of a putt determines the optimal entry point of the ball.

Learn true putting targets

Common sense might dictate that you want the putt to enter the hole at the closest point to you (essentially 6:00 on a clock)– what looks like the front of the cup. But if a putt is breaking from the left to the right, the “front” of the cup will actually be closer to the 8:00 or 9:00 point on a clock. To help understand and visualize this, place the Putt Pocket in the hole with the opening going from 7:00 to 10:00. You’ll see that a putt that’s going into the hole will enter the side of the cup right through the Putt Pocket.

Practicing this way gives you a better idea of how to visualize the ball entering the hole and will help you make more putts. You won’t see as many low-side lip-outs and you’ll make more confident strokes.

The Putt Pocket will also help with hitting straight putts aggressively so they aren’t affected by a “lumpy donut”. Just situate it in the hole with the opening facing right at you and focus on hitting the back of the cup. It’ll help you hit more confident putts right at the hole instead of wishing them in.

For beginners who need the mental reinforcement of made putts, I’d hold off on using the Putt Pocket. But for good putters looking to hone their game, this is a great tool.

Wrist-cocking guide

There’s no one way to swing a golf club, which is why I’m wary of tools like the Swingyde. While it can be very helpful for some players who have a nasty slice due to incorrect wrist cock, it would be harmful to a player like Dustin Johnson who has an unconventional bowed wrist but obviously makes it work. However, if you’re cupping your wrist and not releasing the club properly as a result, the Swingyde can be an invaluable tool.

I’d definitely recommend using this in conjunction with lessons with a teaching pro. The pro can show you how it should attach and what the feeling should be at the top of your stroke and through your downswing. If it’s just an inch or two off from where it should be, you may find yourself grooving an ineffective swing!

Best used in conjunction with lessons

The included DVD is helpful, but hands-on assistance from an experienced professional will help you get maximum benefit from this. If you don’t have it attached in the right place, it won’t actually provide any benefit.

The Swingyde is very helpful to a narrow set of golfers, but it relies on a “one-swing-fits-all” philosophy that doesn’t quite fit into mine. If you think you may be able to benefit from it, talk to your teaching pro and see if they recommend using it. There’s a good chance it may help you find more fairways and greens.

The path to a draw

High-speed cameras have provided incredible insight into the physics of what produces a slice or draw. They’ve demonstrated that swing path determines the initial path of the ball, while face angle in relation to that swing path determines the curvature of the ball. So you can conceivably hit a draw even if your clubface is open — as long as it’s less open than the swing path, the ball will draw.

When using the Speed Trap to fine tune your swing path, I suggest starting out with very slow-motion swings so you can ingrain the proper path before trying to actually hit balls in the Speed-Trap. If you’re even a little bit off, the rods will go flying and frequently will take the base with them. When that happens, you’ll have to start back over, replacing the base and the rods. It’s not a ton of work, but it gets tiresome to do after every single swing.

Frequent resets

Since the base has a cutout so you can hit the ball off of grass, you’ll need to constantly slide it back and reset after every divot taken. Again, not the biggest deal, but it makes practice less fun and more work.

And if you’re on a busy driving range, a less-than-perfect swing will send the whole contraption flying down the range, to where it’s potentially dangerous to retrieve it. If you’re on a packed driving range, I’d leave the Speed-Trap in the bag.

However, it can be massively useful in teaching your body how an inside-out swing works. Many golfers with slices have a pronounced over-the-top, outside-in motion. The EyeLine Speed Trap is the best tool I’ve found to give physical feedback to correct this error.