There’s a new review on the site by @Ebs02 about the Tour Striker PlaneMate - you can read it here.
This has been one of the most popular swing trainers out there. This market is tough to evaluate, but give it a read and let me know if you have experience with the PlaneMate or any other training aid you think helped your swing.
I do like the fact that the plane mate helps with the hands to create a less flippy impact. I asked my golf coach about this training aid and he told me, no! Hahaha, I don’t remember his reasoning behind it, but he was adamant that he didn’t want me using it. I have still been rather intrigued as I am pretty steep. I do not have the flippy hands at impact though, and over the last year and a half we have been working on shallowing me out, which I think is finally happening. It sounds like it’s not a cure for shallowing, at least in the short term. Maybe after a year or so your muscles will remember it, but then again, maybe people are steep because of a limit they have physically.
This is an aid I’ve stayed away from. The price point seems way too high for what it is and it seems too constricting for my take. I do like this review though.
I think @Ebs02 did a good job showing its potential benefit. I try to get reviews of the most popular training aids on the site from time to time. I know golfers are buying them, so providing some kind of context has value (albeit not a perfect solution). Certain products will resonate with golfers while others will end up collecting dust!
I’ve found that instructors have very different philosophies on training aids. Some of them love to embrace aids (even homemade ones), while others don’t want their students touching them for various reasons.
I figure I should listen to him since I am paying him to give me good advice, hahaha.
If you’re happy with the relationship you have with your instructor, it’s best to stick with their plan IMO.
I have one and plan to use it extensively now that our season has ended here.
My biggest concern going in is something that @Adamyounggolf has suggested on multiple occasions. If you want to learn to shallow, it’s probably better to have a device that pulls you steep, making you do the work of shallowing by resisting that pull. A device that shallows the club for you might be counterproductive: as it pulls you shallow, you learn to have some resistance to that.
Like almost everything, I’m sure this varies by individual. But I’m glad to be aware of the potential issue myself, and thought it with sharing here.
For my brain, this makes perfect sense. Naturally, something pulling you the opposite of what you want to do, would seem to make sense for the neuron connection and muscles targeted to get into the proper position. Because of the resistance taking you away from what you’re trying to accomplish, you have to do the work to get to the position you’re striving for, therefore making a better connection with the neurons to memorize what you’re asking in the first place. This is brilliant, lets figure out how to make this device @mpatrickriley
I was hoping to see a review on this one and @Ebs02 experience with it gave some great info as a fellow flipper.
Out of curiosity, any training aids out there that any of you want to hear more about?
I see it that way too, even though … ironically … I spend plenty of $$ on all kinds of golf stuff.
OTOH - there is definitely value in the video training clip protocols that Martin Chuck spent time developing. He’s seems like a great coach, and I do have and occasionally use the Tour Striker Smart Ball.
I also agree with the idea mentioned by @mpatrickriley and @Gisclairj above in that for a lot of non-elite golfers it’s possible to pick up a swing aid that may do you more harm than good if…
a. if it’s not designed to work on the root cause of your swing problem; and/or
b. if the golfer unintentionally uses it incorrectly and starts to ingrain a new bad swing tendency.
As to the price question, I see one of two things that usually happens when a device is initially priced too high. One, it goes away quickly. Two, the price falls a lot after the initial manufacturing run sells out.
I’m a big, big fan of DIY training aids. My set of SuperSpeed sticks, for instance, are a home build. I could see someone rigging a homebrew G-Box together pretty easily as well.
I really wanted to do the same thing with the PlaneMate, but it doesn’t lend itself well to it. Getting the rail on the belt in the right place, getting connectors for both the belt and the club that function properly: there’s a lot of detail here that wouldn’t be impossible to replicate, but also wouldn’t be easy. That for me ended up being the reason that I went ahead and spent the money on this one.
Whatever works. I wasn’t knocking you at all.
Didn’t take it that way at all. I agree with you that it’s hard to justify to the price (for me) for a lot of golf stuff, training aids included. That’s why I DIY a lot of them 