Training Aids That Actually Work (And Three That Do Not)

A training aid is only useful if it gives you feedback you cannot give yourself. That single test eliminates about eighty percent of the category. The survivors are cheap, simple and boring, which is exactly why they work.

1. Alignment sticks — the best value in golf

Most amateur 'swing faults' are compensations for bad aim. Put one stick on the target line and one across your toes and a large share of your slice becomes a straight ball within twenty shots. They also serve as gate drills, ball-position markers and swing-plane references.

2. A weighted tempo trainer

Tempo is the most transferable thing an amateur can improve, and it is almost impossible to feel without added mass. Twenty swings before a round measurably smooths transition. Short models work in a hotel room or a villa garden, which matters in a Dubai summer.

3. A putting arc or gate

Putting is where the strokes are, and stroke path is genuinely hard to self-diagnose. A gate drill gives you instant, binary feedback: the putter passes cleanly or it does not.

Three that do not work

1. 01Wrist-locking braces. They teach you to swing with a brace on, and nothing else.
2. 02Impact-bag-only programmes. Useful for one specific feel, useless as a standalone system.
3. 03Anything promising thirty yards without a swing change. Distance comes from speed and strike, and both need work.

How to structure a practice session