Driving Range vs. Golf Training Aids

Summary: What makes a good golf training aid, one that professional golfers would not scoff at? It is a fair question, given the sheer number of supposedly valuable tools offered on the market for golfers. The answer, however, is a simple one once you understand what you are looking for and ignore the advertising hype surrounding products that may not be beneficial, but in fact hinder, your training in the sport. The perfect golf training aid is one that does what it promises to do, w...

What makes a good golf training aid, one that professional golfers would not scoff at? It is a fair question, given the sheer number of supposedly valuable tools offered on the market for golfers. The answer, however, is a simple one once you understand what you are looking for and ignore the advertising hype surrounding products that may not be beneficial, but in fact hinder, your training in the sport. The perfect golf training aid is one that does what it promises to do, without any more costs associated with it, and is easy enough to use that it won't be abandoned weeks after its purchase due to frustration levels. For many players, the driving range is the place to go when they want to get some serious practice in. Unfortunately, there can be a few problems with that. First, there is the problem of getting to driving range. Many people these days simply have too many obligations and responsibilities to devote two or three hour periods of time to use exclusively for practice, directly affecting your game. When you can finally find the time, family, friends, and social engagements often demand that we use it with them and not honing your skill on the greens. Another problem with the driving range, once you have managed to spare the time, is that the mats they provide are often made of inferior materials. This may not sound like a major problem, but it can actually harm your game if you are not careful. In simpler terms, if your feet are not connected to the ground in the same way as they would be grass, your body will have to make minute, yet vital, adjustments to keep you on balance leading to the chain of reaction mechanism that we have all heard of in the past. In many of these cases, we are actually teaching ourselves how to hit incorrectly under the assumption that we are learning to do just the opposite. This important factor is necessary to figuring out what type of golf training aid matches as closely as possible the conditions you will be playing under. Lastly, a big problem with driving range mats is that they do not allow you to adjust the rubber tee that is embedded in them. For those of us who use dig drivers, like the 460cc, that is unacceptable. These bigger drivers demand that the tee be set to a certain height. A one-height-fits-all approach in this case will be devastating to a player's drive. These three elements should be used selecting the right golf training aid for you and your game. J.R. Mats, Inc. has developed a truly useful and beneficial golf pad called the Country Club Elite T-turf