What piece of training equipment has helped you the most?

[Wisco-Kid]

I am just curious as to what does everyone use to practice and what actually helped you the most?

[Wisco-Kid]

I used a laundry basket last year in my yard to chip into. I cant say how many strokes I actually shaved but I know it had to have been a few. It was
really fun too!

[Wannabe Paper Tiger]

in a circle around the hole drain 3-4 5fters str8. hard... but really gets you confident over those when playing...

[hawkeye]

book - not Bob Rotella though - The Greatest Game Ever Played - helps put things in perspective. I love to learn about the good old days and consider this a good way to practice the mental game - you can do it without getting out of bed :)

don't have any of the other items! putt on the carpet at home but am looking at getting a mat soon! Be interested to see what other people use/find useful

[TKing]

A bag of 500 practice balls and aiming for a specific temporary marker (flag on temporary step-in fence post) at a known distance. I made a bunch of small concrete markers with the yardage on them and set them flush with the top of the ground so a mower can run over them. Dug a long divot sized trench in the tee area and fill with damp sawdust since the ground will get chewed up faster than the grass can grow back-especially this time of year. The damp sawdust is easy to replace, you can take whatever sized divot you want, and it doesn't harm the club even as much as taking a divot on grass.

Next I need a practice green since my putting has a long way to catch up to my iron play. I found a forum for building your own greens and have that project planned for this spring.

[Crafty]

The best training aid I have ever used at the course is a reflector post. I use it to wrok on alignment and am often suprised how far off i was.

As for off the course, The Greatest Game ever played by Mark Frost, and Golf Is Not A Game Of perfect by Bob Rotella, the two best golf books I have ever read.

[Wisco-Kid]

book - not Bob Rotella though - The Greatest Game Ever Played - helps put things in perspective. I love to learn about the good old days and consider this a good way to practice the mental game - you can do it without getting out of bed :)

The Greatest Game Ever Played could also be called The Best Book Ever Written IMHO!

[Wisco-Kid]

A bag of 500 practice balls and aiming for a specific temporary marker (flag on temporary step-in fence post) at a known distance. I made a bunch of small concrete markers with the yardage on them and set them flush with the top of the ground so a mower can run over them. Dug a long divot sized trench in the tee area and fill with damp sawdust since the ground will get chewed up faster than the grass can grow back-especially this time of year. The damp sawdust is easy to replace, you can take whatever sized divot you want, and it doesn't harm the club even as much as taking a divot on grass.

TKing I would be interested in that forum on building your own greens...Do you have a link?

[JTMalley]

The best training equipment I ever used was my membership to Golf Tec. You can see yourself on camera and that let me see what I was doing wrong!!!

[Guest]

The best for me was an old putter and an emptry beer bottle that I keep in my living room. I practice keeping my head still and making straight 4' puts. This has easily saved me 2-3 strokes per round. When I have a simple put I almost always make it now. Huge!

[Guest]

Natural Ability and the abillity to mimic my father who was a 5 handicap till he was 70 years old.

[bca42]

I voted for books, but not for reading them.

Use them (2) as a putting aid to help groove a consistent stroke. The better you get, lessen the gap between them so the putter blade has less space on either side of toe and heel.

Putting and chipping yields the best ROI in most people's game. This helps in that area greatly.

[Leek]

Best training aid I've ever used is a few broken shafts. You are only limited by your imagination with them. Some uses:

Alignment- set em up in the old tee setup
Plane- plant a shaft in the ground at the angle you want for the swing plane for the club you are practicing with.

Clubhead speed- I do sets of swings with a heavy training device, followed by sets with just a broken shaft with a grip on it.

Anti-sway- plant a shaft next to your hip as a barrier to hip sway.

Lots of other ways to use them too

[Wisco-Kid]

The best training equipment I ever used was my membership to Golf Tec. You can see yourself on camera and that let me see what I was doing wrong!!!

Much to my surprise yesterday at lunch time the Golf Tec people had set up a booth near where I work. For $15 bucks I had my putting stroke and full swing analyzed. Pretty cool, by far the best lunch I have had in awhile!

[Daddy Golfer]

A CD. I read this in the August 2007 issue of Golf Magazine. The CD helps me get my eyes over the ball and see how the putter sits in my stance. I practice this almost everyday in my living room just to ingrain the image and feel of how close I have to be to the ball, the ball position, and the putter angle to my stance. I've stop pulling my putts, now I hit my mark consistently and have no fear on those short putts.

[Wisco-Kid]

A CD. I read this in the August 2007 issue of Golf Magazine. The CD helps me get my eyes over the ball and see how the putter sits in my stance. I practice this almost everyday in my living room just to ingrain the image and feel of how close I have to be to the ball, the ball position, and the putter angle to my stance. I've stop pulling my putts, now I hit my mark consistently and have no fear on those short putts.

I heard something about that article, but never read it. Could you summarize what you do with the cd? I would greatly appreciate it!

[catfell]

During the off season, a full-length mirror helps me check my alignment (club, spine, etc) at address, and during the different parts of my backswing.

[Daddy Golfer]

I heard something about that article, but never read it. Could you summarize what you do with the cd? I would greatly appreciate it!

Place a CD or DVD on the floor, shinny side up. Place the ball in the center and take your putting stance. You should be able to see into the cd where your eyes are. Align your eyes over the ball, this will give you the distance of how close you need to be for the ball to be over your eyes and center of your stance. I personally align the ball over my left eye so when I turn my head I see the putter line better. Place the putter level behind the ball and take note of how close and the position of the handle related to you stance. Take your putting grip and take note of your wrists. My left wrist is cupped and my right is straight , so when I take my putt my left wrist feels like it's pointing at my line during the whole stroke, and my wrists don't break so I know I'm using my shoulders correctly.

Found the link to the article: http://www.golf.com/golf/instruction...637455,00.html