Tour Striker Training Aid

[rustyredcab]

Originally Posted by stogiesnbogies

It looks like one of the few gadgets out there that might work and help your swing....but like all of these improve your game gizmos...methinks its way overpriced.....    :)

It is a real golf club, built to your specs, for about $100. Me thinks good value.

[bunkerputt]

Originally Posted by rustyredcab

It is a real golf club, built to your specs, for about $100. Me thinks good value.

Methinks it's cheaper than a new wedge and guaranteed to change your game.   Pretty good for a club methinks.

[Jwat381]

I've seen the commercials before, then I saw a few today at my local shop. I'm struggling with hitting down on the ball, so would one of these, say the TS 7i, be a good investment? Or is it just another gimmick? Thanks.

[rustyredcab]

Originally Posted by Jwat381

I've seen the commercials before, then I saw a few today at my local shop. I'm struggling with hitting down on the ball, so would one of these, say the TS 7i, be a good investment? Or is it just another gimmick? Thanks.

Maybe best training tool I've used. You will find many fans on this site and others. It helps you fix the problem of early release (casting). The few people I hear that do not like it, don't have that problem. If you hit this club and get the ball ion the air right away with a good ball flight, the TS is not for you because you don't have the problem it is designed to fix. Most of us cast either all the time or once in a while.

I really like my TS and it has help me. I play near or under a 10 handicap and I have the 7-I Pro. Depending on how constantly you hit the club face, get the Pro or the regular.

[bunkerputt]

I still train with this occasionally, but the better I get, the less I train with it because I don't have to .  Isn't that what a training aid is supposed to do?  I'd say try one, hit 20 balls in a row.  If you don't notice anything peculiar about the shot and it looks like your normal trajectory and flight, you don't need it.

[Zeph]

I'm bumping this thread up with a question. Feel free to split it into a separate thread if that would be better. Which Tour Striker should I get? I'm getting new irons this spring, so I'll hold off buying it until I get fit and know if I need to change lie and length. I've played off handicap 15 pretty consistently for a couple of years. Last year I played well early on and was at single for a short period of time. After that I didn't train as much and my scores went up and down. I'm currently looking at the Pro 7. Not sure if I need the extra challenge with a smaller clubface on the Pro X 7. My main issue is with not having a forward leaning shaft at impact. I know I'm not hitting the middle of the clubface all the time, but was thinking it became too much at once. Or should I try X 7, forcing me to get better in multiple ways at the same time?

[rkim291968]

I've bought 5i last week, took it to range for two days and it immediately paid dividend in the last weekend's rounds.  The iron helps me focus on making a good swing as even a slight mistake results in terrible, ugly shot.  I mean ugly!   Just not to get embarrassed, I can't help focus when swinging with the tour striker iron.   It makes my practice session much more effective.   Good stuff!

[Osmond]

I finally decided to do something drastic, since I've always had a problem with flipping. I ordered the Tour Striker Pro X 7 iron and after reading reviews online I'm actually rather optimistic. Is there anyone here that has tried it? I've only read good reviews and I guess I'd like to hear something bad about it as well. My worry at this point is that maybe by practising with it I'll learn to manipulate the club with my hands somehow. Whether that's a bigger problem than the current flipping that I feel is preventing me from becoming a good player remains to be seen.

I'll be posting on how it goes as soon as I get to try the club.

[iacas]

I finally decided to do something drastic, since I've always had a problem with flipping. I ordered the Tour Striker Pro X 7 iron and after reading reviews online I'm actually rather optimistic. Is there anyone here that has tried it? I've only read good reviews and I guess I'd like to hear something bad about it as well. My worry at this point is that maybe by practising with it I'll learn to manipulate the club with my hands somehow. Whether that's a bigger problem than the current flipping that I feel is preventing me from becoming a good player remains to be seen.

I'll be posting on how it goes as soon as I get to try the club.

@Osmond , first, as you can see, I merged your post into an existing thread we had here.

The TourStriker can be good. It's not foolproof at all (you can still flip and hit it in the air just fine), and you can also cheat by just moving your head forward quite a bit. But, it's good, and at least gives you the "visual idea" of achieving things properly.

I strongly recommend you post a My Swing thread.

[JazzFatCat]

I got one of these clubs a couple of weeks ago. It's an interesting and fustrating club. The videos that come with it are pretty great. The grip that comes with it is terrible and was giving me a callus so I replaced it with a Tour Velvet grip. It has me thinking about a lot of what seem to me like inter-related things such as lag, weight transfer, low point of the swing, shoulder tilt, path, head movement, swing speed, etc...

You need to hit it using a grass range so you can keep track of your divots. Off a range mat it would be easy to start coming down too steep. Using a grass range you can make sure you are making shallow divots that start at/after the ball. The intent should be to have your hands in front of the club head at impact rather than hitting down on the ball.

Sometimes I'll make what felt like a decent hit only to not be able to see where my ball went.

One of the downsides for me is that it encourages me to beat balls without a specific target.

[Rainmaker]

On 2/12/2015 at 7:22 AM, iacas said:

@Osmond , first, as you can see, I merged your post into an existing thread we had here.

 

The TourStriker can be good. It's not foolproof at all (you can still flip and hit it in the air just fine), and you can also cheat by just moving your head forward quite a bit. But, it's good, and at least gives you the "visual idea" of achieving things properly.

 

I strongly recommend you post a My Swing thread.

I just came here to say this, lol.  I just got a Tour Striker 7X off ebay.  50 bucks - sweet!  Anyway the first couple of times I couldn't hit it, of course.  Within 20 swings, though, I had figured out how to hit the sweet spot.  Great!  I must not be flipping anymore - that was easy!  Except video doesn't lie.  How the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks can I hit this thing and STILL BE FLIPPING!   I must be the Tiger Woods of flipping/casting.  Too bad there's not a special award for that, lol. 

To be completely fair to the Tour Striker, my impact is *better*.  There is the tiniest little hint of forward shaft lean and I can definitely tell the improvement when striking my regular irons.  But Tour Position?  Ha . .no.  Also, to be fair, tape on the club shows I'm hitting the face but not hitting it perfectly.  Enough to make the ball fly, though. 

Next week I'm going to re-organize my practice area to get some better camera angles and post a swing video and hopefully get to the bottom of this madness.  Not that I expect a quick fix but it seems like I just game every drill I can find in order to keep flipping. 

Edited April 9, 2016 by Rainmaker
extra details!

[Foot Wedge]

It's a training aid but it's a club, not sure if this is the right place, so moderators feel free to move.  Anyway, I visited my parents for the holiday and played golf twice.  I flew and couldn't bring my clubs, so I played with my dad's set.  I didn't play half bad considering I had never swung any of his clubs, but my iron shots were very inconsistent.  I had approaches go left, right, long, short.  I spent all day chipping onto the green.  All that, to me, is pointing to inconsistency and error in my ball striking.  The thing is I play game improvement irons and so does he, so it's hard to notice a glaring error in ball striking when a bad shot ends up almost pin high just a few yards off the green.  So I found the tour striker which removes material from below and away from the sweet spot meaning you have to strike the ball well to produce a normal shot.  Seems intuitive enough, strike the ball correctly or cringe.  Is anyone familiar with this club?  Has it improved consistency in ball striking?  Would it also work to buy an old mcgregor blade and learn how to hit that well?  Thanks in advance!  Also, I do plan on posting a members swing.  Haven't gotten around to it, apologies.

[Ernest Jones]

Fairly exhaustive thread over here:

Some folks swear by this thing. From what I have read/heard, it is not difficult to cheat it and get decent results with a poor swing contrary to the claims. Also, if your AoA isn't your issue, it won't do anything for you. 

[Patch]

I won one at a charity tournament years ago. I gave it some practice time, and to get a decent ball flight, you do have to do some swing things right when using it. This made me think, it worked as advertised, which was a big surprise to me. I am very skeptical of claims made by some of the manufacturers who guarantee a better game if you use their product. 

In my " non- expert" opinion, I think the club is a worth while training aid that would help some golfers to a better impact position. 

For what ever reason, I eventually put it a side in favor of another club similar to my gamers, which I used on tight lies to help with picking the ball "clean" off those tighter lies. I think one of my Granddaughters has the critter now. 

[Lagavulin62]

So how would this training club tell you exactly what you are doing wrong, besides seeing a poor shot? What I am getting at is any standard blade will give the same feedback, so why do you need this special club? Put another way, assuming a person lacked a basic understanding of the golf swing(and I am not insinuating you do), how would using this club tell him what specifically he needed to do to resolve a swing flaw? 

 

[Ernest Jones]

1 hour ago, Lagavulin62 said:

So how would this training club tell you exactly what you are doing wrong, besides seeing a poor shot? What I am getting at is any standard blade will give the same feedback, so why do you need this special club? Put another way, assuming a person lacked a basic understanding of the golf swing(and I am not insinuating you do), how would using this club tell him what specifically he needed to do to resolve a swing flaw? 

 

It's designed to get your hands forward at impact to teach you not to flip. That's all it does.

[Hacker James]

One could always go to the Tour Striker Academy site and get some first hand information and demonstration of just how to use it effectively, then make up your own mind as to its validity and usefulness.

[Foot Wedge]

I appreciate the feedback as well as the devil's advocate points @Lagavulin62.  I do understand that it would simply tell something's wrong, not what that something is and that any old blade could do that.  Since posting I realized that I'll be hitting into a net more than playing this winter and could benefit from seeing the ball dribble into the net rather than determine if the contact felt sub-standard.  @Ernest Jones thanks for pointing out that it only addresses angle of attack.