The following article originally appeared in the November 2004 edition of PGA Magazine.

Focus on Training Aids: Tools of the Trade

Some PGA Professionals have more success using and selling training aids than others.

November 2004 - From PGA Magazine

You’re the instructor, we know. But it never hurts to have a little help in the classroom, or the range in your case. Which is why this month we present to you some of the latest golf training aids available on the market.

Some are designed to help PGA teaching professionals, others to assist students. Thus, if you can’t use any of the items in the chart on the pages that follow, either on the practice range or in your golf shop, you may be able to recommend them to your students.

What Professionals Look For

There are as many training aid preferences as there are teaching styles and learning keys. Essentially, an aid is most effective with particular students with whom it strikes the right chord. Virgil Herring, PGA director of instruction at Gaylord Hotel’s Springhouse Links in Nashville and owner/founder of the Higher Performance Golf Academy in Old Hickory, Tenn., is devoted to teaching amateurs how to improve their golf game. In fact, Herring was the Tennessee PGA Section Teacher of the Year in 2003. So with all of his expertise in instruction, and with his livelihood depending on it, Herring is specific with how he uses training aids and what he’s seeking when he adds one to his repertoire.

"I look to see if it trains the students in a way that can enhance muscle memory and feel without them having to engage the brain," says Herring. "I don’t want my students to have to put too much conscious effort into it while training with an aid."

Mike Herrick, PGA director of golf at Shaker Hills Country Club in Harvard, Mass., agrees, claiming that plainness is the best guideline when choosing a training aid. That’s particularly important for beginners, who can quickly get overwhelmed focusing on too many aspects of a swing.

"For them, I love using a weighted club with a grip trainer because it’s simple," says Herrick.

Sarah Richards, PGA director of golf at Cannon Golf Club in Cannon Falls, Minn., prefers to use proven products with her students. That is, she looks for "training aids that are basically foolproof. In other words, there is no doubt what the training aid is designed to do. Also, I look for aids that are portable so that both staff members and golfers will take them to the practice areas. If they’re too cumbersome, no one wants to haul them around."

Rightly so, Richards is so particular about which training aids her staff uses that she has been known to doctor some up, to get them to emphasize what she feels is important. Or she merely takes a proven concept and has it made exactly to her liking. For example, putting tracks are popular these days. And Richards noticed that many of her members were taking an outside-in stroke. "For those who have this problem there are numerous cure-alls out there, but for us the most effective has been the 2×4 or wooden dowel either painted to help visually, or plain for immediate physical feedback," says Richards.