First, so you know where I stand: I work in golf retail. Nothing here is a link, and nothing here is a pitch.
Five percent more speed in six weeks. Fifteen to twenty five yards in six weeks. Ninety two percent improved their swing. Those are three claims from three training aid websites, checked in October 2026, and not one of them comes from a test with a control group. The names are left out on purpose. The point is not the three products. It is that this is how the whole category talks.
So here are three tests. They take two minutes, and one no means you keep your money.
Leak, Score, Enjoy
- Leak. Does it train the top of your ranking? A putting mirror can be the best mirror ever made. If your top leak is approach, it fails the test. Buy for your leak.
- Score. Can it put a number on a drill? A number you can write down and beat next week. If an aid cannot give you a score, you cannot tell if it is working, and in six weeks you will be guessing, the same as before you bought it.
- Enjoy. Will you still be using it three times a week in a month? This one is mine, not a study's. I do not buy tools I do not enjoy using. The drill can be hard. The tool cannot be a chore, because a tool you do not enjoy lives in the garage.
What the research says that the ads don't
I could not find a peer reviewed trial of any commercial training aid as a learning tool. What exists is research on how golfers learn, mostly novices putting, mostly tested a day later. Three findings from it are worth your money.
Focus on the ball and the club, not your body. Thirty novices hit pitch shots to a target. The ones told to think about the motion of the club scored higher a day later than the ones told to think about their arms (Wulf and Su, 2007). So an aid that tells you where the ball went or where the club was at impact is teaching you something. An aid that tells you where your shoulders are is a swing aid, and a swing aid comes from your coach, not from an ad.
Start with an easy target, then tighten. Non golfers who practised putting to a big circle putted better the next day than the ones who practised to a small one (Palmer and colleagues, 2016). That is the opposite of what a hole reducer sells you. Start where you can succeed, then shrink the target as the score goes up.
Do not look at every rep. The studies on feedback say golfers who got the number on some reps learned more than golfers who got it on every rep. So guess the carry, then look. Check the gate on the third putt, not all ten.
The aid table
Types and price ranges, sorted by the four parts of the game. No brands. Prices checked October 2026 and rounded. The Score column is the test that most aids fail.
| Part of the game | Aid type | What it tells you | About | Passes Score? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Off the tee | Foot spray or a dry erase pen on the face | Where you struck it | $5 to $20 | Yes. Centre strikes out of 10. |
| Off the tee | Speed sticks, with or without a radar | Clubhead speed | $200 to $500 | Yes, with a radar. Without one, no. |
| Off the tee | Alignment sticks | Where you were aimed | A few dollars | No number on its own. Pair it with a target. |
| Approach | Personal launch monitor | Ball speed and carry. Spin and face numbers, less so. | $200 to $700 for a usable one. $700 to $2,500 for a better one. | Yes, for carry. See below. |
| Approach | Strike mat or board | Where the club hit the ground | $60 to $100 | Yes. Ball first strikes out of 10. |
| Around the green | A towel, a hoop, or a net | Where the ball landed | $0 to $60 | Yes. Landings out of 10. The towel is free. |
| Around the green | Foam or limited flight balls | Contact and landing spot in a yard | $10 to $40 | Yes, for landing spot. Nobody has tested how they carry over to a real ball. |
| Putting | A mat | A surface | $40 to $300 | Only with a drill on it. The mat is not the aid. The drill is. |
| Putting | A gate or a string line | Start line | Under $30 | Yes. Through the gate out of 10. |
| Putting | A mirror or a rail | Where your eyes, shoulders or path are | $40 to $90 | No. Position, not outcome. That is a swing aid. |
| Putting | A stroke sensor | Tempo, face angle at impact | About $175 plus a subscription | Measures the stroke, not where the ball went. Borderline. |
Launch monitors: trust carry, not spin
In an independent test of personal launch monitors against reference units, more than half were off by more than 15 percent on spin indoors, and some by more than 30 (MyGolfSpy, December 2024). Carry on most units was within a few percent. Path and face numbers on the cheap radar units were off by 2 to 4 degrees on average (Golf Insider UK, 2023), which is bigger than any change you would be trying to make. So my reading of those tests, and it is my reading: trust carry and ball speed, be sceptical of spin, and ignore path and face on anything under about a thousand dollars.
One more thing. Even a Tour level unit is noisy. In a peer reviewed test, a TrackMan 4's session to session error on carry was about 8 yards (Bishop and colleagues, 2023). So compare 10 shot averages, never single shots.
Speed training, with the real numbers
Speed training is the one category with data behind it, so here is the honest version. Company and magazine tests report roughly 5 to 8 miles an hour over two to three months for the golfers who stick with it. A golf fitness company, not a stick maker, ran its own test on about 22 golfers for six weeks and got 1.8 on average. None of these had a control group. In the magazine test, one of nine testers lost time to injury.
My own number: 112 to 120 in one winter. I was 18, in a college program. I swung speed sticks and a weighted trainer, and I was lifting at the same time, so the sticks do not get all the credit. I think the sticks sped it up. But I stopped using them about three years ago, and the speed stayed, and I think that is the muscle. That is not your winter.
And the time cost matters. The makers' own plans call for about three short sessions a week. That is your whole 3x15 Week. So speed training is a decision to spend the winter on one thing. Fine if off the tee is the top of your ranking. Not fine if it is not. That is the Leak test, and it does most of the work.
Your one action this week
Run the three tests on one aid you own or one you want. Write the answers on the checklist. If you own it and it fails, it goes in the garage, and that is a win. If you want it and it fails, keep the money.
Leak, Score, Enjoy
Pick one aid. Three questions. One no and you keep your money.
In the app, you tell it what you own, and it filters the drills to that. So an aid that passed the tests comes with its drills, and so does the one already in your garage.
30 days free at app.playready.golf. Code COURSE20 takes $20 off the annual plan, every year. Start free.
Next week: one ball every round. The cheapest change in your bag, and the one almost nobody makes.