Can It Be? A Stocking Stuffer Type Golf Training Aide That Looks Pretty Good…

As a golfer whose game fluctuates from marginal, at best, to horrible (as my playing partners will attest from my first round of 2008 that I played on Thursday), I view most training aides with a skeptical eye. After all, I have tried a lot of things and the only thing that seems to help my game is a lot of time on the range and a lot of rounds. Therefore, I could not believe it when this week a golf training device patent issued and I found myself saying… “not a bad idea; good for use in the backyard, especially if your neighbors won’t put up with the sound of your driver blasting balls into a practice net.”

The patent is USPN 7347790 titled “golf swing training device.” The patent describes the invention as:

A golf swing training device including a training ball constructed of a compactable, resiliently deformable foam material, the training ball including at least two generally flat club impact surfaces each formed along a chord plane angled between approximately five degrees and twenty-five degrees from vertical and spaced from the center of the training ball with each of the at least two generally flat faces being substantially covered with a releasable adhesive material. A club face releasable adhesive material is removably mounted on and substantially covers the ball striking face of a golf club and the releasable adhesive materials on the training ball and the ball striking face cooperatively operate to releasably engage with one another upon impact of the ball striking face with the training ball thereby generally causing the training ball to be releasably retained on the ball striking face at the location of impact.

I describe the invention as… a deformable foam ball with two flat Velcro angles surfaces:

A corresponding Velcro patch to attach to the club face:

So that you can smack away and analyze where you struck the ball… heel to toe… crown to sole…

I think this invention would be pretty good for those 5-minute backyard practice sessions. Sure hitting a real ball with impact tape on the club face is probably better, but this looks like a pretty good idea for those of us that don’t have a practice net, or don’t want to drive our neighbors nuts with the sound of a 460 cc titanium driver smashing into a golf ball at 100+ mph.

David Dawsey  – Watching Golf Training Inventions and Patents

PS – check out these prior posts on training devices here, here, here, here, here, and here

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