The Swing like a Champion system will quickly help you to build the golf swing of your dreams, and you won’t need any specialist equipment or training aids to do so.
Almost all of the drills can be performed in the comfort of your own home — in fact they’re better that way. The drills help you to learn as quickly and effectively as possible, building new neural pathways that eradicate your bad habits and enable you to perform the correct movements automatically. Most of the drills are performed in slow motion at first, and they break the golf swing down into simple chunks, isolating each movement as you work on it, focussing on the correct feels and muscle control. For more information on how this works, see How to Learn a Great Golf Swing.
There are, however, some basic items that are used to help you perform the drills, most of which you may already have.
Mirrors
All of the drills in the Swing like a Champion system work by developing your proprioception and kinaesthetic awareness.
To do this, you need augmented feedback. You need to validate the feedback provided by your own body with information provided from outside the body.
Immediate augmented feedback is provided by performing the drills in front of a mirror, preferably a large full-length mirror.
Ideally, you’ll have two mirrors, one that enables you to see yourself from face on, and one from down the line simultaneously. In a perfect world you’d be able to practise in a dance studio, surrounded by mirrors, but we realise that’s not possible for most people.
A Video Camera
You will use a video camera, for most drills, to provide delayed augmented feedback. This is crucial for checking your form as you strive to perform the drills perfectly.
The camera is, in some ways, even more useful than a mirror. It enables you to analyse how well you are performing the drill in great detail, and the delay in receiving feedback is sometimes very helpful — see How to Learn a Great Golf Swing.
The more that you use the camera, the faster you will learn.
Almost any video camera will work, including a camera phone, but some are better than others — see Which is the Best Video Camera for Recording Your Golf Swing?
For information on how to use a video camera to help analyse your golf swing, see How to Record Your Golf Swing with a Video Camera.
Golf Alignment Sticks
Golf alignment sticks are used in a number of the drills, and every aspiring golfer should have some in their bag.
If you don’t have golf alignment sticks, you can use golf clubs laid on the ground, or, for when you need to stick them in the ground, an old golf club shaft.
A Golf Impact Bag
An impact bag is used in a number of the downswing drills to help you learn the correct impact position and golf club release.
If you don’t have one, you can make one using a large bundle of rags, tightly bound. Don’t use your best sheets, they’ll end up scuffed and marked!
Foam Practice Balls
Some of the drills require you to hit a golf ball, and if you’re practising in your living room, you don’t want to cause any damage!
Floor Matting
You won’t need to swing a golf club for many of the drills, and certainly not at full speed, but when you do need to swing a golf club you won’t want to take a divot out of your carpet!
The basic matting used for home gyms is inexpensive, and will be strong enough to enable you to work on many of the drills at home before you need to take it to the range. Smaller, interlocking gym mats are great for creating a temporary, portable, drill work area. Make sure that the matting has a fairly smooth surface that won’t create too much friction with the club head.
An old piece of robust carpet would be adequate for this purpose, too.
There are also many golf-specific practice mats that are suitable, choose one as large and durable as possible.
If you can afford it, and you have the space to make a full swing indoors or in your garden, there are some great driving-range quality mats available.
Our favourite, the one we all use at home and in our teaching facilities, is the Country Club Elite mat from realfeelgolfmats.com – it’s a great mat that gives you realistic feedback, as if you were actually taking a divot, which is important for helping you to learn to strike the ball better.
You will need all of these things, at some point, as you work your way through the Swing like a Champion system and the 8 Weeks to a Great Golf Swing programme, but you don’t need anything but a mirror and a quiet place to get started, so let’s begin with Golf Swing 101 – Setup: Basic Posture.
You May Also Like…
Introduction to the Swing like a Champion System.
Overview of a Great Golf Swing, which summarises the correct movements in a great golf swing.
