Golf Gadget Review! – Tour Striker Educator

Tour Striker Educator – Review

(By: GolfSpy Matt)

Most training aids are one trick ponies.  While they might be extremely good at that one trick, it’s not uncommon for a student to “outgrow” that same training aid after only a short period of time.  Also, for the golf instructor, there’s the question of, “How many training aids do I want to bring to the lesson tee today?”

Enter the Tour Striker Educator which can help players with everything from putting to driving.  The question: is the Educator a jack of all trades but master of none?  Or is this a trainer that can truly aid you in all parts of your game?  If you want the answer, read on….

Purpose Of The Tour Striker Educator

So…what is the Tour Striker Educator and how is it supposed to help you?

• The Tour Striker Educator will help you understand HOW the hands work WITH the club for power and precision during the golf swing
• Ensure your hands are ‘transmitting’ your power
• Learn the difference between ‘feel vs. real’
• Know what your hands are actually doing during your swing
• Learn clubface control – the key to accuracy and distance
• Drills addressing unwanted curves – hooks and slices
• Scoring shots: Develop the skills to be deadly around the green

Each Tour Striker Educator includes a FREE INSTRUCTIONAL DVD featuring Martin Chuck, PGA Pro and inventor of the #1 best selling training aid, the Tour Striker.

Ease of Use/Set Up

Unlike the Tour Striker clubs, the Tour Striker Educator does require a bit of set up and some knowledge of how to make it work for your particular problems.  The pocket guide that’s included is quite good, though I think the DVD is much better.  Overall, I would recommend sitting down with the DVD, a club, and the Educator before heading out to the range.  The Educator is not hard to use and making changes to it is quite easy, you just need to know what you’re doing first.

Score: 8/10

Effectiveness

With all the things that the Tour Striker Educator does, you might think that judging its effectiveness would be difficult.  The fact of the matter is, however, that it’s damned effective at EVERYTHING it does.

As I’ve said in past reviews, all a training aid can really do is give you feedback.  The Educator does that very clearly.  Do you want to stop “flipping” your chips?  Keep the Educator pressed into your forearm.  If you feel it leave your arm, you flipped.  Simple, clear & effective.  The drills for other parts of your game are similarly easy to understand.

I could go on and detail all the various drills that you can do with the Educator, but you’re really better off going to the Tour Striker website and watching Martin Chuck’s videos so you can see it in action.  One other thing to add is that there’s nothing stopping you from coming up with your own drills. With its versatility and effectiveness, the Educator is a training aid that you won’t outgrow.

Score: 30/30

Longevity

The Tour Striker Educator scores well on Longevity for a few reasons.  First, it’s so small that there’s no good reason that it can’t live in your golf bag.  Second, it has a number of uses from short game to full swing to putting.  It would be hard to imagine someone who couldn’t find something to do with the Educator.  Combined with great Effectiveness, the Educator gets a solid A for Longevity.

Score: 19/20

Value

At a mere $30, the Tour Striker Educator is an absolute no brainer for the golfer that wants to work on any part of their game.  $30 is less than a greens fee, less than a lesson, and FAR less than our “average” training aid price of $100.  The only question is why you haven’t clicked the link to go buy one yet.

Score: 20/20

The Peanut Gallery

For this review, the Peanut Gallery consisted of not only my usual crew, but also MANY of my students.  The usual group had mixed reactions to the Tour Striker Educator.  I chalk that up largely to the fact that it isn’t clear what the Educator does.  Once I explained all the applications, the Peanut Gallery was impressed, and, at only $30, many of them thought about buying one.

My students had much more enthusiastic responses to the Educator.  I started out using it for short game instruction.  Having players make some slow motion chips and pitches with the Educator pressed into their forearm gave them the idea of a “no flip” chip very quickly.

While I thought the short game would be the Educator’s best application, I found that it got an even better reaction from students looking to fix their slice. I like to think I can explain clearly to students how they needed to start squaring the clubface earlier and swing “in to out,” but I know that I can’t beat the feeling they got from the Educator.  Just feeling that little plastic arm rotate to the outside of their lead arm gave them immediate feedback that they were doing the motion correctly.

Finally, I made up my own drill using the Educator to teach a better takeaway (Martin, call me, the drill is for sale).  Once again, I found that all my instructions could not beat this little plastic arm and the clear feedback that it gave to my students.

Based on the fact that no fewer than half a dozen students wanted to purchase their own Educator to take to the range, the Peanut Gallery score comes in at a perfect 20/20.

Score: 20/20

Final Thoughts

If you’ve been reading carefully, it should be obvious by now that I think the Tour Striker Educator is an excellent training aid that is well worth the $30 price tag.  The Educator has ways to help your game from tee to green…how many training aids can say that?

Score: 97/100