Tour Feel Training Aid Review: Should You Work on Width?
We tried the Tour Feel training aid, designed to help you add width to your golf swing
If you tend to bend your lead arm during your golf swing, Sure Golf has a product just for you, and they’re confident it can help you learn to improve your width, ball-striking consistency, and distance.
It’s called the Tour Feel, and we tried it to find out if it really can make a difference, and decide which golfers we think it could benefit most. Here’s what we learned about the Tour Feel.
How We Tested the Tour Feel
I practiced indoors and outdoors with the Tour Feel, following the entire prescribed training over the course of several sessions. I used before-and-after videos of my swing to analyze the impact that the Tour Feel had on my width.
What is the Tour Feel
So how exactly does the Tour Feel add width to your golf swing?
The product itself is a contraption with a strap that goes around your chest and under your trail armpit, a sleeve that goes on the lead shoulder, and a band that hangs down. You loop your lead thumb into one of three loops on the band, which connects your lead hand to your lead shoulder.
By applying and maintaining slight pressure to maintain tension in the strap that connects your hand to your shoulder, you learn the feeling of creating and maintaining width throughout your swing.
Some training aids guide you to the correct positions, but the Tour Feel actually forces you to exaggerate the feeling of width, which I think is a great way to learn.
The Importance of Width in the Golf Swing
Before we talk about whether or not the Tour Feel actually improves the width of your golf swing, you might be wondering why width is important.
The wider your swing – meaning your hands are extended away from your body, which creates the widest possible arc – the more club head speed you can create, which translates to more distance.
Does Tour Feel Work?
Here’s the deal with the Tour Feel. It works, but depending on what your swing looks like today, it could be more than a minor swing change.
Even swing changes that result in more efficient swings and lower scores can take you on a journey that includes a spell of frustration and higher scores (or is that just me?). So if you’re looking for a quick fix or if you have an important round coming up next week and you want to put up a good number, this might not be the quick fix you’re looking for.
On the other hand, if you’re ready for some changes that will result in a better, more efficient swing, more distance, and probably some more consistency, and you’re willing to commit, this could be just what you need.
My backswing has always been way too long. When I get to what should be the top of my swing, I go right on ahead and hinge my elbows and bring the club so far past parallel that you’d think I’m trying to win a long drive competition, even with a wedge in my hands. From there, it’s almost impossible to find a consistent low point at the bottom of the swing.
When I film my swing after training with the Tour Feel, I can see a massive improvement at the top of my backswing. I don’t break down my hard-earned width by folding at the top. That’s why I think it’s a good product for its intended objective, but you have to use it consistently to make the improvements second-nature.
For those improvements to make it from your training sessions to the first tee, it takes dedicated repetition. For them to be solid enough to make it to the 18th fairway takes serious commitment. That’s why, for my own personal game, I plan on re-visiting the Tour Feel in the snowy off-season, when I can put in plenty of reps over a couple months.
The prescribed training outlined in the videos that accompany the Tour Feel is incredibly simple, which I like. Plus, the videos are on YouTube, so you can access them conveniently from pretty much anywhere. Once you get set up with this thing, it’s easy to train.
Tour Feel Pros & Cons
The Tour Feel is a straightforward training aid that’s hyper-focused on building width into your swing. More width, of course, can have a domino effect and bring plenty of other benefits.
Here are the top pros and cons I think you should consider.
Pros:
- It works. It helps you add width to your swing, and if that’s your issue (or one of your issues), it can help
- The training is straightforward
- Works for right-handed and left-handed golfers
- You can use it to train any club in the bag (except the putter, obviously)
- Easy to use
Cons:
- It’s very much a contraption, which can turn some people off
- It doesn’t deliver a quick fix, it takes dedication to make the improvements second-nature
- At over $100, it’s a little on the pricey side
Who Should Consider Using Tour Feel?
I think it’s pretty easy to pinpoint who the Tour Feel is a good fit for. I see it as an effective product for people who are willing to actually commit to using it. If you have a history of trying a training aid twice, then shoving it in a drawer, then you’re probably not getting much out of your training aids, and I don’t think you’ll get much out of this.
If you have identified a lack of width or breaking down at or near the top of your swing as an area you'd like to improve, then using the Tour Feel will help you iron out that issue. If that’s your issue, and you’re willing to stack reps with the Tour Feel, then I think you can unlock noticeable gains with this product.