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Tour Striker Plane Mate

ShotScope
Just finished Day 3 of the protocols, I like where this train is heading. So far still only using the short band, but added some wrist hinge, I am doing all the band training with my PW so far.

From what I am gathering so far:

Day 1 gets you focused on getting your body (not really your arms) turning and into the right finish position. I know I don't turn as much normally on a full swing as I am on 20-40 yard pitch shots right now.

Day 2 gets you turning back and through for a chipping/punch motion.

Day 3 gets you breaking the wrist and shallowing out the club on shorter (half swing or so shots).


This gets you squaring up the club with your body instead of hands/arms. I think this progression is working great.

Today I started off with some very light stretching, did a few rotations through then maybe 10 of the chipping motion before getting to the actual day 3 protocol (30 half swing shots off of tee). I finished with 3 full swings with a PW without a tee, 2 5W off a tee, 1 slicing out to the right (pretty standard) and one drilled right down the center. Grabbed driver and hit 2, 1st was a little fade, 2nd one was a mid flight missile dead nuts center of the club face. Had to get back to the office so didn't hit anymore, but looking forward to day 4 tomorrow.
 
So I did day 4 and 5 protocols Saturday, and it is a continuation of the previous lessons. Still have not done anything past the short band, but when you get to 5 the I started to really see where this could help with the full swing.

I played yesterday, and my biggest issue is still there (starting with the shoulders and lunging forward) but my pitching and chipping with this motion was really dang good. I miss hit one pitch shot (caught it a little heavy) but overall my distance control and line were outstanding.

Will get back to work today, but again still really impressed by this. As someone who likes to go to the range I think the price is going to be worth it, but as with all training aids if you aren't going to use it, if it was a $1.00 it would not be a worthwhile investment.
 
Planemate is the real deal. First aid I have used that actually changes your swing -for the better. Pricey, but the equivalent to 1-2 lessons.
 
First real round after going through most of the protocols (haven't had the chance to review 7 much) but some good things, some bad things and some ugly.

lets start with the ugly: I am trying to figure out distance on partial swings. I have been much more arm orientated (planemate promotes much more of a body turn) so I need to spend some time on the short game area dialing in distances. After hitting the best drive I have ever hit on in my opinion the hardest hole on my home course I had 76 yards.... I didn't know what to do... grabbed my 52* and hit a fat shot that didn't clear a hazard.. Grabbed my 48*, tried a shorter swing and hit it to pin high but on the wrong part of the green, proceeded to 3 jack for a lovely 7 after a career drive.

Bad: don't know if this really belongs here, but I was "pulling" lots of shots left. I think in reality I am more hitting the ball straight, but I am aimed left due to decade+ of slicing more than pizza hut. So need to work on alignment along with partial shot distances. Sand game is also a struggle, need to get comfortable with my technique there.

Good: my chipping which has always been decent is way improved, less arms, more body has me hitting shots on a better line to my target, good contact and the distance control has been excellent. I chipped it to within a few feet 4 out of 6 times, and was inside 8' on the other 2. As i mentioned in bad, several "pulls", but the contact was solid and ball flight was straight, maybe a tiny fade even with my driver.... this is really good and led to the career drive in ugly.

So I plan to keep working with this, and revisiting several of the moves while I dial in distances and full swing. The thing I have thought about with this training aid is that if you have limited hip turn (say lower back/hip issues) I could see this being really hard to execute the type of swing it promotes.

It isn't a cure all in my opinion (no training aid or instruction are IMHO), I still hit some really poor shots, but that is mostly because I fall back to an over the top swing and will often times lunge forward with the shoulders. When I let the hips/legs lead and turn back and through.. man I love the results.
 
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Thank you for these updates.
 
i’ve watched a couple videos and it’s very intriguing. it seems like the perfect training aid to learn the swing du jour. this low and left move with passive hands and body rotation that modern teachers seem to love.
 
My close golf buddy just got one. Will try it out and report back. He said they are on back order now through Jan 20...?
 
I haven't practiced much for a couple weeks, but shoulder feels marginally better so went out for small bucket today and grabbed the planemate. I am liking what I am getting from it as it works quite well with what my instructor has me working on. Want to get to work with this 3+ times a weak going forward and will report back.

But the more I use it the more I see this really messing with some people unless they have very solid fundamentals ingrained. If you are getting any reverse spine tilt I could see this motion struggling, but if you have a reverse spine tilt chances are you aren't striking it that well to begin with.
 
After an up and down year with my game and the year winding down I have decided to bite the bullet and invest in instruction. We have a local academy here and I can get a weekly time slot every week for as long as I want. Last night was my first session. I have been to him before, but only when its been real bad and he has always got me back on track from being useless to ok great. We both know my tendencies and my faults and also my positives. He asked what I wanted to get out of this over the winter and I told him I don't want quick fixes anymore. I want to completely get rid of old habits, learn to shallow the club consistently, and use my lower body and the ground to rotate rather than using my upper body to swing the club. I want to come out next year with a completely different game and im willing to put the time into it over the next several months during the Midwest winter. He has hitting bays with large doors and heaters above during the winter. He also has an indoor simulator for when the weather gets really cold.

He said even though we know what your faults are (steep) lets get a video for reference and comparison. This is with my 6i

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Iv never really had an issue with my takeaway, its usually always on plane. But when I transition into the down swing its game over unless im timing it right that day. I didn't come from a twisting/rotation sport. I played offensive line from 4th grade all the way through college which is far from a rotation position. Iv done pretty good on my own for this long but I need consistency and better ball striking if I want to advance at this sport.

He said he has been messing around with the Plane Mate for a month or so and has really good success with it. I know Martin Chucks Tour Striker products are great products, so when he brought it out and said strap it on I was willing to try it. He said this will be the fastest and most effective way to get you to feel what its like to shallow the club. The golf swing is muscle memory for most and you need to know what its like. He said he can put me in those positions but it will be much more time consuming to start engraining that feel rather lets get it started with this and see if we can speed up the process.

While he was working with another student, he had me watch a couple of the first protocols to get the idea of the direction. When finished he gave me hands on assistance as to what the protocols were wanting you to accomplish. Starting small and staying small at first is the key here. I cant stress enough to concentrate on relaxing the club to start the shallow process then rotation just like the protocols instruct. Its really a wow moment. If you get lazy and old habits start to creep back in you will know it instantly as shank city will happen. Instant feedback. This is completely muscle memory / resistance training. He said all he wanted me to do is pitch balls to the 75 yard maker and finish out the bucket of balls. After that he said one of the protocols (which I havnt been through all the way except what he had me watch) was pitching / chipping balls one handed right and left. Again, if you rotate contact is pure and its actually quite fun hitting one handed shots. Stray away you will know it.

Here are a few pics of my down swing with my 50* wedge. I will admit, I have NEVER been this on plane going down....ever.

First pic is the very start of my downswing

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Next you can see my hips are already parallel with my target line and the shaft is coming in shallower

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At impact you can see how much more open my hips are from rotation. No more coming up and goat humping.

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I thought it would be fun to share this with the community. I know the stigma of training aids don't always fair well with most and some are pretty gimmicky as im not afraid to admit I have tried out a couple over the years. But I don't have an issue saying im already in love with this and I only spent a couple hours with it yesterday. Now im not at all saying spend only a couple hours with this and you will instantly drop your handicap by 7 strokes. Like anything new, it will take time to engrain and the work will have to be put in but I can see I feel this will make that process much faster than the traditional way. One other thing I will note, when I took the band off and swung the club without the resistance I was completely shocked. From the muscle memory the band was providing the best I can describe it was like I couldn't take the club back and down any other way except what I was doing when then band was on it. It was like a ghost was guiding the club back and through.....it was freaky as hell. I looked up after I took my first swing and he busted up laughing and said I told you it was crazy!

When my session was done, I went over to the corner and grabbed 5 or 6 balls with my 6i just to see how that would go. Center strikes and effortless. I didn't want to keep pounding balls as I want to keep on track for awhile with the short motions and get more disciplined there first before moving to a more full swing for training.

Its worth a look and I would suggest starting out with it with an instructor to get you going in the right direction.
 
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Great feedback from you guys!
 
Thanks for posting 2BFAST! Lots of positive reviews - going to make it hard not to grab one of these soon.
 
Looks like the Rors enjoys this gadget....

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On the website I see they have a '7 day protocol', but what happens after the 7 days? Do you start from the beginning and keep re-doing the protocol?
 
ken_h said:
On the website I see they have a '7 day protocol', but what happens after the 7 days? Do you start from the beginning and keep re-doing the protocol?
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I have been going back and redoing the moves. After doing the initial 7 day protocol it is no where near fully ingrained for me. I have been spending less time doing each "day" but will be going back to the beginning and starting from the basics.
 
mancest said:
I have been going back and redoing the moves. After doing the initial 7 day protocol it is no where near fully ingrained for me. I have been spending less time doing each "day" but will be going back to the beginning and starting from the basics.
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That makes sense, thanks. It was odd to me that day 1 just has you doing 30 reps, when it's going to probably take thousands to ingrain something. I do think this would be beneficial for me though, unfortunately they're out of stock until January! I guess it's pretty popular.
 
Honest question for those of us of the larger persuasion. How large is the belt? Is it something a bigger guy can wear comfortably?
 
gmiller598 said:
Honest question for those of us of the larger persuasion. How large is the belt? Is it something a bigger guy can wear comfortably?
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I am not a slender man, usually wear pants 34-38 (34-36 right now) and there is plenty of room on the belt to go bigger.
 
gmiller598 said:
Honest question for those of us of the larger persuasion. How large is the belt? Is it something a bigger guy can wear comfortably?
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Im a 38/40 waist (see above) and I also have WAY more room to go
 
I have been reading reviews/feedback on the PlaneMate on other websites, & decided to buy one. Kind of. They are sold out (again) and taking pre-orders for shipping in late February.

Bummed that I can't get started right away, but lots of people have started by just watching the 7-day protocol videos. And apparently they have created some more advanced videos very recently:

https://www.tourstriker.com/planemate-protocols/

I believe you have to register on their site as a PlaneMate user before you can watch the advanced protocol videos. It's weird but you register as if you are "purchasing" the registration (with a price of zero). Once that is done, you have access to these videos.
 
Grins said:
I have been reading reviews/feedback on the PlaneMate on other websites, & decided to buy one. Kind of. They are sold out (again) and taking pre-orders for shipping in late February.

Bummed that I can't get started right away, but lots of people have started by just watching the 7-day protocol videos. And apparently they have created some more advanced videos very recently:

https://www.tourstriker.com/planemate-protocols/

I believe you have to register on their site as a PlaneMate user before you can watch the advanced protocol videos. It's weird but you register as if you are "purchasing" the registration (with a price of zero). Once that is done, you have access to these videos.
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Its a great tool. It really is.

Actually the educator is also a great aid as well. Iv been really working with these two tools since October with my instructor and its paying off. They really help to get the feel of shallowing the club and focusing on rotation using your lower body. Martin is a good dude too, Iv played a round with him before
 
2BFAST said:
Its a great tool. It really is.

Actually the educator is also a great aid as well. Iv been really working with these two tools since October with my instructor and its paying off. They really help to get the feel of shallowing the club and focusing on rotation using your lower body. Martin is a good dude too, Iv played a round with him before
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. I'm looking forward to using this. And I'm jealous! When did you play with Martin Chuck? He does seem like a pretty chill dude.
 
Grins said:
Thanks for the feedback. I'm looking forward to using this. And I'm jealous! When did you play with Martin Chuck? He does seem like a pretty chill dude.
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Been a couple years. His wife is from Hannibal, MO
 
2BFAST,

What do you do in terms of training with the PlaneMate? Do you repeat all the protocols? How much time weekly do you use it? Do you always hit balls with it? On the other site, a few guys said they used it mainly without a ball (but I think it was due mostly because of weather/location circumstances).
 
I am very intrigued by this thing. It seems to have caught on everywhere. I just wonder how well any of these things actually work?? I think I will wait a bit, I bet there will be a lot of early adopters that will be dumping this thing mid 2020.
 
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