Virginia Golfer Sep / Oct 2020 | Page 41

SWING ALIGN Training Aid Billed as golf’s most versatile swing training device, Swing Align can help you improve alignment consistency with your target line by keeping your arms and body in sync while rotating, and by making it easy to build a repeatable golf swing. Intuitive and easy to use, it provides instant visual feedback and ingrains good habits and a proper swing plane via muscle memory. Says Chris McGinley, who co-founded the product: “This aid helps you set up square and hit it solid by providing a strong visual indicator you can use to line up square to your intended target. The device uses muscle memory to develop a repeatable swing with more power and accuracy by keeping your arms and body synchronized when rotating.” $125, swingtrainer.com. ODYSSEY Stroke Lab #7 Toe Up Putter The first thing you notice about Odyssey’s Stroke Lab #7 “Big Seven” Toe Up putter is the unusual Backstryke hosel that extends the shaft from the midrear of the putter head forward. This creates significant toe up characteristics that encourages minimal face rotation and arc during the putting stroke, so that you return the face more squarely as you stroke through impact and thus roll the ball more purely toward the cup. The putter is armed with a carbon-steel shaft that saves 40 grams of weight, which is redistributed to the head and grip end—to completely rebalance the putter for better tempo and consistency. By the way, this particular head shape is the brand’s most popular on Tour. $200, odysseygolf.com. SKYCADDIE LX5 GPS Watch The GPS screen built into many carts works great, when you can drive right to your ball. But when you tend to hit shots into no-cart zones, you’ll need extra help to figure out distances. A GPS watch might be ideal. SkyCaddie’s LX5 features a responsive 1.39-inch color touchscreen. Its friendly interface lets you slide the fairway image up and down to focus on any area of a hole. You can also move the crosshair to get distances to any target. It’s pre-loaded with 35,000 course maps. And when you’re around the green, it shows you the exact shape of the green in real time from your physical perspective. It also functions as a smartwatch and fitness tracker. $300, skycaddie.skygolf.com. vsga.org S EPTEMBER/O CTOBER 2020 | V IRGINIA G OLFER 39