The Golf Net Guide: Getting the Most out of this Golfer’s Training Aid

Golf Equipment
/ By WeJustGolf

A golf net allows you to practice your swing, complete with hitting an actual golf ball without sending that ball flying off into traffic or into your neighbor’s house (or into your own house).

Golf nets and mats allow you to simulate as much of the golfing experience as possible while you practice so that you can really develop your skills and techniques even during those days (or months) that you are unable to get out on the course for a round.

Keeping a golf net at home is a highly recommended way to practice effectively. In this article, will talk about how to use an outdoor or indoor golf net to practice, what kind of options and features are available, and how to put together a complete home golf practice set up.

The Benefits of Practicing with a Golf Net

If it’s warm out and you need to cram some serious practice to get back in shape, you can set up your net out in your backyard. If it’s too cold to practice outdoors, you can use a golf net for garage to keep in practice even during the off season.

Senior Man Practicing Golf

Many are easy to set up and take down so that they don’t have to take up space in your home while they aren’t in use. There are many benefits to practicing with a golf net:

More practice: unlike other sports, it’s not always so easy to head out to the course for a quick round of golf. For this reason, a surprising number of golfers don’t really practice. But in order to master a consistent and strong golf swing, you need to hone your muscle memory. That is, you need to swing over and over and over until it feels like second nature.

More affordable: if you don’t want to pay for time on a range or a course every time you need to practice, a net will give you the freedom to practice at home, without spending a dime (that is, after you’ve purchased the net).

Better practice: without a net, you are pretty much limited to rehearsing your swing without hitting a ball. But that moment of impact is extremely important and you need to get a feel for it. It’s way different to actually hit a ball with your swing than it is to just move through a swing without any moment of impact. With a net, you get to actually hit a ball safely so that you get the right feel for each aspect of your swing and know whether or not you are actually improving.

Knowing the benefits, it’s now time to start learning more about the nets themselves. What options are there? What kind of things should you be looking at while you shop? Learn about this in the next section.

Choosing a Golf Net

There are a few different variations of golf nets that offer different features:

Tying Up Golf Net

Golf net cage: this is more substantial than standard golf nets and offers more protection. The extended walls of the cage will catch your ball even if hooks way off into one direction.
Golf net return: these nets have a special design that encourages the ball to bounce back and return to you so that you save time on gathering up your golf balls between swings.

Keep in mind that all nets wear out. This is natural. But you still want to look for a net made of a durable material so that you don’t have to replace it as often. Also, choosing a net with an impact panel will help decrease wear and tear and gives you a nice target to aim at.

Read some golf net reviews about different brands to learn more about the specific features and options. Consider factors like:

ease of set up and take down
net quality
net design—does it automatically return the ball? Does it have a full cage?
Added features—does it come with radar? Does it come with a simulator mat?

Setting up Your Home Training System

There are complete packages already available that take the guess work out of it but you can also put together your own set up that suits your needs.

To see the most improvement in your game, we recommend combining a golf net of your choosing with a simulator mat that will record data about your swing. Some nets come with radar devices that can also measure the speed of the ball as it flies into the net so that you can get a better idea of how you are doing.

For more advanced set ups, there are lots of neat training aids out there that you can incorporate into your practice like sensor gloves that tell you how to adjust your grip and swing planes that help guide you through the full motion of the perfect golf swing.

Man Playing Golf with Golf Net

Whether you just get a net or you go for a whole range of training aids, you are only going to see improvement if you actually use them! So choose your golf net and start practicing immediately! Then keep practicing on a regular basis.

Some final tips: practice daily. Even if it’s just for 15 to 20 minutes. Try out different golfing drills with your net to help improve different aspects of your swing. And, most importantly, have fun!