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Review: Refine and Accelerate

By Sean ⋅ March 4, 2008 ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Not long ago I wrote about the GyroSwing which will soon be released by SLKZ golf. They also happen to offer a few other training aid products, a couple of which caught my eye: The Refiner and Swing Accelerator. The refiner is a hinged driver which works on getting your golf swing on plane. The Swing Accelerator, on the other hand, is a weighted club which targets the distance part of your game. We will have a look at both of these devices today and see if they can help your game.

Background

So, let’s get onto some details about these pieces of equipment we will be looking at today:

Refiner

Dual-Adjustable Hinged Training Club. Breaks in the Refiner show breakdowns in your swing. The patented, two-way adjustable hinged clubs give instant feedback on tempo and swing plane to smooth out your swing. Even hit balls with it.

• Patented, two-way adjustable-hinged driver
• Swing flaws are immediately exposed by a break in the hinge
• Engineered to hit golf balls and teach a smooth, even-tempo swing
• Can be used at the range, home, or office, any time of the year
• Promotes better ball contact for straighter, longer shots
• 460cc head
• Patented see-through grip graphics for ideal hand placement
• Includes adjustment key/divot tool

Swing Accelerator

Hittable Weighted Club. Finally, a weighted club that gives you good feel instead of seeming like a heavy block in your hands… and you can hit balls with it. The patented internal weighting system provides true club balance and weighting.

• Increases distance – longer straighter shots
• Increases strength & flexibility of golf-specific muscles
• Ideal for warmup or staying in shape during the off-season
• Can hit balls – improve actual swings rather than just practice swings
• Ingrains the feel of the correct swing path and improved ball contact
• 460cc weighted driver head
• Patented shaft weighting technology (internal material in shaft) harnesses the power of centrifugal force and gives a real club feel
• Gives audible cues on out-of-rhythm swings
• Patented see-through grip graphics for ideal hand placement

Look and Feel

Both of these clubs have an overall look and feel that will resemble a traditional shaped modern 460cc driver. The club head on both clubs is very similar looking, with only the name on the bottom available to visually distinguish between the two. They also both feature the same see-through finger placement grip. That’s about where the similarities end.

The Refiner features a shaft with an adjustable hinge perhaps 10 inches away from the 460cc driver head. The shaft is a light steel, so it will feel heavier than your modern 50-60g graphite driver shaft, however, should feel pretty similar in weight to your longer iron shafts. The most important thing, I feel, about this particular piece of equipment is the adjustable nature of the hinge. I have played with a Medicus hinged driver in the past, and it always seemed to break so easily. With this particular club, you can tighten up the hinge so only terrible mistakes cause the hinge to ‘break’. So you start on that tighter setting, and work your way down to a looser setting as you get your swing back on plane. Even at a tighter setting you can feel the hinge about to give way if your swing starts getting sloppy.

The Swing Accelerator is a weighted club, so obviously this is the first thing you will notice. Unlike other weighted clubs where a very heavy shaft and club head is used, the Swing Accelerator has done something very interesting. They put ball bearings (or some sort of metal balls - see below) in the shaft of the club. This increases the weight, while at the same time helps you work a little on loading and unloading the shaft. It also helps keep the club itself feeling a little more realistic…that is to say, feel the club head, feel the flex of the shaft itself. With the very heavy clubs (see my Momentus Power Hitter review) you lose a lot of that feeling. I didn’t have quite the same ‘pulled through the hitting zone’ feel I had with the Momentus, however, swinging the Swing Accelerator feels a little more realistic.

Performance

Both of these clubs can be hit on the practice range, or heck on the course if you are just playing a practice round. The SKLZ website offers some online video lessons you can use along with the clubs themselves. They offer up some nice drills and tips on using the equipment. While I would have liked to have seen a few more usage drills, what they give you should be good enough to get you going. And honestly, once you figure it out, there really isn’t much else to ‘drill’ other than swinging without breaking the hinge (for the refiner) or just plain swinging with the accelerator.

As mentioned earlier, both clubs feature this see through finger placement grip (show above). Unfortunately for me, my hands are pretty large (wear an XL glove) so the finger placement and grip size were a little small for my hands. But for people who use standard size grips, this should be a wonderful tool to help work on your grip. Just make sure you align your fingers to the underlying pattern every time, and you should be gripping the club fundamentally correct naturally every time.

Here are a few images of the refiner’s hinge breaking down under common swing faults:

Casting

Too Far Inside

Over the Line

In the images below you can see the Swing Accelerator in action. With the ball bearings in the shaft, you start at address with the ball bearings all down by the driver head. As you take the club back to the top of your back swing (left picture below), you will actually feel and hear the ball bearings ‘load’ up to the grip end of the shaft. At this point you make your move back to the ball, and assuming you are not releasing prematurely, the ball bearings will snap back to the end of the club as you release, through the ball. This is a great little feedback tool for people who are losing their lag/wrist cock too early. If you start hearing those ball bearings slide down the shaft early, you know you’re doing something wrong. It’s actually a pretty neat feeling, that weight transfers from the grip end down to the driver head with a lot of added force at your release, so you really feel as if you are destroying the ball with a huge added weight which then pulls you through to your finish.

Again though, Swing Accelerator vs Momentus Power Hitter, I would go Swing Accelerator at this point. The Momentus is very heavy, and will definitely give you a work out. But if I have one problem with it, it is that it is very different than swinging a normal driver. The Swing Accelerator, on the other hand, is somewhat more realistic. You do not have quite the same ‘pull you through’ feeling, but as I mentioned earlier, I like the fact that you can feel the shaft load and have a better feel for the club head itself. The Momentus completely takes the small muscles in your arms/hands out of the equation (which, for some is something you should definitely experience at least once). But, then adjusting back to swinging your normal driver, the change is just enormous.

Conclusion

I have found that the Refiner has helped my rusty driver swing get and stay on plane. The Swing Accelerator, while fun, I cannot say if it has or has not added any yards to my drives just yet as I have not used it long enough. However, there is no reason to believe it wouldn’t. You can certainly feel the added weight working. I found the Momentus Power Hitter helped increase my swing speed quite a bit over the course of a few months, so I could definitely see the same happening with this club.

For the price, I think both of these products are an excellent alternative to the products sold by Medicus and Momentus. I really do feel the adjustable nature of the hinge in the Refiner is a great feature and the ball bearing feel of the Swing Accelerator is pretty neat. So if you are looking to help get your swing on plane or increase your swing speed, both of these training aids should be worth a look.

So be sure to check out both the Refiner and Swing Accelerator, at just under $100 each, they are relatively inexpensive golf training aids. You can purchase both directly through their website or have a look through our golf store if you are fine with used equipment.

Would you like your product or service reviewed? The Deep Rough is always willing to provide a fair and honest assessment of your golf related product or service. This Refiner and Swing Accelerator review was paid for via reviewme.com.

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