5 Best Training Aids to Fix Heel Strikes: $8-$295

I hit my first shank on the 14th hole of a club championship and spent the next three years scared of a wedge. Every round, one hosel rocket that cleared the right bunker and landed on the next fairway over. I tried everything: new grips, a shorter backswing, standing further from the ball. Nothing worked, because I never found out what was actually happening at impact.

A shank is not a mystery shot that appears out of nowhere. It’s the end of a chain, and the first link is a heel strike nobody bothered to diagnose. Contact drifts from the center of the face toward the heel. Then it creeps to the hosel. Then you’re the guy apologizing to the group on the next tee.

Fix the heel strike and you never meet the shank. This is not another shank article either. If the ball is already coming off the hosel, that’s a different problem. This is about the heel strike that comes first. Three quick tests will tell you if you’re doing it, and one of the five tools below fixes it.

How to Tell If You’re Hitting the Heel

Before you buy anything, run three tests.

Test 1: The tape test. Buy a roll of impact tape, stick it on the face of your 7-iron, and hit five balls. Peel it off and look. If the marks cluster toward the heel side of center, you hit heel strikes. This is the cheapest swing diagnosis in golf, and I covered it in depth.

Test 2: The setup test. Address the ball and let your arms hang. If your hands are jammed into your thighs or your weight is sitting on your toes, you’re standing too close. A setup that’s an inch too close pushes contact toward the heel.

Test 3: The weight test. Hit five balls and watch where your divots point. If your weight drifts toward the ball on the downswing, your divots start left of target and your contact crawls toward the heel. That drift is usually your hips lunging at the ball, not your arms.

If you pass all three, you’re not hitting heel strikes and this guide isn’t for you. If you fail one, the fix below maps to the test you failed.

The Five Tools That Fix It

1. Impact Tape: Best Diagnostic ($8-$15)

Impact tape is the cheapest fix because it’s not really a fix. It’s a diagnosis you can hold in your hand. Slap a strip on the face, hit, and you see the exact strike location.

What works: for about $8 a roll you get truth on every club. There’s no battery, no app, and nothing to set up. It answers the only question that matters: where am I hitting it? I keep a roll in my bag and check my face once a month whether I think I have a problem or not.

What doesn’t: it only shows you the problem. It won’t correct your setup or your weight shift. It’s the first tool in the chain, not the last one.

2. Divot Board: Best for Strike Location ($59.99-$99.99)

The Divot Board is a flat mat with a cutout that shows you exactly where the club bottomed out and where it struck. It’s the one tool that shows strike location and low point at the same time.

What works: the moment you catch the heel, the board shows it, and it shows you why. If your low point is too far forward, the mark sits ahead of the ball. If you’re standing too close, the strike sits heel-side. It turns a vague “that felt off” into a specific “your low point is two inches forward.”

What doesn’t: it’s the priciest diagnostic on this list. The full-size board runs about $100, and even the Mini is $60. It’s a mat that reveals the problem, not a fixer, so you still need to know what the mark means.

3. Tour Striker Smart Ball: Best for Connection ($47)

The Smart Ball is an inflatable ball you squeeze between your forearms while you swing. If your arms disconnect from your body, the ball falls out. That disconnect is one of the biggest drivers of heel contact: your arms separate, the club kicks out, and the ball finds the heel.

What works: it’s the cheapest way to keep your arms and body working as one unit. Squeeze the ball through the swing and your arms physically can’t fly off the body. It’s also the most portable tool here: deflate it and it fits in a pocket.

What doesn’t: it fixes connection, not setup. If your heel strike comes from standing too close, the Smart Ball won’t touch it. It’s a feel tool, so it gives you no data on where you’re actually striking the ball.

4. Alignment Sticks: Best for Setup ($15)

If you failed the setup test, this is your fix. Two fiberglass sticks on the ground tell you in three seconds whether you’re standing too close and whether your ball position has drifted.

What works: a stick on your target line and a stick on your feet line shows you instantly if your stance is too narrow, too close, or aimed wrong. Ball position is the setup error that pushes contact toward the heel more than any other, and a stick on the ground next to the ball makes it impossible to ignore. They cost about $15 and I wrote up the full drill list.

What doesn’t: sticks show you where you are, not where you strike. Pair them with impact tape or the Divot Board so you can watch the strike move back toward center as you fix the setup.

5. HackMotion Core: Best for Data ($295)

HackMotion is a wrist sensor that measures your lead wrist angle through the swing. A cupped lead wrist at impact is a classic heel-strike cause: it opens the face and kicks the club out toward the heel.

What works: it tells you the exact number, so you can see whether your wrist is flat, cupped, or bowed at impact. If your heel strikes come from a wrist fault, this is the only tool here that will actually show you the fault. I reviewed the sensor in full.

What doesn’t: $295 is real money, and it’s sold direct from HackMotion, not on Amazon. It’s a diagnostic for someone who wants the number, not a fixer for someone who wants a quick cure. Buy it only after the cheaper tools haven’t solved the problem.

What I Would Actually Buy

Start with impact tape. Eight dollars tells you whether you even have the problem.

If the tape shows heel contact, figure out which test you failed. A setup problem means you’re standing too close, and $15 alignment sticks fix that. A drifting low point shows up on the Divot Board Mini at $60. If your arms disconnected, the $47 Smart Ball is the answer.

That’s $8 to $60 to fix a heel strike, and none of it requires the $295 sensor unless the cheap tools don’t move the mark back to center.

Where to Buy

• Impact Tape: $8-$15 at Amazon
• Divot Board: $59.99 Mini, $99.99 full-size at Amazon
• Tour Striker Smart Ball: $47 at Amazon
• Callaway Alignment Sticks: about $15 at Amazon
• HackMotion Core: $295 — search Amazon (sold direct through hackmotion.com)

The Bottom Line

I hit a shank three months ago for the first time in years, and this time I did the thing I never did before: I put tape on the face and looked. The mark was dead on the heel. I moved my ball position back half an inch, fixed my setup, and the strike walked back to center inside a week. I didn’t buy a new driver or pay for a $300 lesson. There was no mystery, just a heel strike I finally bothered to look at.

If you only remember one thing: a shank starts as a heel strike, and a heel strike is a setup and connection problem you can see with $8 of tape. Diagnose it before it becomes the shot you fear.