I had no idea such a little product could do so much for my practice sessions. The Tee Claw is the perfect range companion.

The golfing world is full of training aids to help you with your game, and the new Tee Claw is no different. Where other devices or tool may tend to focus on the setup, swing, arm positions, face angle, impact angles, posture, foot pressure, this stuff, that stuff the list can go on and on for days. The Tee Claw is brilliant in its simplicity but remarkable in its ability to assist in a place where a ton of golfers spends their time, the driving range.

Armed with four barbed legs and a silicone insert, to hold a tee in place, the Tee Claws ultimate purpose, I feel, is to eliminate us golfers from using those horrible range tees. It indeed is an ideal way to ensure you’re making contact with the ball in the same teed up position with every swing.

One of my gripes about the practice facility I frequent the most is how it’s a total crapshoot whether or not you’re going to find a place to hit with a decent tee. Most of the time the rubber tee’s that accommodate the hitting mats are either built for someone with a 6’7″ frame or are so short it’s tough to even with an 8 iron, not exactly ideal practice conditions by any means.

When I first picked up a hitting mat for my garage, I bought some of the awful range mat tee’s and dealt with cutting them down to make it the right height and then dealing with the balls never sitting in them properly. I finally thought I had found the secret combination of rubber tee, pictured below, used in conjunction with a real tee and for a while this worked but as time has passed the rubber tee has lost it’s “ability” to stand firm enough to hold and a ball. I often find myself having to re-tee the ball right as I’m about to make a swing. Frustrating as hell to say the least.

No longer is that an issue, though.

Since I’ve added the Tee Claw to my practice mat I’ve not only been able to tee up the ball at the same height each time, I’ve also been able to assess where my ideal impact is by adjusting the tee height and utilizing some impact tape.

That height adjustment ability was an unexpected perk. I’ve always tee’d my ball up at what I thought was the ideal position. I so profoundly felt I had it in the right spot I’ve never bothered to check my impact on the driver’s face, aside from smacking dirty pellets at the range and seeing the results. Not exactly “Science.”

I’ve always stood by the ideology that you tee the ball up where its equator is right at the top of the club head. It’s how I’ve tee’d up my balls for years. So when I opened up the package from Tee Claw I headed out to the garage, I tee’d up a ball and swung away I wasn’t expecting anything but a great session.

I took the first couple of swings easy as I was curious how well it would perform. It was flawless.  After a few more swings I decided to crank up the velocity a bit and stepped into one.

That’s when my heart sunk.

The education I was about to receive on my setup came at a price when the last blow to my ball sent the tee flying from my mat. No biggie there, the lanyard that comes with the Tee Claw kept me from searching out the dark corners of my garage to locate it, but when I picked it up from the ground, I noticed my swing had made an alteration that put an end to my session. I had broken one of the legs clean off.

Turns out with all the adjustments I’ve made to my swing over the last couple of years the one flaw that I have yet to eliminate is my descending blow to a tee’d up golf ball. It’s not to the point where I’m taking divots, but a broken tee is not abnormal when it comes to my swing. In searching for the perfect tee to “help” my broken tee woes, last year I found one made out of plastic that will not crack,  even with my swing. I now think putting it into play probably has done more harm to my game than good.

I’m sure anyone reading this is aware that a broken tee is a telltale sign that you’re coming into the ball too steep. What breaks the tee is the force of the ball compressing against it. Not a Samurai type blow with a sword that snaps the tee in half.  Plastic, being just a little more durable than wood, significantly hides this flaw and because of that, I’ve never looked at repairing this part of my game until now.

I contacted Tee Claw and let them know what had happened.

I was curious if this was a common occurrence because I know damn well I’m not the only one that has a steep swing with a driver. I was assured their product stood up to days of punishment during the PGA Show and there was a possibility I could have received one that came from an inferior mold.

They could have easily said “Sucks to be you!” and went about their day, but that wasn’t the case at all.  After I had shared with them some photos of the broken claw within a few days, another package arrived. That’s how you handle an issue like this. I was impressed not only with their level of concern about the busted one but also how quick they were to get out some more samples to me so I could continue with the review.

While waiting for the new ones to arrive, I had a few sessions at home where I worked on the steep factor of my swing. I looked at my alignment, my feet position, and hand position and came to the conclusion I was setup up to the ball with it too close to the center of my stance, way inside my left front foot. That, of course, was causing me to hit the ball on the downswing and not on the upswing, where you want to be.

With this new setup I worked on in place and the arrival of some new Tee Claws in my bag I headed out to the TaylorMade Experience and gave it another go, and this time there were no issues.

What makes this product so unique, aside from being the only thing I’ve ever seen like it, is the legs. They’re designed to be grappling hooks as you twist it into the range mat, locking it into place unless you swing as I do!

I like to remove the tee that’s in place and position it directly over the hole that’s left behind. With a quick twist, the tee locks into place, and you’re ready to go! I like this position because it’s centered in the mat, most of the time, and with the hole underneath you can use a longer tee and make adjustments finding that perfect spot.

A longer tee is what I used to find my ideal height for my ball to be tee’d up. It took a little while to find the perfect placement and the entire time I was smacking balls it held up like a champ. As I worked through the process, time and time again, I knocked it out of the mat, and I was so fearful I had broken another one. It didn’t happen, though. It made it through my session looking as pristine as it did when I opened up the package, and that was a big relief.

Included with the claw is several lanyards to help keep it in place if it happens to come dislodged. The string prevents you from heading out into the firing zone to retrieve it, but there are other uses as well. It’s a fantastic way to set up alignment lines for you to practice with eliminating the need to haul around those 3′ sticks. Because the lanyards are so thin and durable, you can connect it to the one you’re using and set up a path line, alignment positions and with many claws, you can set up many different grid configurations to help you with your sessions.

Utilizing the lanyards for alignment and feet placement was crucial in getting me to understand how off my setup was with the driver and it paid off almost instantly. The first thing I noticed, once I got the right height, was a much higher ball flight.  Even with the loft of my driver set to 9° I was getting some outstanding trajectory and without a loss of distance. The high, long, ball flight I’ve wanted since I picked the game back up was there this entire time, and I was able to find it with the help of this handy tool. It’s incredible what hitting the center of the clubface will do for your game off the tee.

Hats off to the creators for their work in bringing it to the public. This outstanding product is set to make big waves in this bloggers opinion. It already has made a huge change to my game off the tee and has made my session at home and even at the range a much better experience.

You can purchase a Package for $14.95 from their WEBSITE, and in it, you’ll receive 2 Tee Claws, 2 Lanyards and three tees (1 1/4″, 1 3/4″ & 2 1/8″). Additional lanyards are available in White, Green, and Yellow for $3.95 each and in my opinion are a must have.