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B1 Blue Strike Review: More Is Not Better
The B1 Blue Strike training aid is one of the more popular “as seen on TV” products. It’s endorsed by famed instructor Hank Haney, and as usual with products like these, it makes some pretty big promises on how it can help your game.
The main function of the B1 Blue Strike is to help improve your impact position and prevent a popular swing flaw called “scooping” which occurs when your hands are behind the ball at impact. I’ve discussed this concept several times on the site with other training aids that try to address this issue (and I’ll cover them in this review).
The main difference with the B1 Blue Strike is that it has three separate elements whereas other products are only focusing on one goal.
So is the Blue Strike more golf infomercial junk, or can it actually help your game? Let’s explore…
Their Claims
If you listen to their commercial, using the B1 Blue Strike several times will turn you into a world-class ball striker. Here are a few of the claims they make in their marketing materials:
- After just minutes of practice with the B1, the golfers made amazing progress in their ball-striking, distance, and trajectory.
- Fix This 1 Small Part of Your Swing (that you may not know is broken) for Tour-Level Impact, Pin-Rattling Accuracy & Unwavering Consistency
- The first training aid to ingrain all the elements of a tour-level impact position (and fix those frustrating flips)
If you want to learn more about how the product works, I suggest watching these series of videos with Hank Haney.
My Impressions of the B1 Blue Strike
I’m not against what this product is trying to promote, which is to get you in a more functional impact position with your hands slightly ahead of the ball at impact. I’ve done this kind of practice myself, and it has shown very good results in my own ball striking.
In my opinion, the issue with the B1 is that there is too much going on, and I think it will likely confuse golfers. There are three separate elements to the product:
- Impact Bow: A cable that stretches outside of the grip that is supposed to stay in contact with your lead wrist at impact
- Impact Slider: a slider that is supposed to click at the bottom of the club at impact, to provide audio feedback
- Compression Sole: Designed to force the golfer to lean the shaft forward at impact, or else they will make poor contact with the club
My main problem with the Blue Strike is that the first two elements are not very functional. The impact slider didn’t seem to work for me. If I firmly attached it in place, which you’re supposed to, it would not release while I swung. Then if I kept it loosely attached it would not work as designed. I’d chalk this up to poor product design and/or quality of materials (similar to what I experienced with the Super Sonic X10 slider).
The impact bow seemed to be a bit finicky as well. I think it could provide some value, but can be easily cheated.
The actual clubhead itself does have value though. It’s very similar to the design of The Tour Striker, which is a popular training aid. It’s very difficult to strike it properly unless there is some forward shaft lean at impact, but I do believe it could be “cheated” a little more easily than a product like the DST Compressor, which I practice with myself.
Long story short, only 1 of the three elements seemed to work. On top of that, if a golfer tries to satisfy all three of the elements at once, I think it would be overload, which begs the question why use this versus some of the other more popular impact trainers?
Your Money Might Be Better Spent Elsewhere
I don’t dislike the B1 Blue Strike entirely, but I don’t love it either. In my opinion, this product has the potential to overload recreational golfers, which means it could end up in the garage quickly.
There are several other products that might make more sense for you. The Impact Snap trainer, which you can read more about in my review, is probably better suited for a novice to intermediate ball striker. For more advanced golfers, I would probably recommend a product like the DST Compressor. It’s much more difficult to use, but I do believe it produces real results. Perhaps a middle ground between the Impact Snap and DST would be the Tour Striker.
If you’re interested in purchasing the B1 Blue Striker you can do so on their site here. I’ve also reviewed a bunch of other golf infomercial products you can read about in this article.
