The B1 Blue Strike claims to be the best training aid in golf for grooving a powerful, hands-ahead impact position like the pros’ – the secret to superior ball-striking. Formerly backed by Hank Haney, and a very close copy of the Tour Strike iron, but is it worth buying?
Here we’ll review the B1 Blue Strike, explain its features and help you decide if it’s the right training aid for you.
What is the B1 Blue Strike
The B1 Blue Strike is an adapted mid-iron with three key features:
Compression sole
The B1 Blue Strike’s bevelled leading edge is raised off the ground at setup and promotes the correct forward shaft lean and a square clubface at impact.
Impact bow
The impact bow is a thin, flexible, blue cable looping from the top to the bottom of the grip. Keeping this cable against your left wrist will help keep the clubface in a neutral position
Impact slider
This is a slider that is supposed to slide down the shaft and click at the bottom of the club at impact, to provide audio feedback.
How does B1 Blue Strike work?
Swing trainers work in two ways. They provide feedback on movements within your swing and/or they change the constraints of practice, forcing you to adapt the way you swing.
The B1 Blue Strike uses both of these concepts to help develop your swing. The raised leading edge forces you to push your hands forward at impact, in order to present the clubface to the golf ball and get your shots up into the air.
The B1 also has an impact bow to ensure your wrists, and in turn, clubface are correctly positioned to hit the ball straight. This is a feature not found on the Tour Striker iron and one that can be handy for slicers of the golf ball.
Finally, the impact slider is supposed to slide down and click at impact to give feedback on the proper timing of your release.
B1 Tour Strike review
Let’s get into how it works in practice.
Set up & ease of use
This training aid is super simple to set up. Not quite instantaneous, but after a minute or so you will have connected the impact bow wire into place and you’ll be ready to get hitting.
Hitting shots
If you already strike down on your iron shots, you’ll barely notice the novel, raised leading edge on the B1. However, if you tend to scoop or catch your iron shots clean the B1 will soon give you clear feedback, as you shoot the ball along the ground in front of you.
I personally, really like this feature of the B1 training aid. It is nearly identical to the Tour Striker iron but works well and provides great feedback.
The impact bow should stay in contact with the inside of your left forearm throughout your golf swing, ensuring your clubface is not open. This feature is handy and some golfers may benefit from the added feedback when setting their wrists in their backswing and coming down into impact and through.
However, most slicers nemesis is a weak golf grip, not a poor wrist position, so please check your golf grip before relying on the impact bow to help you hit straighter shots.
Finally, we have the impact slider. This is supposed to slide down the shaft and click at impact to give audio feedback on timing your release. A nice idea, but in testing, this just doesn’t work consistently and overcomplicates the device.
Does the B1 Blue Strike really work?
There are three main areas the B1 focuses on:
- Striking down and compressing your iron shots
- Squaring your clubface to reduce a slice
- Improving your release for more power and distance
I would say the B1 does i) an excellent job of encouraging you to strike down and compress iron shots. ii) It will help 30-40% of golfers with squaring their clubface (a poor grip is more often the key issue), but iii) there are better training aids for golfers wanting to work on their release, consider the Orange Whip as one such choice.
Build quality and longevity
There are many golfers the B1 will help, but one factor you should consider is how long you will plan to use this swing aid.
The B1 will last many years if required, with the build quality almost comparable to the more expensive Tour Striker.
From personal experience, the most useful training aids are those that you can reach for from time to time when you need to re-groove a key action. If you feel compressing your iron shots is a key area for you to improve, and work on in the future, the B1 is well worth considering.
The B1 has a raised front edge but doesn’t have as exaggerated raised edge as the Tour Striker or Tour Striker Pro irons. Meaning once you create a slight descending strike you’ll stop receiving as clear feedback. I don’t think this is an issue for most players – the B1’s feedback will push you towards some very solid ball striking and is more than enough of a challenge for most.
Review of the B1 Blue Strike training aid – Summary
The B1 is a lower-cost alternative to the Tour Striker iron, with the added benefit of a bow to give feedback on your left wrist position. If you want a fun, and useful device when practising, and compressing your iron shots is your focus then this is well worth a purchase.
Alternatives to the B1 Blue Strike
There are a few alternatives to the B1 Blue Strike.
Tour Striker 7 iron
The Tour Striker iron was the original training aid to feature a raised clubface. The Tour Striker’s leading edge is higher than the B1 Blue Strike and presents more of a challenge.
If you really struggle with your ball striking the B1 will be a great choice. For golfers after slightly more of a challenge check out the Tour Striker 7-iron.
Tour Striker Pro-x 7 iron
The picture above clearly shows what the Pro-X 7-iron is all about. This training aid takes the raised, small clubface to the extreme. For most golfers, this is not the right choice if you’re looking to improve your strike. However, if you already strike the ball well and want an advanced challenge check it out.
Summary
The B1 Blue Strike is a really solid training aid for golfers wanting to improve their strike. I would suggest you look at other options for working on timing and sequencing, such as the Orange Whip.
For more on training aids to improve your arm and wrist action check out our Tour Striker Smart Ball review and review of the Tour Striker Impact Strap.
Happy golfing – Will @ Golf Insider UK
