One of the easiest areas of your game to work on at home, besides putting, is your chipping providing you have some space to work with. Portable chipping nets are a one of the best training aids to use in the garden and when I saw the Saplize chipping net, what came with it and what the cost was, I knew I had to get my hands on one and put it to the test to see if the price was too good to be true.
WATCH: See the Saplize chipping net in action among our best golf gadgets for under $100
While it was injury that stopped me practicing my chipping for a substantial period of time, a lot of golfers prefer to avoid playing in inclement weather and with shorter days in the winter, practice after work is often not a possibility. That’s where the Saplize chipping net comes in. You can purchase just the net for $39 or you can opt for the whole package which includes a set of eight foam golf balls and a hitting mat with three different playing surfaces for just $58, making this easily one of the best golf gadgets for under $100.
Sure, you can go online and purchase a net and then balls and mats separately but the convenience, price and quality of the Saplize product reassured that I didn't make a mistake purchasing the bundle. As I alluded to earlier, daylight closing in throughout the winter makes it extremely hard for club golfers who work to find time to get out to the course in the day and practice, so the ability to chip the foam balls inside to a target was something I particularly enjoyed (annoyingly so did the dog)!
The mat that comes with the bundle has three different playing textures so you can get a feel of how the club is going to glide through this artificial grass. One plays similar to a fairway and has a little more padding despite the grass length being fairly short. The second is a tight-cut, fringe-style surface that is a little firmer and the last has longer grass to mimic the first cut of rough around the greens. While it’s hard to replicate any lie you’re likely to see on the course, I thought this was a superb attempt and when using real balls in the garden, I did notice how the different surfaces affected the spin and flight. The inclusion of the mat in the bundle also stops you taking divots out of the grass in the garden or more importantly the carpets in the house.
The net itself is really easy to set up and fold back down. Like all the best golf training aids, it collapses and can be stored away very easily in a convenient travel case with a handle. The net is stable and can be secured in the ground with some pegs and was capable of handling some of my thinned chips that had some serious speed to them. There are three target holes so golfers can practise, high, medium and low shots although I feel the larger net on the outside designed to collect any stray shots could be slightly bigger.
All in all this really is a superb piece of kit that can be set up for use all year round and keep your short game sharp. For an extra $20, it’s definitely worth going for the bundle deal that gives you the foam balls and mat over just purchasing the net itself, although the net alone still represents excellent value.
