Remember the old golf videos made by Cybervision? The theory was if you just watched the video of a good golf swing over and over again you’d ingrain it in your brain and your swing would benefit. The $99.00 Teego Practice Ball Dispenser doesn’t show you a good golf swing to look at, but it does allow you to groove your swing.
What is a Teego?
The Teego is an automatic golf ball teeing machine. The unit looks like a funky gum ball machine. The top section has a spiral track which the balls are loaded into, and an extra ball/tee storage area in the center.
The Teego comes with brush tee which you solidly anchor into the ground. You align the Teego’s arm to the brush tee and now you have an automatic teeing system. Tap a button on the side of the Teego with your golf club and the Teego’s arm nicely places the ball right on the brush tee.
Groovin’
Let’s say you want to groove your driver on the range. Normally you’d grab a tee, bend over and grab a range ball, tee it up, take your stance and swing away. Then you’d have to bend over again and grab another range ball, try to find your tee and hope it’s not broken, tee it up again, take your stance and swing away. Repeat.
Groovin’ is much easier with the Teego: Tap the dispense button, take your stance and swing. Now that you’re in your stance you can stay there. Tap-swing-tap-swing… You can stay in your stance and knock about 100 balls without bending over once or looking for a tee.
On the range
You’ll get some funny looks from people on the range when you bring this contraption. It is quite strange looking. But minutes later everyone will be asking to try it. (just make them put some of their range balls in the hopper).
I did find I could really start to groove my swing. I could concentrate more on my foot position relative to the ball. Since the ball is teed in exactly the same place every time you can really experiment with moving the ball around (forward/back) in your stance and changing your stance from open to closed.
If you’re like me and have a bad back, the Teego is great. Bending over 100 times to tee a ball up can really tire out your back. I’ve left many practice sessions with a terribly sore back, but not with the Teego.
You can also use the Teego without the brush tee and the unit will simply dispense balls onto the ground.
The kids love the Teego and play with it indoors all the time. They’re fascinated with the spiral top section and having the unit dump golf balls on their toy cars, barbies and last but not least…the cat.
Issues?
I have a couple of issues with the Teego. They claim the unit is “portable” and show a lady carrying it with the included shoulder strap. I’m sorry, but this thing is pretty big. It is NOT portable! You’d need a good sized trunk to fit a Teego and a set or two of clubs.
The 2nd issue I have is with the brush tee. If you hit a couple of bad shots it’s easy to knock the brush tee out of it’s spot in the ground. Now you’re bending over. That’s not as big of a deal as is the durability of the tee. After about 3 full Teegos worth of balls, the tee started to wear in the striking direction and the balls were falling off. I have to bend back the brushes to get the ball to tee up correctly.
Conclusion
If you’re on the range constantly and love to groove your swing, get a Teego. If you go to the range infrequently perhaps you should pass.
I see the most suitable place for Teegos is as a driving range feature. I could see country clubs or cool ranges having units set up for their members instead of piles of balls.
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