Golfers love gadgets.

Whether it's a $600 driver or a $200 training aid or a newfangled tee that you can get free at the country-club pro shop, golfers are constantly on the lookout for anything that can help them improve their game, even if ever so slightly.

And the good news is that some of this stuff actually works.

"There are some very purposeful, very useful learning aids" on the market, says Dave Pelz, the short-game guru who is Phil Mickelson's coach.

Still, he adds, "most golfers don't know what the problem in their game is," making a training-aid purchase a "hit-and-miss thing." Further, Mr. Pelz says, training with a bad gadget, or the wrong one, or even having the right device but using it incorrectly, is "worse than no practice. Practice does not make perfect; practice makes permanent. And if you practice as poorly as most golfers do, then you will be a permanently bad golfer."

To separate the good from the not-so-good, we went on a golfer's dream reporting assignment: find some new and innovative gadgets that will allow a golfer to get better. If only a little.

GETTING INTO THE SWING

There are enough golf-swing training aids out there to fill a lumberyard. Heavy clubs, light clubs, hinged clubs, dual-hinged clubs, clubs with fans on the end to slow the swing and power it up, clubs with form-fitted grips. All promise extra yardage that if added together would let golfers hit balls to the moon and back.

The SKLZ Gyro Swing, made by Pro Performance Sports LLC of San Diego and selling for $220 online, has a 20,000-rpm gyroscope in the clubhead that doesn't promise extra distance, per se, but will help golfers, in the words of its celebrity endorser, "make the right golf swing without a thought." The golf swing takes a little more than a second, which doesn't leave much time for thinking, so that's a good thing.

Rick Smith, a top teaching pro in Florida who endorses the Gyro Swing, notes that 85% of golfers in the world slice, most of the time because they don't have the correct feel for what a golf swing is supposed to do. "Words are useless," he says, and the golfer, trying to correct the swing by beating balls at a range, only makes it worse.

The battery-powered gyroscope in the Gyro Swing emits a hum as the device is slowly swung back and forth. If the swing gets off plane -- as it does for most amateurs -- the gyroscope fights to get it back on plane. When the swing is on plane, it becomes almost effortless. Like a new driver in a car, the swing is to be learned, or relearned, slowly, Mr. Smith says.