Colin Byrne's Column: The driving range mid-week of a European golf tour event is often chaotic. It is the final tune-up before the start of competition and those who are not playing in the pro-am have to fill in the day somehow.

You can spot the diligent ones. They clock in for an early session and disappear as the mid-morning mob arrive. For many, the time spent on the practice range is not a true indication of the effort put into grooving their swings. For Mike Clayton, the former tour player from Australia, practice sessions entailed walking from one end of the range to the other with a comment for most golfers, until he had done enough talking for one day. Extremely sociable, but probably one of the reasons he lost his playing rights.

By the end of the pro-am day you can judge the level of boredom by the condition of the distance markers on the range. Usually the closer ones become dart boards for the more destructive of the idle golfers. Drilling low two-irons into the 50 yard marker board is a favourite pastime. In Hamburg last week the organisers had replacement boards made up in anticipation of the destructive target practice. By the weekend the sign hitters have usually gone home.

In an effort partly to help players to improve their swings and more importantly to keep those with the attention spans of young goats from losing concentration, the progressive golf coaches have come up with a variety of teaching aides to keep their pupils in touch with what they are trying to learn.

Looking down the vast range at the Gut Kaden Golf Club last week I saw a stunning array of gadgets and implements that players were using to hone their swings. What I originally mistook for a small, old-fashioned road sign at the right side of the range was an aid for the English player, Simon Hurd, to keep his back swing shallow as he took the club away.

If the contraption had been at the crossroads of two country lanes, I would have expected to see "Hamburg 25 km" written on it and not "Swing low Simon".

Moving further along I came to the promising young South African, Charl Schwartzel. He was bashing balls away merrily with a kids swimming floater around his right arm. His broad-brogued caddie, Edinburgh Jimmy, was standing behind him waiting to give his opinion of what he thought of the use of swimming floaters on the driving range. As indecipherable as ever, I had no idea of what Jimmy was trying to tell me.

I reached Henrik Stenson who was hitting balls wearing ear plugs.

"A teaching device?" I enquired.

"Roxette," the swede replied.

Braces, garters, arm bands, rubber bands and knee supports, amongst other accoutrements are seen regularly on the range. If anyone comes up with a new gadget, it's out there.

I saw the Dane, Soren Kjeldsen, with a contraption that looked like the sock drawer from his hotel. A wooden box-like structure that was supposed to help Soren keep his putting stroke symmetrical as opposed to having his socks at the ready while he practiced his putting.

Another Scandinavian, Martin Olander, had what looked like a stick of rock, like you used to get at the seaside when you were on holidays. It was a small tube, less than a foot long, that the Swede simply putted away along the green. Apparently the tube went straight at the hole if the player struck it correctly, and deviated if not struck purely. How basic this seemed compared to the wires and leads hooked up to anyone who wished to try the machine in operation at the other end of the green.

With the state of the fusarium-infected greens in Hamburg last week I think even the Germans could be accused of being over analytical, given that the ball spent more time in the air than it did on the putting surfaces at Gut Kaden.

If they are honest, no golfer will say that they have never tried some sort of implement to help them with their game. Some have used pretty complex aides, others quite simple ones, like a head-cover tucked under the left arm. But none have been as minimalist as Jeff Hawke's method of preparation.

The South African was a strong believer in visualisation. He once played a course with just his imagination. He had no clubs, no caddie, no ball and certainly no swing aides. Apparently he confessed to shooting a rather inferior 74. This would leave the gadget men feeling a little empty handed.