3 cool gadgets to improve your Golf

I’ve written before about how a golf link is like a time capsule to a green paradise. Away from the hustle and bustle of the mechanical age. But that doesn’t mean that technology and golf don’t go together. There are a lot of learning aids which help you improve your game, so here’s a look at three such cool gadgets.

One fine day I went over to the Tolly club to soak in the experience of golfing. Fresh from having read Wodehouse’s books about the game, I was eager to compare fiction with fact. While Plum’s books bordered on the outrageous, even he probably never envisaged these outrageously modern gadgets to improve one’s game. Wodehouse advocated different ideas to improve your handicap. In the book Heart of a Goof, he promotes the theory that if a Golfer’s game is deteriorating, it affects him in other walks of life and vice versa. Another outrageous idea was to wear plus fours so horrifying to the eyes that they give the wearer a stellar confidence in his own game and distracts the opponent so much that they are thrown off their game.

In modern times, there are a lot more straightforward gadgets to improve your game. This day I saw a lot of cool gadgets in play which I had no clue ever existed. I like coming across gadgets which at a glance don’t tell you what they are intended for. To the layman’s eye, the following could be anything. The layman won’t see that this equipment is worth lakhs. No amount of Wodehouse books I read prepared me for these.

The K vest

You may have seen the latest Sherlock Holmes movie where Holmes visualizes a fight prior to fighting. Whilst visualizing, he switches into x-ray vision and sees himself cracking various bones of his opponents. The K Vest lets you visualize your swing mechanics just like that. Well, not quite like that, but the principle is same. It gives you a video of your swing and gives a 3D animation of it for isolating your motions. The K-Vest is basically a vest that you put on. It measures your swing efficiency and gives feedback, allowing for corrective measures. It uses a video camera and sensors placed in the vest which measure the movements of the golfer. There are other ways of wireless motion analysis training systems involving sensors placed around you, but having built in sensors in a vest is the most efficient way to go.

Keep in mind that these are learning aids. They don’t replace a teacher for beginners, they are instruments to be used by teachers to analyze a golfer.

The Explanar Swing System

This instrument comes from the ideology of one of Golf’s most revered teachers, Seymour Dunn (pictured above), who is an inductee in the Golf teacher’s hall of fame. He postulated that an inclined plane from the target line through the shoulders dictated the correct manner of swinging the club. He realized that grasping this concept might be difficult for many people so he created a plane out of canvas, then cut out the center so he could stand inside it.

While it looks like something done to demonstrate form, it can also be used to teach form. The Explanar swing system looks like a giant wheel. Its meant to be used to correct your swing motion. Instead of a Golf club, you use a power roller, a heavier stick which comes with the Explanar. Swinging the club within the parameters of the Explanar enables you to learn the perfect form through repetition. Using a heavier club reinforces muscle memory. It also has a radial mat for proper foot work. The height of the Explanar can be adjusted to match the height of the golfer. This machine imbibes power, accuracy and consistency through its use in a golfer.

This is what it looks like:

TOMI Putting system

TOMI stands for The Optimal Motion Instructor. While driving in Golf can be done by a caveman with a club or anyone with an umbrella, putting requires a sensitive touch. This gadget comes with a infrared transmitter clip which is placed on the putting mat and the camera unit analyzes the motion of the golfer to provide feedback. You just swing and your putting motion is analyzed in real time. It tells you the speed, impact, alignment, and basically breaks down your putting motion in great depth of detail. It is the smallest of the three gadgets here, but accuracy in putting can go a long way in improving your handicap.

PG Wodehouse would probably emit a hearty chuckle at the sight of people strapping themselves with all manners of apparatuses, but no distance is too far to get yourself up to scratch.