30 March 2005

Want to improve your golf game? Just listen

Golf is a game of feel. You know a good shot by a combination of the feel of the swing, ball contact, and follow through. When the feel is right, the score is low.

Or so they say.

Robert Grober, on the other hand, listens to a different tune.

The Yale professor of applied physics and physics combined his passion for golf and his professional expertise to produce a real-time audio biofeedback device for teaching and training golf.

Grober developed a golf club that has motion-detecting sensors, similar to those used for safety air-bag deployment in cars, embedded in the shaft. The sensor from Sonic Golf, Grober's company, allows for real-time audio feedback. "We were able to identify a signal from the sensors related to the speed of the club," Grober said. "We convert this signal into an audio soundscape that is universally intuitive to golfers and instantly interpretable, providing real-time audio feedback on the tempo, timing, and rhythm of the golf swing."

The clubs have a wireless data link to headphones and to a computer. As the golfer swings, an audio soundscape generates what represents the speed of the club—a soft, low pitch when the club is moving slowly, scaling to a loud, high pitch when the club is moving quickly. A computer collects data, which allows for further analysis of elements of the swing, including the duration of the backswing and downswing, the force of the release, and the swing-to-swing reproducibility.

This is a new way to develop tempo, rhythm, and "feel" and to train muscle memory in the golf swing. Additionally, it provides a mechanism to connect the golfer and instructor, allowing them to explore the sound and data together and to make swing changes by altering the soundscape.

Grober filed for a patent through the Yale Office of Cooperative Research, and Sonic Golf licensed the technology. He has also tested his clubs with PGA teaching professionals in Pinehurst, N.C., Southern California, Hawaii, and Florida.

"From listening to Sonic Golf's audio feedback, all the students made improvements in their swings in just 20 to 30 minutes," said Bill Greenleaf, a PGA Master Professional and director of instruction at the Dunes at Maui Lunai, Hawaii. "Some fine tuned and some made dramatic changes that I would not previously have thought possible."

For related information, go to www.isa.org/sensors.