WHATS NEW IN THE GAME
By Tom Makin
Where ‘feel’ becomes ‘real’
HOW TO GET HIGH-TECH HELP FROM BOCCIERI GOLF THROUGH ROBO GOLFER THAT SCULPTS YOUR SWING
but -- with the exception of a handful of rounds -- lack the consistency to do so. Banging balls until my hands bleed hasn’t worked. Nor has reading instruction books, watching video tips or the occasional lesson on the range.
T 42 | AZ GOLF Insider | PREVIEW 2017
he frustrating part about being a 10-handicapper is I can hit just enough good shots to think I can break 80
But maybe a robot could? So I headed to Boccieri Golf in
Scottsdale, an indoor facility that’s home to two of just 15 Robo Golf Swing Trainers in the world. Before hopping on that high-tech machine though, an on-site professional —Blake Isakson, in my case —put me through a brief physical evaluation and then watched me hit balls on a simulator while a TrackMan compiled my ball flight info. We then moved over to another
hitting bay where close to $200,000 of technology was waiting to perform an X-ray of sorts on my swing. In front of me was the Robo Golf Swing Trainer, a nine-foot tall, 1,000-pound machine controlled by Blake from a nearby computer. My hands gripped an iron that was attached to its arms. Under my feet was a SAM Balance Lab force plate that measured weight shift during the swing. Strapped to my upper
Tom Mackin is hooked up to the Robo Golf Swing Trainer under the watchful eye of on-site professional Blake Isakson. The nearly nine-foot tall machine weigh a half ton and cost nearly $200,000.
body was a K-VEST with multiple but unobtrusive sensors that created a 3-D avatar of my swing. In front of me were computer screens showing the live output generated by the two latter contraptions. The overall diagnosis? That physical
evaluation revealed a limited mobility through my rotator cuffs — not good. That flaw doesn’t allow the top of my backswing to get as high as it should be, so Isakson programmed the robot to guide my arms to a slightly lower position — doing so enabled me to stay in a better posture. Then there was a rather inefficient weight shift revealed by the force plate I was standing on. When I lifted the golf club and my arms started
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COURTESY BOCCIERI GOLF
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