While the game of golf is more than 400 years old, the application of technology to teach the game and improve play really came online only in the last decade. Now, a national chain of small, dedicated golf school across the country are putting the latest training tools to work improving scores for players of all skill levels.
With centers throughout the United States, Canada, Japan and Korea, GolfTec offers instruction, club fittings and indoor practice facilities through the calendar year. The concept for the last 20 or so years is to combine personalized coaching with the most advanced tools currently available.
Also: Last Minute Father’s Day Golf Gift Guide
The typical GolfTec shop uses multiple hitting bays, including some with simple nets for one on one coaching and others rigged up to Foresight Launch Monitors. Unlike simulators who only read ball speed and trajectory to indicate where a ball hit into a net would’ve gone on a virtual golf course, Foresight reads a myriad of other swing stats.
GolfTec adds their own analysis abilities to the simulators with their sensors to study performance set alongside the SwingTRU system. SwingTRU is GolfTec’s study into proper golf mechanics. The player is hooked up to a harness that relays body movement and positioning to software able to look for possible flaws in a swing set against SwingTRU analytics — paying special attention to hip sway and turn along wth shoulder tilt and bend.
Having tried the SwingTRU equipment, this reporter can say it takes a swing or two to get used to the apparatus attached to the body. After that, the system provides a quick education on where a swing can go wrong. While one rip at the SwingTRU and Trackman won’t fix a golfer quickly, they can provide effective starting points.
The only potential glitch in the GolfTec model is the almost complete reliance on technology as its main teaching tool. The schools’ instructors know their golf, understand the simulators and correctly employ body metric techniques. The customers get their money’s worth. But, there’s a lot to be said for the human element in golf — of feeling one’s way through a swing or putting stroke. No technology can take the place of that.
It’s easy to recommend the technology and service of GolfTec to any serious or aspiring player. The entire service will only make a golfer better, as long as he or she always remembers golf is a human game and some of your soul and passion needs to go into it beyond what the numbers say.
