Sonic Golf Club
Reported July 2005
LA JOLLA, Calif. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- The game of golf is all about physics, from gravity to the flex of the shaft. That's why a Yale physics professor is combining his expertise and love for the game to create an amazing new golf club.
Golf is all about the swing.
"You're not supposed to swing hard to get the ball far, you're supposed to control the club and yourself to hit the ball farther," says Tom Wyer, an assistant golf pro at Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, Calif.
Physicist Robert Grober, Ph.D., has combined his professional experience with his passion for golf to create a device that offers real-time audio feedback to help you get the swing of things.
"When you can hear your motion, that turns out to be a very useful thing," says Grober, of Yale University in New Haven, Conn.
Grober's Sonic Golf Club uses motion-detection sensors and wireless technology to coach the user. When a player swings, sensors measure the speed of the club. This triggers an electrical signal picked up by wireless headphones. The player hears an orchestra of sounds from low to high pitch so they can "hear" the speed of their swing.
"It can help people make real changes in their golf swing," Grober says, "just by changing what they hear instead of telling them physically to do this or that or the other thing with their hands mechanically."
The technology can easily be inserted into any golf club. The sound is different for each person, but when professional golfers swing, they generate the loudest, highest pitch sound when hitting the ball.
Beginning golfers, like Kimberly Malasky, often create a high-pitch sound before or even after they've smacked the ball. After using the Sonic Golf Club, Malasky says, "I felt that I had more control over my swing whereas before I think my swing was more, kind of, all over the place." It's a physics lesson she hopes to take to the tee.
PGA professional Bill Greenleaf has tested the Sonic Golf Club with 40 golfers. He says 98 percent of them made a dramatic improvement in their swing within 15 minutes. The Sonic Golf Club should be available to consumers in January for about $400.
Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:
Janet Rettig Emanuel, Ph.D.
Associate Director/Science & Medicine
Yale University Office of Public Affairs
(203) 432-2157
janet.emanuel@yale.edu
http://www.SonicGolf.com
Click here to watch the video.
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