SwingTip Gets CES Launch

John Strege wrote about it in more detail last September, but it's still interesting to see the potentially cool SwingTip data collector get a launch at the Consumer Electronics Show and backed by $4.4 million in financing.

Tiffany Hsu of the LA Times reports on the $129.99 one-ounce device that latches on to your club and can last 18 holes before sharing the data with your smart phone. Roll your eyes, but Hogan would have been all over this!

But for its Santa Clara maker, the selling point is the gadget’s ability to track and analyze users’ golf swings using motion sensors. SwingTip then wirelessly transmits 3-D animations of the golfer’s movements via Bluetooth to iOS or Android mobile devices.

The tool can gauge swing path and speed, club face angle, impact zone and more. The metrics are broken out individually into a scorecard and also used to compile an animated video tutorial showing the swing from three different angles.

Comments

[Pepperdine]

Too many of these gizmos out right now to know which one to go with!

[Elf]

Seriously Hogan dug it out of the dirt bc it was the only only option. If he'd had a video camera he'd have used it :p

[digsouth]

Is this legal to use in a ghin round? Anyone know? It is not a ''swing aid'' in the classic sense.

Pretty darn neat, and real swing data, not static,meNING DRIVING RANGE....oops......

Former #1 may use it to detect pancke house performance. OOOOOhhh.....sorry, sorry...that was so wrong.

[Chicago John]

It's an interesting question Dig. I'm sure there's a rules honk on here that will look up the rule but my take is this: As long as you aren't uploading that info to your phone until AFTER the round, then it should be legal. Therefore you aren't getting any feedback until after you play.
Just my two cents though and others may have a different take.

[jack]

Rules wise, I think if you added the device to a club or removed an already attached device during a round you'd be in violation of Rule 4-2 as the playing characteristics of the club had been altered.

Rule 14-3 prohibits artificial devices that might assist a player in making a stroke. So a player who used one during a round would be in violation of 14-3 unless the company has gotten an official opinion from the USGA that it'd be allowed during play.

I've asked the company whether they've received such an opinion but I haven't gotten answer yet.

[jack]

And to add to my post above, the USGA is pretty specific about what is and is not allowed with smartphones etc. in Appendix IV of the Rules (see paragraph 5). For example, if you use one of the GPS apps for distance determination on your iPhone you can't even have the standard apple Compass app installed on the device, much less use it.

[No Longer Used to be Former Stack & Tilt Convert]

I have a watch that measures tempo during a swing,, it is very cool. The problem is that I cannot use it during tournament play when my tempo is more likely to go bad.

[BenSeattle]

Ho hum. Yet another gadget that will vault sod-busting chops into the netherworld of scratch golf. Wake me when it happens. So many gizmos, gadgets and swing aids to be found but name ONE that has actually made a difference. After watching thousands of hacks at ranges from coast-to-coast.... all apparently determined to completely ingrain those loopy, unbalanced and fundamental-free whacks toward the ball, I'm convinced that the average golfer would be best suited to standing in front of a mirror and take the time to ACTUALLY BUILD A SOUND SWING. There, without the distraction of a golf ball, he could work on the simplest basic building blocks: steady head, good turn, good extension, lower body initiate the down swing, etc. The average duffer, I'M CONVINCED has No Clue as to what a good golf swing looks like and thus he has no idea how is own swing appears.

I can only shake my head when the guy next to me at the range goes to grab another bucket. ("Yeah, that over-the-top, off-balance slash is something you REALLY want to keep.")

[Pepperdine]

@Ben -

Whoa. :) I agree though - except I'd say that the average duffer (which includes myself from 1-2yrs ago ... just learning more proper now) does not know what a good/proper swing FEELS like. It was a huge lightbulb to one of my longer handicap buddies (he's around 22, I'm a 16 now) when I told him that basically no weight/feeling goes OUTSIDE his back knee/inside of back foot.

He said "but that makes everything so much tighter-feeling, it doesn't feel like I'm moving the club that much ..."

I said - "yeah, but now your downswing will happen all by itself and you're basically just holding on for the ride as the club whips down and through."

Practical Golf by John Jacobs was the first thing I've read that really explains the club+ball+ballflight relationship in a manner I could understand. But, that being said, I'm excited to check out these gizmos! lol

[digsouth]

I have this yellow plastic thing that attaches to the club, and it is tits. this thing really helped me groove my swing positions, and helped me with a later release, and also a better finish/follow thru. just googled it in another window...

Here is a link. I don't sell these and I am not paid to endorse this, so please don't remove it Geoff, it really works...... a dude on the Canadian tour was using one a few years ago, and we started talking on the rang, and he was just like me---excited about how well it helped.

http://www.swingyde.com/E

Anyway, I had a speed gadget I let go when I was unable to play a couple of years ago, and now I want one as I am getting ready to start playing again, for real, in the next year. I find that it helps me groove the right shaft for how I am that given day, and I have some TM that has a changeable shaft provision- R something, and I have a bunch of shafts with the tip doohicky on them.. Fun to compare, and actually helps scoring if I am playing reasonably well....something I have not done in a long time ;) or :( actualy.

So anyway, I was thinking this deal may serve to give me that MPH reading, if I can access it on the range.

sorry fopr bad typng sticking keysa ans no reading glasses.

Check out the swigyde

[jack]

FWIW, the company replied that the device is not legal for use during a round. No surprise. I didn't get the feeling that they even submitted it to the USGA. Still looks like it could be a great learning aid.

[Charlie]

Here's a list of all the swing gadgets that i've found that will actually help high cappers improve their ball striking...

TourStriker Pro

[johnnnycz]

What a neato application/device thingy. I like the idea as a teacher to have all that swing data to look at after a student plays....so there is tangible proof when the students says "yeah on 12, I did exactly what we've been working on but I still duffed into the big pond!!" Now the teacher has an opportunity to pull up that specific swing and show the numbers...for better or for worse. With all that potential micro-analysis, there is a good chance of becoming wound up with too many techy swing thoughts.

@Digs: The swinggyde is a goodie and an oldie. That and a finding an old wooden driver, filling the shaft with lead shot and using said yellow thingy with it. Good for working on golf muscles and you get the shaft/clubface in the right positions. Also look up the Melhorn grass whip...functional in the garden AND helps the ole game!

I could go on about how teaching aids are good or bad...but in this day and age they are more necessary than ever....by far!

Reason being is folks are way "softer" than they were 20+ years ago. Talking "soft" like some folks who I teach appear to have ZERO feel for swinging anything let alone a club. I usually ask them "Have you ever tried to chop down a tree with an axe or used an old school sickle?" They usually say 'NO...that was too dangerous, no I've never touched an ax in my life or did yard work really except walk behind a machine".

Not that I'm some sort of Timbersport lumberjack since I grew up in a city, but at the age of 10, my dad taught me how to chop wood for the camp fire and such...and as I got older, I graduated to the bigger/heavier/more dangerous stuff to swing at wood (double axes, wedge+sledge, etc...). These days most folks never have those experiences growing up...they're too busy being coddled to death. IMO those old school physical chores helped my generation way more than any fancy video analysis or swing guru can today. Nowadays we have to teach what used to be a passive skill the majority of folks already knew how to do by default.



Off the soapbox...phew

[digsouth]

Johnny....

thanks for all the commentary. I can see how this gadget could be a real aid for instruction....you need to report on it in a few months, from that perspective, as well as your own usage.

1 swingyde--- comes with a very good DVD---not long and BS-y, but pretty consise, and helpful

2 the item pictured on the right is what I use, and it is helpful to use this ''naturally, and you can feel what a normal release should fee like.

.http://www.americantrails.org/resources/info/tools3.html

3 I have an old R5 I drilled a hole in, and filled, as well as having shot in the shaft. Everyone has an old metal headed driver around, and they are only a drill and a bunch of BB's from a $80 training aid.

digsouth
PTBSA