Help with your game is available off-course - in your office, in your pocket, in your bag.
There’s something single-minded, almost monastic, about golf. It’s one man, one stroke at a time, and when you’re serious, each stroke is important. At the moment of truth each player is alone, and because the golf ball usually has to go some distance, a small inaccuracy in the stroke results in a major inaccuracy at full distance. It can be nerve-racking — and then consider that your boss, or worse, your peers, may be standing next to you.
Naturally a whole industry has grown around the sport, much of it aimed at improving the player’s technique. Once upon a time a knowledgeable colleague or your caddy might have advised on such matters as your swing. Now you can get personalised instruction from a pro.
Tech multinational Fujitsu recently made news around the world because of a product it launched at the annual CEATEC electronics trade show in Japan last month. ETGA Swing Lesson is software that uses information on movement from a sensor-equipped cellphone to help you improve your golf swing.
All the user has to do is attach the phone, with software activated, to his waistband, and perform a practice golf swing. The software will recognise the swing in 3D and calculate how effective it was, based on 16 “checkpoints” decided by Japanese professional golfer Tadashi Ezure, of Ezure Tadashi Golf Academy (ETGA). An image of Ezure even appears on screen to dispense advice. Results are measured differently for drivers, irons and short irons, and you can save and compare your results.
But this is only the latest iteration of an old theme. Indoor golf training can involve as little as a glass turned on its side on the office carpet for putting practice. It can be as complicated as a full golf “simulator analyser”, a good version of which starts at about $900. A full virtual golf suite such as that from P3ProSwing.com, with simulator and analyser, stance mat, hanging impact projection screen with netting, cage, touch screen monitor, projector, and running software, apart from the course simulation and game software options, not to mention maintenance accessories, can take your bill to $15,000 and beyond.
This kind of equipment gives the amateur golfer a detailed swing analysis, including such arcana as club face angle, swing path, angle of attack, club face angle, swing tempo, toe and heel height, sweet spot deviation and club head speed. The software can also show you how the stroke you played would work on different real-world golf courses.
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Sooner or later, a golfer will step out onto the green. There a whole other set of gadgets comes into its own, for mechanical tasks like keeping score, checking progress and choosing which club to use.
One useful new piece of software is Caddyr, an “app”, or software application, written for the iPhone or iPod touch and downloadable from www.caddyr.com. Users like it because it can track scores of four players and does a “detailed analysis about your scorecards and your gameplay evolution”. At $19.99, as phone apps go, however, this is pricey.
GolfCard, also designed for iPhone or iPod touch, makes keeping score easier. Reviewers say that the user interface is easy and fast to navigate and use. You can even track each shot with GPS, if the course you are playing has made available its satellite images. (Another popular phone app which shows you satellite images of courses is AirVue Golf — compare with up to $400 for standalone golf GPS sets.) This feature doesn’t yet work with courses in India — but you can at least fill out all the information for a course yourself if you can’t download it. This app, too, is a little expensive at $7.99 on Apple’s iTunes.
For on-course advice, one option is a new release called ProCaddy — Professional Golf Club Selector. At $1.99 from iTunes it’s cheap and potentially useful. It helps you pick what club to use for what kind of stroke. Input the distance and swing power you need on its screen sliders and it will suggest a club, foolproofing the process by displaying a picture of the club’s head. (Using this, however, may mark you out as a rank amateur, so be circumspect.)
And last in this sampling of apps: you may occasionally need help with the rules. Select the necessary parameters and the $9.99 iGolfrules app will quickly tell you what's right. It also works with Google’s Android phone operating system.
Though virtual tools can travel with you in the compact confines of your touch screen phone, real-world tools will have to be carried physically. The typical bulky golf bag for clubs won’t hold your full range of equipment and accessories. Samsonite’s Golf Trunk Organizer, $29.95 on Amazon.com, will hold all your non-club essentials, from golf shoes (three pairs) to T-shirts to cigars and after-cigar mints.
That is merely practical. Far more impressive — and playing golf is at least partly about appearances — is the Louis Vuitton Golf Bag. At $8,400 it costs as much as three Tata Nanos and comes (hold your breath) with an umbrella and four free tees. It won’t hold as much as the trunk organiser, but it will raise your profile, if not your game, on the golf course.