Continue Scrolling Downward for Additional Information on the Several Machines We Use in Custom Club-Fitting, Computerized Swing-Analysis, and Video-Assisted Instruction.

At Bob Burns Golf, we take great pride in extending personalized services to our customers. Thus our efforts to develop successful, individualized instructional programs are essentially inseparable from our concerns that each individual golfer—of whatever size or age or shape, or level of experience or ability, or physical condition—gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in which the many types and forms of contemporary golf clubs and their component parts can (and should) be selected (and quite frequently, modified or customized) to fit the characteristics of his or her swing.

To these ends, we make regular use of what sometimes seems like a plethora of devices to aid in teaching and custom club-fitting. Some of these teaching-aids are readily recognizable as such, but numerous others are so seemingly strange or unusual (or peculiar and proprietary to Bob Burns Golf) that a first-time visitor to the Learning Center is often almost bug-eyed. With each of these aids, we aim to give our students detailed instructions, along with drills and exercises, that will enable them to build repetitive golf swings and solid foundations for continuing improvement.

Among the most notable and helpful of the devices we use as aids to instruction and club-fitting are several of the most advanced technological developments of recent years, including a computerized SPORTECH Swing Analyzer (most often used in conjunction with a video-camera), a P3 PRO GOLF SIMULATOR, and a ZELOCITY launch monitor:

Video Assisted Instruction

Some of our customers probably think we are addicted to the video-camera. We use it regularly—to create an initial and replayable base-line recording of our students’ habits and tendencies; to provide visual confirmation of the teacher’s diagnosis and suggested corrections; to aid in illustrating the kinds of detailed information being revealed by the swing-computer, the golf simulator, and the launch monitor; to create audio-video-tapes for review and study between and during lessons and practice sessions; to document changes and improvements in a student’s swing; and to pinpoint aspects of the swing that need continued development or refinement.

The SPORTECH Swing Analyzer

Most often used in conjunction with the video-camera mentioned above, the SPORTECH swing-computer is a high-tech device that enables us to compile detailed information about a golfer’s swing—weight-distribution, weight-transfer, and swing-speed, for example—the characteristic distance and path of shots—and even the angle of the face of a club at impact.

     We regularly use the swing-computer both in teaching and in custom club-fitting—more or less as follows: We ask a golfer to hit a number of shots with clubs of different kinds and styles of heads, with shafts of different flexes and flex-points (in both steel and graphite), and even with grips of different sizes and textures. The program on the swing-computer displays the results of each swing, and averages them for each club tested. We then compare those averages, and rank them in order of best fit. More often than not, we repeat the process, further comparing and contrasting clubs, and gradually eliminating those that produce the least desired results.

     The swing-computer’s program is, thus, an invaluable tool for fitting a golfer’s clubs in a objective manner. It enables the individual golfer to participate in making decisions based on some confirmable results, rather than upon superficial appearance or feel or popular reputation. After we have completed a comprehensive swing-analysis, we then put together a detailed fitting-sheet in which we combine and correlate the statistics provided by the swing-computer with a golfer’s physical measurements. Only then do we select or modify or manufacture a set of clubs (or even a particular club) best suited to a golfer’s specifications, needs, and desires.

     Only after we have satisfied ourselves that an individual’s clubs provide a reasonable fit, do we (or should we) get down to the kind of extended or refined teaching or consultation that will modify or correct a golfer’s stance or swing—and here, too, in teaching and learning, the information revealed by the swing-computer is obviously  valuable, for beginners as well as for those who are far more experienced—because the swing-computer can reveal not only the initial or usual characteristics of a golfer’s swing but also (especially, perhaps, when the computer’s results are accompanied by video-tapes) the kinds of changes that often occur over the course of a season, or even over the course of a week or two.