Dec. 1, 2016

The South Carolina golf programs are getting high tech in trying to get the most out of their student-athletes. The Gamecocks are working with MySwing Professional to fully analyze their swings so they can create greater consistency on the golf course.

“This is on the cutting edge of motion analysis, which up until now has been cost prohibitive,” said Puggy Blackmon, associate head women’s golf coach and director of golf development. “It takes instruction and analysis to a totally different level.”

“Too many times, golf instructors only capture swings when their students are struggling,” said Director of Product Development, Chase Cooper. “With our technology, we believe it’s also important to capture swings when students are playing their best. For example, if a South Carolina golfer starts to struggle after a few tournaments, their coach can capture a swing and compare it to a swing that was captured when they were playing at their highest level. The coach will immediately see where things went wrong, make adjustments, and get the student-athlete back to playing their best.”

Unlike older 3D motion capture systems, MySwing Professional can be used quickly. It doesn’t require a dedicated space, numerous cameras, or bulky wires that interfere with natural movement. A student can be suited up, calibrated, and ready to capture swings in less than ten minutes.

“MySwing Pro uses 17 wireless inertial body sensors and one shaft sensor,” Cooper said. “It provides more, and more accurate data, than any wireless system on the market. The system is fully portable and can be used anywhere with zero restrictions.”

This latest innovation allows freedom of movement for the student-athletes to get a true picture of their swing.

“It’s going to allow us to get a real model of the players’ swing,” said women’s golf head coach Kalen Anderson. “There is a training aspect of it, where if you are sliding and not rotating, there will be alarms that go off. There are a lot of really neat applications to it in terms of training and maintaining numbers and a model of their swing when they’re at their best.”

“It’s incredible what it shows us from rotation, to angles, to tilt and everything else,” Blackmon added. “It shows you where they may be a little off and not being as efficient as they can. It also allows our trainers to look at the data and see where they may have a weak spot or somewhere they need to be conditioned or strengthened, or even where the body may be out of line. It gets a lot of people involved, so we’re not just looking at their golf swing. We’re looking at injury prevention as well.”

This unique tool will be another great asset to help enhance the golf games of our student-athletes.

Bill McDonald, Men’s Golf Coach

Utilizing technology is nothing new to the South Carolina golf programs, and working with MySwing Professional is something that the coaching staff feels will make in impact on the student-athletes.

“I’m very excited for our players and program to have access to MySwing’s cutting-edge technology,” said men’s golf head coach Bill McDonald. “This unique tool will be another great asset to help enhance the golf games of our student-athletes. I’m looking forward to seeing the benefits of it out on the course this spring.”

“We started out with state-of-the-art video,” Blackmon said. “Then we went to a Doppler radar technology. This is another move in the right direction with technology, so we’ve got it all covered. We’re the first school that is introducing this type of technology, so we’re very excited about it.”

“It’s going to be a really neat thing in terms of our training, too, especially in the offseason,” Anderson said. “They’ll be able to see things on a screen to see when they are doing things right. Some of our players are very visual, so this will help.”

One of the benefits of the technology is that it can be used quickly. Once the student-athlete is suited up, it only takes a few minutes to calibrate the sensors and get started.

“I think the players are going to like it,” Blackmon said. “The beauty of it is, we’re not trying to get everyone to swing exactly alike, but we want them to do it as efficiently and with as much power as they’d like. It’s that little extra that can hopefully put our players ahead of the competition.”

Any statements contained in this article attributed to MySwing Golf or any of its representatives are the opinions of MySwing Golf and/or its representatives, and are not those of the University of South Carolina, its officers or employees. Statements of any employee or representative of the University of South Carolina contained in this article are not intended, and should not be interpreted, as an endorsement or recommendation of any product or service of MySwing.