Equipment

Bushnell Golf Reveals Latest Innovation with the Upgraded Launch Pro

Bushnell Golf Reveals Latest Innovation with the Upgraded Launch Pro – Newly Configured Ball-Enabled Launch Pro Provides Professional Grade Technology to Golfers at Every Skill Level.

Overland Park, KS, October 11, 2023 – Bushnell Golf, makers of the #1 laser rangefinder in golf, today introduced their latest product advancement with the Ball Enabled Launch Pro personal launch monitor. Developed in partnership with Foresight Sports, the revamped Launch Pro is built on the industry’s best and most widely accepted technology and aims to bring professional grade ball-tracking to the everyday golfer.

“Innovation and technology advancements are at the cornerstone of our mission at Bushnell Golf, and we are proud to announce this latest addition to our product line,” said Jason Seeman, Global Director of Sales at Bushnell Golf. “The Ball Enabled Launch Pro will offer our customers access to the best technology in personal launch monitors at a more accessible price point .”

“Launch monitors have become a vital part of the game of golf, and this update to the Launch Pro will help us satisfy the demands of consumers,” Co-President at Foresight Sports Jon Watters added. “Now more than ever, golfers are looking for ways to improve their game when they cannot make it out to the course, and we are proud to deliver a personal launch monitor that provides golfers with an exceptional playing experience—both indoors and outdoors.”

The base model, which carries an MSRP of $1,999, provides ball only data to golfers. The data points provided include ball speed, carry distance, spin rate, spin axis, and launch angle (horizontal & vertical). The Launch Pro can be upgraded to also include club data for an additional $1,500 at the time of registration.

In addition to club data, optional software packages – powered by Foresight Sports – are also available. The Gold software subscription, which costs $499 per year, provides users with access to FSX Play, FSX Pro, FSX Subscription, and 25 different virtual golf courses. A 14-day free trial will be provided with every purchase.

The Launch Pro is available now for purchase at BushnellGolf.com and select golf retail outlets nationwide. For more information on the new Bushnell Golf Launch Pro, please visit: www.bushnellgolf.com

About Bushnell Golf

Bushnell Golf is the industry leader in Golf Measuring Devices, including laser rangefinders and GPS devices. Our brand has been the #1 rangefinder in professional golf for more than a decade with 99.3% of PGA Tour Pros choosing to use our product. Our guiding principle is to continuously advance the game by bringing breakthrough game improvement technologies to heighten both enjoyment and player skill.

About Foresight Sports

Headquartered in San Diego, California, Foresight Sports develops the most advanced and most trusted performance analysis solutions in the golf industry. Outdoors or indoors, from cutting-edge launch monitors and software to the ultimate virtual golf experience, Foresight Sports is your total technology solution.

Contact: Derek Schuman – Bushnell Golf (913) 752-3426/dschuman@bushnell.com

On The PGA Tour with TrackMan

Most golfers these days have heard of TrackMan. We’ve seen and heard it mentioned on TV countless times.

What is TrackMan? It’s is a Doppler radar device that tracks both the golf ball, the club and the clubhead. TrackMan provides 26 data parameters on club delivery and ball flight along with numerous analytic tools.

With the ball, it accurately measures the distance, the direction, the spin rate, the spin axis, the launch angle and the ball speed (among other things).

It also tracks what the clubhead is doing to the ball to create these performance measures — things such as swing path, calculations of the face angle at impact or the relationship of the clubface to the swing path (square, open or closed in measured degrees), the angle of attack (neutral, up, or down in degrees), calculations of the loft at impact, the clubhead speed etc., are all tracked. Why guess when you can track?

PURE AND ACCURATE DATA

Building Trust, One Shot At A Time

Ball flight laws are unquestionable. So is the quality of TrackMan’s data. TrackMan is considered to have set the industry standards for accuracy in ball impact and ball flight measurements. That’s why the leaders of the game trust TrackMan.

Quality data leads to quality analysis which again fosters sound decision-making and, ultimately, superior performance. Critical data is captured at the impact moment between the club and the ball, meaning in 1/2000 of a second. This essential data is instantly translated into an easy-to-understand language on a portable device for analysis and increased understanding of the swing. That’s why reliable data is indispensable for Tour Players striving to lower their scores and to maximize their performance. Jordan Spieth, Jason Day & Dustin Johnson trust TrackMan.

Tiger Woods is also a strong convert. “A lot of times what we’re feeling that we are doing is not exactly what we’re doing,” says Woods. “I just think you’re trying to match up feel and real, and as you make swing changes, you make slight alterations, and you start realizing what the club is doing at impact and what that can translate into in the performance of a golf ball.”

Many Tour players use TrackMan to make practice more fun and precise while confirming what they are feeling.

Dustin Johnson, for example, uses TrackMan daily to dial in his wedges. Dustin went to No. 1 in the world by improving his wedge play by working on different trajectories and distance control—low-spinners, high-stoppers, one- to two-bounce stop and check. Rory McIlroy is doing the same thing. Players can structure their own tests or use the already-scripted tests built into the software and get instant feedback. TrackMan shortens the hours, days, and months to improvement.

Some say it’s too technical. I would argue just the opposite and it’s only too technical if you don’t understand TrackMan. If you understand TrackMan, it simplifies things. It is a vital tool in my teaching arsenal and those of other instructors worldwide. It’s portable, it’s accurate and TrackMan is constantly refining its software parameters to give players and instructors a better understanding of what to do with the information provided.

PUT IT INTO ACTION

How A Trackman Lesson Can Improve Your Game Fast

The average golfer would benefit greatly from a TrackMan session with a Certified TrackMan Professional. With TrackMan you will quickly understand the why and the how.

We coaches use TrackMan to best determine the course of action to make you a better player. You will improve immensely the first day. With TrackMan you’ll quickly become an insider of the most revolutionary training tool in the industry.

Sean Foley, Justin Rose and Cameron Champ’s instructor, says, “It’s a moderator somewhere between science and Harvey Penick.”

Bob Grissett teaches in Boca Raton and Palm Beach, Florida. Reach him at www.bobgrissettgolf.com

Get On The Golf Balance Board

As far back as 1988 I built, by today’s standards, a very crude Balance Board.

Today’s version of the TPGOLF Balance Board has come light years in terms of stability and quality, as well as the uses I have developed.

The original premise is simply, as its title suggests, to train, through live action and repetition, the ability of the recreational golfer to make a complete golf motion while in total command of his or her balance.

Let’s be very clear: understand that, without your ability to swing your club in absolutely perfect balance, finding the center of the face (we call that the “sweet spot!”) is at best a crap shoot. One of the first things my students realize is that to achieve perfect balance they may need to swing the club at a different tempo. Imagine that.

[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”15″ display=”basic_imagebrowser”]

THE WINNING EQUATION

Tempo + Balance = Quality of Contact. This translates almost instantly into a controlled, compressed ball flight.

Next, your ability to understand, in space and time, where your weight is at different junctures of the swing is critical to being able to sequence a motion that will allow you to time that moment we refer to as impact. Understand I’m not suggesting that you become a “dual post” player or a “single axis” player. I’m saying that whichever method you employ, you’d best know how to feel/train your pristine arrival to a solid impact point!

The TP Balance Board will certainly help with that.

Of course, last by not at all least, that magically elusive element of golf we often refer to as timing can be learned on the TPGOLF Balance Board simply by making swings on it. The brain is a wonderful learner, given proper rehearsals.

SHORT GAME SOLUTION

I also use the board to train pitching and chipping. For example, for the student to whom I suggest setting up 60 percent/40 percent on his or her left foot (as a right-handed player ) to hit a nice crisp low pitch and run shot, but he often falls off the shot, the TPGOLF Balance Board is a great short game tool.

The beauty of the TPGOLF Balance Board is that every drill I suggested above each can be done right at home, in your living room. Think about that. What if every night you would hop on the board and follow any of the above suggestions for 10 to 15 minutes each? Where would your balance, weight shift, and timing be six months down the road?

I also have students—once they are experienced with the TPGOLF Balance Board—hit live shots using it on the practice range.

If you think a TPGOLF Balance Board should be a part of your daily golf life and would like to purchase one, email me at tpatri.mindspring.com for details. Include your full name, email and cell number.

Tom Patri is a Golf Tips Magazine Top 25 Instructor in America and a Contributing Editor. Tom is also a former Met PGA as well as South Florida PGA Teacher of the Year. Tom is the Director of Instruction at The Hawthorns Golf and Country Club in Fishers , Indiana, May-October, and November-April he is based at The Esplanade in Naples, Florida. You can reach Tom via email tpatri@mindspring.com Text 239-404-7790 Visit him at www.tompatri.com

A portion of this lesson was reprinted from The Six Spoke Approach, available on Amazon.

Teaching With Tech: V1 Video Golf App

Golf is the ultimate aspirational sport. Anybody who dares to pick up a club and stick with it — and is serious enough to sign up for lessons — is guaranteed a lifetime of swing tinkering, of revelations and dead ends, of fighting bad habits and sweating out good ones. The cliché is spot on: This game is a metaphor for life, so you might as well find a coach, or a series of them, who will make that path a little straighter (and on plane, and longer, and closer to the pin). And if you’re armed with the V1 video golf app, you can be on opposite sides of the continent.

As a mostly self-taught guy with more than four decades in the fairway fray, the lessons have been sporadic at best, and I have the middling handicap to prove it. Yet like most golfers, I will strive to “get better” until I draw my last breath, or at the very least my last takeaway. And that means getting some help.

There are plenty of great teachers in my neighborhood, but one of the best in America, Tom Patri — former Met PGA Teacher of the Year and South Florida Teacher of the year, and a contributing editor to this magazine — lives and works clear across the country. When he offered to take a look at my swing via V1, I jumped at the chance.

The Six-Spoke Approach Part 5: Club Fitting

Editor’s Note: Following is the fifth of six in-depth instruction pieces in digest form from Top 30 Instructor Tom Patri’s 2005 book, The Six-Spoke Approach To Golf. Tom is one of the most respected teachers and coaches in the game, and we’re honored to add his deep passion and knowledge to the pages of Golf Tips.

In the year 2016 — now 2017 — it is beyond baffling to me why anyone who wants to play this game at a higher level than they currently do still plays with equipment that doesn’t fit them. If you wear a size 10 shoe, how would a size 9 feel? If you have a size 34 waist, how would size 40 pants work out?

I often hear from students when I suggest an equipment fitting that they are “waiting until their swing improves.” No. 1, that may take a while. No. 2, mis-fit equipment will NEVER allow you to swing to balance. With mis-fit equipment, sustained improvement is unlikely if not impossible. Properly fit equipment will allow a balanced motion to, in fact, be developed.

Six-spoke approach author Tom Patri — Tom Patri

Now let’s talk about fitting and the process a bit. Fitters are like doctors, lawyers — and golf instructors, for that matter. There are experts out there, and there are pretenders. It’s important that the person steering the fitting process is in fact an expert and fits without an up-front agenda. Allow me to explain. For one, I never fit my own students. Why? Because I’ll prejudice the fit. Since the person is my student I have thoughts about what he or she might need. A fitter and the process should be pure, without prejudice and based on factual occurrences (some might call it a science) during the fitting.

Do I look over the specs after my student’s fitting is complete ? Yes, in fact, since I’m a trained fitter myself I insist on reviewing the fit with both the student and the fitter before the student makes the final financial commitment to purchase new equipment. I do this just to understand what the expert found in the fitting process and since the student and I have worked together to be sure he/she understands what the findings showed and why we are moving in a particular direction with shaft flex, lie angle or any other factor. I want all parties to be on the exact same page.

Because I feel so strongly about this important game improvement process, I have long-time relationships with fitters in both my Florida and New York teaching locations. In New York I have worked with Woody Lashen and Pete Makowski at Pete’s Golf in Mineola for years. Pete’s Golf is recognized as a Top 100 fitting location. The boys at Pete’s have done over 75,000 fittings over their 30-plus years in the business. In Florida I work with True Spec Golf in Bonita Springs. Ryan Richardson and his guys do a first-class job and have recently opened a world-class fitting facility. At True Spec I work with Josh Musselman, also a recognized Top 100 Fitter. Both of these fitting locations employ the latest technology, making the process both streamlined and highly scientific.

After the process is complete, one of the things that attracted me to both of these fitting facilities is that once the students’ clubs are delivered if we discover for any reason some aspect of the fit that needs to be tweaked, both locations stand 100 percent behind there fits and allow my students to bring the clubs back for any needed adjustments. Understand that even though these fits are highly technology-based there is still that one curve ball, THE HUMAN FACTOR.

Once the clubs and the student arrive back on my lesson tee, we now are ready and have a realistic opportunity to teach and coach the student to be able to swing to a balanced condition. So often when I see a student for the first time, they are handcuffed to a degree by the tools of the trade. Because they have tried to learn for an extended period of time with various aspects of mis-fit equipment, they have developed non-balanced compensations to try to both get the rock airborne as well as get it to travel in some way toward the target.

There are so many fitting factors: length of club (I see drivers much too long all the time, especially in the hands of my lady golfers); lie angle (no chance to properly compress as well as direct the ball with a bad lie angle); shaft flex and shaft weight (these two factors critically affect a player making balanced motions in tempo, or not); and grip size.

Fitting has come light years even in the last decade. With the advent of extremely technically accurate launch monitors and fitting systems that allow the mix and match of club heads and shafts in the blink of an eye, you can hone in on exact combinations and very often within an hour have the golfer swinging in a much more balanced action while not working nearly as hard with better results. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

It is my opinion, and that of any talented fitter, that equipment can surely translate into bad habits. Conversely, properly fitted equipment can allow you to have a fighting chance to develop a balanced and efficient golf motion. A properly fit set of clubs will change your golf life.

Spoke 1: The Body

Spoke 2: The Mind

Spoke 3: Analysis

Spoke 4: Time Management

Spoke 6: Simple Technique

Tom Patri is founder of TP Golf. He teaches at The Esplanade in Naples, Florida. He also spends limited time both on Long Island, New York, and Maryland June-October. View his teaching and coaching bio at www.tompatri.com and reach him directly at tpatri@mindspring.com or (239) 404-7790.

It’s All In The Grip

A molded grip is used with a short club for two reasons: 1) to properly place your hands on the club; and 2), using a shorter club helps you to see the connection between the grip and the face of the club. The grip is one of the most abused fundamentals in golf because it truly is the only connection to the face and the golf ball.

You can see the connection of my target hand, in front, and my non-target hand netted close together. This molded grip gives you the correct feel so you can transfer that to your golf club.

Another good training tool is a yardstick. The yardstick provides you with the same feel as a molded grip in that when you actually grab the yardstick, it places your hands on the club in the correct position. You can see in the photo with both hands on the yardstick, they’re netted close together, just as in the photo using the molded grip.

Dana Rader, LPGA, is the National President of the Ladies Professional Golf Association’s (LPGA) Teaching & Club Professionals membership. She’s the founder and owner of Dana Rader Golf School in Charlotte, N.C. Visit www.DanaRader.com.

Maintain The Cup In Your Left Hand

Here’s a tip for low-handicappers who have a hard time controlling the distance of their short irons.

The problem usually lies with the path your club takes as it approaches the ball. Because better players tend to swing from more inside the target line, their clubface can easily shut on shorter shots. This approach may generate a lot of distance on longer shots (because the clubface is turning over), but it doesn’t produce much distance control. In fact, often it will lead to hooked shots. And that’s not an optimum shot shape for your control irons.

To remedy this, keep your left wrist cupped throughout the swing, especially just before impact and into the finish. (See the color photos at right.) When you try this, I want you to feel like you’re hitting a soft cut shot. Practice at first with just your left hand, then place your right hand on the grip and retain that feeling. Hold these shots off a little and watch the ball fly straighter and stop on a dime.

Top-25 Instructor Zach Allen, PGA, teaches at DeBell Golf Club in Burbank, Calif. For more info, visit zachallengolf.com.

Polish Up Your Finish

One of the best ways to get your swing in check is to focus on your finish position. To simplify, I like to think of two ways you can finish your swing, with each way representing the type of shot you wanted to hit.

First, lets look at the finish in the larger photo. Looks good, right? Can you guess what type of shot this finish represents? If you guessed a fade, you’re right. As you can see, I’ve rotated my body onto my left side, the clubshaft is behind me, and the hands are about as high as my head position. My left elbow is away from my body pointing behind me, meaning I didn’t have a strong release of the hands. It’s a great position for those who naturally fade the ball, and for those who battle with too much hook spin.

On the other hand, if you’re a player who favors the draw, the smaller photo below is more suited for you. Notice how the club finishes more to my left, and my left elbow is more forward? This indicates I’ve done a good job releasing my hands through the shot and will likely hit a draw as a result. Try to mimic this position if you like hitting it right to left or if you struggle with slicing the ball too much. It just might help.

Despite the differences in my two finishes, both are in perfect balance, with my weight on my left side and my right heel off the ground. Keep those constants in mind, polish up your finish and start seeing better results.

Top-25 Instructor Karen Nannen, PGA, teaches at Desert Highlands in Scottsdale, Ariz.