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AboutGolf simulators add to custom-fitting experience
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Think golf is only an outdoor sport? Bill Bales begs to differ. Bales is president of AboutGolf, a leading provider of golf simulators to golf retail stores, pro shops, indoor golf centers and individual homes.
AboutGolf's simulators aren't just video games on steroids. An AboutGolf simulator, now in approximately its 12th generation of software, features what the six-year-old company calls 3Trak - three-dimensional, high speed photography technology Bales says provides accurate tracking feedback for ball trajectory, velocity and spin - the core ingredients for custom fitting.
"The product has been received better, I think, than any other product of its kind by users,'' said Bales, whose software company produced the popular Microsoft Golf game of the 1990s. "It's significantly more accurate and therefore more reflective of what happens when a player really hits a shot. It's precise for all types of shots and the only system with the clinical capability of measuring spin and spin axis on the ball.
"We now starting to factor in the actual lift and drag coefficients of each particular ball. Without that you really can't be accurate.''
And without that information, a player can't receive proper feedback.
"Because of the accuracy in getting real feedback to the players, they really react to the information and have a very high probability of improving,'' Bales said. "It's a quantum leap in terms of accuracy in tracking the golf ball. So when they go out on the course they not only are better but the game they had on a simulator is the game they take out to the course.''
With that in mind, Bales believes the biggest roadblock to growing participation and rounds played isn't time and the other usual excuses.
"It's because people simply decide they have better things to do with their time,'' Bales said. "If they meet expectations or exceed expectations as far as their performance - at whatever level that might be - that's going to be a strong contributor to changing their minds that golf is worth their time. I think our simulators have had a tremendous impact on that.''
And these days, golf needs all the positive feedback it can get.
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