A gold standard for golfers
Can the perfect swing be just a mouse-click away?

by Doug Forshey
Virginia Business Options
December 2006

Tiger Woods makes the game of golf look easy. Watching him collect one championship after another, more than one weekend golfer has probably thought, "Well, if I could swing the club like him, I could play under par, too."

Now those golfers have a chance to put that theory to the test.

The Wintergreen Golf Academy at Wintergreen Resort offers ModelGolf, a training technique that uses sophisticated computer modeling to help golfers perfect their swing. The program matches an individual's golf swing to the "perfect" golf swing as part of the academy's one-, three- or five-day golf training programs.

First physical statistics, such as height, weight, shoe size and a person's level of golf proficiency, are fed into the ModelGolf computer program. The golf pros then videotape your normal swing using two synchronized cameras, which shoot you head-on and from the rear. Once the video is captured, the computer overlays a colorful "framework" on your video comparing your swing with the perfect swing. That Holy Grail of golf swings is created by taping the top 100 professional golfers and combining their movements into a single virtual golfer.

To size up your swing, the program breaks it into 10 components so that you can analyze posture and club positioning. An instructor notes your "errors" - places where you deviate from the computer model - as part of the overall package. The instructor also provides convenient drills you can use to improve your swing. The video is uploaded to the ModelGolf Web site where you can refer to your swing and link to the drills.

ModelGolf currently is available only at a selected golf resorts such as the Grand Cypress Golf Academy in Orlando, Fla., and Kiawah Island Golf Resort on Kiawah Island, S.C. It was developed by Ralph Mann, a former Olympic hurdler who holds a doctorate in biomechanics.

He became interested in biomechanics three decades ago as a way to improve his athletic performance. He analyzed film of the world's best hurdlers and tried to incorporate their techniques in his training for the 400-meter hurdles. As a result he won three NCAA championships, seven national championships and the U.S. Olympic trials. In the 1972 Olympics, Mann won the silver medal in the 400-meter hurdles.

Using an advanced computerized teaching system, Mann began training other U.S. Olympic athletes. Since 1980, his computer models have been used to train virtually all U.S. Olympic hurdlers and sprinters. Athletes using his technology hold more than half of the world records in these events. Now his innovative system also is being used in Major League Baseball and NFL training camps. In 1983, Mann founded CompuSport International, the forerunner of ModelGolf, and turned his attention toward improving the game of weekend golfers.