Taking High-Tech Swings
Since the 1990s, when oversized titanium drivers and solid construction golf balls made a massive impact on the game, much of the golf technology discussion in golf equipment has had to do with club and ball designs. In recent years, companies have touted the use of AI in the engineering process to eke out additional performance gains within the Rules of Golf.
The proliferation of high-end shafts and countless clubhead options threatened to become too much of a good thing for PGA of America Golf Professionals who provide clubfitting services to their customers. Now AI is becoming one of the technologies – along with launch monitors from the likes of Trackman, Full Swing, Foresight Sports and Flightscope – that clubfitters are using to streamline the process and provide a better experience to customers.
At Club Champion, the nationwide clubfitting franchise that employes dozens of PGA of America Professionals, fitters have access to the company’s AI Fitter Co-Pilot. Club Champion Sales Training Manager Brad Syslo, a PGA of America Professional himself, helped design the tool to assist fitters in navigating the plethora of fitting options to the benefit of the company and its customers.
“As a clubfitter, you always have a ‘pitch count’ in your head as you’re working with a golfer – you’d love to spend three-plus hours with every client, but that’s a lot of time and a lot of swings for most people,” Syslo says. “Golfers start wearing down after a while. So, what if there was a tool to leverage all the data we have to make the process more efficient?”
Syslo says data from the 500-plus daily fittings done at Club Champion stores are fed into a database that its AI Fitter Co-Pilot can use to suggest head and shaft combinations to fitters during a session. He says the recommendations from the AI tool augment a trained fitter’s skills, making for a more comprehensive fitting experience with fewer swings – making for a happier customer and more time on the appointment books. Many fitters are also augmenting their fittings with proven technologies like SAM PuttLab for putter fitting and Bal.On smart insoles to help understand ground forces during the swing.
“This isn’t going to replace trained fitters, especially PGA of America Coaches who understand the golf swing and how it relates to fitting – it’s still an art and a science,” Syslo says. “The AI tool doesn’t land the plane. It’s just making some suggestions that you might not think of on your own, and you can add those to the process with a lot less trial and error. Our customer research shows that golfers want a thorough fitting, but they want it to be efficient and they like that AI is involved.
“It’s another way of giving golfers what they want, and another way of showing that PGA of America Golf Professionals are the ones who can help them become the players they want to be.”
