Interesting story in the Akron Beacon Journal about Sean O’Hair, who at the time of this post was tied for the first round lead at Firestone, and his love affair with state-of-the-art, golf gadgetry. Quite the sponsor he has, by the way, in CDW!
Techy
The 26-year-old PGA Tour pro has a golf room in his home in suburban Philadelphia that might put the mega-retailer’s electronics department to shame.
Living near where his wife grew up, O’Hair can’t play year-round like many of his peers who gravitate to warm-weather climates. So aided by one of his sponsors, CDW, he has outfitted a golf workroom with the latest high-tech equipment.
”Sean has totally embraced technology,” said Mark Gambill, chief marketing officer for CDW. ”He’s got a putting area; he has a software and digital tool that will allow him to track his putting. It tells him if he’s hitting it square on the head, if it’s slightly tilted, speed, angle, approach, and he feeds that into a software system. He also has video cameras where he monitors his swing for his driver and irons. He’ll put that into software and analyze it and shoot that information to his trainer.”
CDW also works with Paula Creamer of the LPGA, by the way.
And speaking of technology, Phil Mickelson divulged during his Wednesday press conference that he and short game instructor Dave Pelz have been using a software program that analyzes tour statistics and applies them to various top venues.
[There is] a computer program that we’ll use to identify what element of the game is more important. If you improve one area by 10 percent, it lowers your score the most. I mean, this is an interesting statistic, I think, that I’ll share with you, that I’ve found is that if you increase any statistical category 10 percent across the board, it lowers scores. Okay, 10 percent fewer putts, obviously lower scores, 10 percent more greens, 10 percent closer to the hole, 10 percent more fairways, every one lowers scores except longer driving distance.
That said, it was a lack of driving distance that caused the driver to go back into the bag on Saturday at Torrey Pines, wasn’t it?
