Improve by embracing technology

From shot tracker sand launch monitors to Gps trolleys ... tech can help lower your scores

Iplayed golf recently with a gentleman called John who “didn’t do” technology. He had one of the first steel-headed Callaway drivers in his bag; blade irons with faces about as hot as an iceberg; he used balls he found in the rough, a worn Bullseye putter and he guesstimated all his yardages.

The thought of owning a mobile phone didn’t really appeal (“if people really want me, they know how to get me”). He wasn’t very sociable on social media (he’d never heard of Twitter) and the only pad in his life was used in cricket.

Part of me admired his ambivalence (as we waited between shots and I checked emails on my phone!). But good technology – in your house, in your car, at work – is meant to make life easier, safer, more enjoyable. And it can help you play better golf.

We’ve dedicated a chunk of this issue to the best tech in golf, with a particular focus on the tech that can help lower your scores.

We’ve deliberately steered clear of the technology in hot new drivers and ultra-forgiving irons (though Ping’s new G400 range on page 104 seems to deliver on both counts) and instead focused on the gadgets and gizmos designed to make the game a bit easier, a bit more fun, and identify where you can improve and lower your scores.

There’s all the new GPS and laser tech for 2017, plus the latest launch monitors. But we’ve also found some really clever stuff, such as the glasses that help you read putts, the brainwave-reading headband that’s helping Justin Rose, the unbelievable putting tech now being used by the word’s best, plus the shot-trackers that, according to one inventor, we’ll ALL be using within four years. Well, all except John!