MEASURING UP
Golf center lets local players compare swings to those of pros
A Colorado-based company is allowing local golfers a chance to compare their swings to touring pros using motion cameras and digital recreations of famous golf courses.
“We’ve memorized all the motion measurements that the PGA Tour players on average get to, and then we try to get the students as close to those as we can,” said Charles Hickey, manager of the new Golftec location at 6540 Main St. “Golf is very technical.”
Golftec opened the facility last month in the same shopping center that features Ecco Wine Bar. The training center is one of four in Connecticut, with the others located in Westport, Stamford and West Hartford. Golftec has more than 240 locations around the world, according to the company.
The facility includes rooms with projector screens, each of them displaying a golf simulation. Students hit golf balls against them to prompt the simulation to show how the ball would’ve landed on a real course, while a monitor shows recordings of their swings. Captured by motion cameras, those recordings track exact swing measurements, including the bend and turn of a player’s hips and shoulders.
“I can see exactly what I did wrong there or what I’m working on with a coach,” Hickey said as he hit wedge shots in front of the camera. “There’s always something to work on with golf.”
Swing evaluations are about $125, and lesson packages start at $500, according to the company.
Outside the rooms is an area for golfers to practice their putting skills under a large image of two-time PGA Championship-winner Justin Thomas. Those putt shots are also captured by motion technology, with the angle of the club face and direction of the stroke among movements tracked.
Along the putting green are lit-up racks of golf club parts where customers can get clubs custom-fitted. On Thursday, a customer could be seen testing new equipment as he hit shots in the golf simulation room under the watch of a coach.
Almost 75 percent of golfers who have participated in these fitting sessions increase the distance of their shots by an average of 25 yards, according to Golftec.
The facility is open from 8 a.m. every day and closes at 8 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Monday and Friday, the facility closes at 6 p.m. and 5 p.m. on weekends.
The facility is currently run by a two-man team of Hickey, a graduate of the Golf Academy of America in Carlsbad, Calif., and coach Tom Bopp. Their training to become certified Golftec instructors included a two-month course in Denver, Colo.