By Brendan Mohler

Getting shafted: Answer eight questions about your game, and this app will make suggestions.

The complexity of custom-shaft options has been a source of confusion for decades, but a new app makes it far simpler. Developed by Dan Sueltz of Colorado's D'Lance Golf, a Golf Digest 100 Best Clubfitter, the independent MyGolfShafts app includes a free Lite version that recommends shafts from about 5,000 choices, based on answers to eight questions about your swing, ball flight and budget.

A Pro version ($6) is designed for use with a clubfitter and processes data from a launch monitor (in addition to your answers) to make more personalized recommendations. Both apps suggest local and 100 Best Clubfitters and are available only for Apple devices, though an Android version is coming soon.

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By John Strege

The growing motion sensor segment in golf heretofore has focused virtually entirely on the full swing, but 3Bays, which itself began with a full-swing motion sensor, has now applied its technology to analysis of the putting stroke.

The 3BaysGSA Putt device weighs a third of an ounce and plugs into the grip end of your putter. Via a Bluetooth connection to an app on a smartphone or iPad, it relays information about your putting stroke. It tracks face angle, consistency, attack angle, tempo, backswing time, downswing time, impact speed and swingpath distance.

It will instantly show an animation playback of your path in both side view and top view, to see how the putter is moving throughout your stroke.

The 3BayGSA Putt sells for $200 and can be purchased through the company website.

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By John Strege

The quest for better golf through technology has been undertaken by SkyGolf, maker of the SkyCaddie rangefinder, with the introduction of SkyPro.

A swing analyzer and training tool, SkyPro features a small, lightweight device (under an ounce) that attaches to a golf club just below the grip and provides a variety of swing feedback, via bluetooth, to a smartphone app.

The SkyPro captures as many as 100,000 data points from address to impact, the company said, including clubhead speed, swing path, club rotation, face angle, swing plane, impact position and tempo. It does this automatically, too, without the golfer having even to push a button. You can see your swing in 3D, from virtually any angle, at any speed.

It also features groove and practice sessions that identify faults in less than perfect swings and provides alerts for common swing miscues for club rotation, shaft angle and swing plane. Practice tips are provided by renowned instructors Hank Haney and Michael Breed.

It has a sleep mode to save power, but can accommodate eight hours of swinging on a single charge. Morever, in the event you can't use a cell phone on the course or range, the swing information is stored in the device and transfered to your smartphone afterward.

The SkyPro retails for $200

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By John Strege

The level of expertise often found in technology designed to improve your golf game can be impressive.

Krishna Ramchandran, for instance, was a senior research scientist for Citrix Online, working on such products as GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC. His latest venture is a Boston-based company he co-founded with Amit Jardosh called Ubersense, "a personal coach in the palm of your hand," the company says.

It has developed a series of sports apps for iPhone and iPad devices that allow video analysis of various athletic motions. "The U.S. gymnastics and volleyball teams used Ubersense in preparing for the London Olympics," Jake Schuster, a spokesman for the company, said.

The latest addition to its lineup is Ubersense Golf, a free app available from the iTunes store. Ubersense Golf allows the recording and analyzing of a golf swing, with a frame-by-frame slow motion playback, including the ability to telestrate, a la John Madden.

'Tap a little pencil icon and everything you touch becomes a line or circle of whatever you want to use," Schuster said. The circle tool might be used to see whether the head is moving around too much during a swing, he said.

The Ubersense Golf allows for side-by-side comparisons of your swing over a period of time, or a side-by-side comparison of your swing and a PGA Tour or LPGA player's swing from a library of them provided by the app or from downloading one you've found on the internet. You can even overlay two swings (shown in the screenshot here).

The swing videos can be forwarded to an instructor via email or saved to a Dropbox account provided with the app. "The primary use is to get in-depth swing analysis from your coach without being with your coach," Schuster said.

UPDATE: This post has been updated to reflect a recent change in the name of the product from SwingReader Golf to Ubersense Golf

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By John Strege

Annika might not qualify as an empire yet, but she is a brand and a continously growing one at that. There is Annika wine, the Annika Collection at Cutter & Buck, Annika Course Design, Annika Financial Group, Annika Fragrance and the Annika Academy.

Annika Sorenstam's latest venture is the Annika Academy App for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

The free version offers five videos from her instructors at the Annika Academy at Reunion Resort outside Orlando. The $4.99 version offers 59 video lessons.

Interactive online lessons are available, too, for a fee of $59 per swing analysis in which Annika Academy instructors use state-of-the-art software to analyze the consumer's swing, while providing drills designed improve it. An annual membership of this feature goes for $499 and includes a side-by-side comparison of the consumer's swing and Sorenstam's swing.

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By John Strege

Recent rules kerfuffles in both the British Open (see here) and the PGA Championship (see here) suggests that two issues: The rules are complicated and many likely could user refresher courses.

This brings us to a Golf Rules Made Easy and its Golf Rules Quick Reference app, version 2012-2015 ($9.99 in the iTunes store). It promises "answers to your rules questions in a matter of seconds," though you'll have to buy it to find out if it would have done so for Adam Scott in the British Open and Carl Pettersson in te PGA Championship (see links above).

It features rules for medal and match play and provides an interactive tool called Relief Finder that will inform you immediately whether you are entitled to free relief. It comes with graphics, animated illustrations and videos.

The app is based on the book, "Golf Rules Quick Reference."

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For those who find something of interest on the Internet, but forget to bookmark the site, or perhaps end up with a cluttered bookmark bar, this might be for them: Clipix.

It is a website that allows users to easily clip whatever they want from the Internet and save it to a personal clipboard. It is free and, in fact, could save them money, too.

"It was born as a utility to organize our lives online," company founder Oded Berkowitz said. "We see things on the Internet all day long and many times you want to get back to what you saw online and can never find it again. When you start a Clipix account, you drag the clip button onto your bookmark bar and anytime you see anything online you want to keep, you click on the clip button and it's placed in a customized clipboard."

So where does its utility for golf come in? Berkowitz, an avid weekend player and a member of Montammy Golf Club in Alpine, N.J., explained that if, say, one was shopping online for a set of irons, they can gather all the information they need on one clipboard. More to the point, Clipix comes with price drop alerts. If you're shopping for a set of irons that are priced at, say, $799 at an online store, but you don't wish to pay more than $699, you can instruct Clipix to inform you when the price reaches that level.

"I'm in New Jersey," Berkowitz said. "In two or three months, the golf season will be over and prices will be dropping. You don't have to do anything about it. I do all the work. You can tell the system what price you want to see those golf clubs and a little orange dot appears next to the image of the golf set."

If and when the price of the irons drops to that amount, a green dot replaces the orange dot. Clipix also emails you a notification of the price drop.

Clipix also can be used to gather information for, say, future golf trips that can be synced with your golf partners' Clipix accounts. Anytime any of them add something to the clipboard all will have access to it simultaneously.

"The way I use Clipix in golf is to clip all kinds of golf equipment I'm thinking of buying to compare shop," Berkowitz said. "I also love to look at golf videos -- of Ben Hogan's swing or Tiger's swing. I have several clipboards of golf videos. I have a short-game [instruction] clipboard, too."

Clipix apps for the iPhone and Android are available, too. To sign up, go to Clipix.com.

-- John Strege

The fact that the Nike Golf 360 is free is not necessarily the best part of this new app for the iPhone or iPad, though that surely enhances its appeal. But beyond that is its utility for improving your golf game by focusing on your game itself, your swing and your body.

Scorecards for more than 13,000 courses can be downloaded for the purposes of keeping score (for up to four players) and recording statistics (fairways hit, greens in regulation and putts). The stats can be kept and tracked over several rounds to gauge progress (or regress) or simply to show areas of one's game that needs the most work.

It also enables the user to upload videos of his or her swing that can be analyzed by what Nike calls its Swoosh Staff of PGA of America professionals, movement profesionals and clubfitters.

And, finally, it comes with golf-specific workout videos and training tips.

-- John Strege

When the brands Apple and Microsoft are invoked, it tends to get one's attention, as it has in the case of GolfSense, a 3D swing analysis device that attaches to a golfer's glove and provides instant feedback to an iPhone or iPad.

GolfSense is the brainchild of Robin Han, who once worked on software and sensors for Microsoft Research Asia and has a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from Bejing University. The device, which retails for $129.99, is now available at all Apple stores in the U.S. and Canada.

The information it provides includes clubhead speed, estimated carry distance, swing path, swing plane, tempo and even tips on how to fix what might be wrong with your swing.

"We've been working with a couple different professionals, one of them Brett Taylor in the Sacramento area," said Jason Fass, CEO of the company. "We view our role in this relationship as providing you with the data and high-level tips: 'We notice this, you should look at the following things.'"

The device weighs only 17 grams and attaches to the back of the golf glove. It is equipped with four motion sensors that relay information via a bluetooth connection to an iPhone or iPad that has the free app installed on it.

-- John Strege

In 2006, a Chicago-area attorney, Angelo Papadourakis, attended the PGA Championship at Medinah and noticed Thomas Bjorn, after a particularly poor round, working with his instructor, who was taking his club and phsyically maneuvering it into the proper positions, "like the first time he was playing the game," Papadourakis said.

"I thought, 'if he needs instruction like this, how is it that we as amateurs think we can go out to the range and hit 50 buckets of balls and get better?' We amateurs needed a feedback loop."

So he went to work on a device that evolved into the SwingSmart, a small lightweight (19 grams) sensor that attaches to the shaft just below the grip and provides instant feedback to your iPhone or iPad via a Bluetooth connection. Swing speed, tempo, face angle, angle of attack and a 3-D swing view are all provided.

The SwingSmart was developed with input from noted instructor Peter Kostis, who also is a spokesman for the product.

"Our original concept is, we measure the club," Papadourakis said. 'We wanted to find somebody I considered a proponent of golf motion and the motion of the club. Peter was the number one guy. I see his analysis every week on CBS. I like the fact that he's a neutral observer of the golf swing, that he wasn't necessarily a system guy. Peter saw the value in it immediately, which is great."

Kostis was helpful in the SwingSmart containing only the most useful information to keep it simplified. "He really narrowed it down for us, to keep it simple for everybody," Papadourakis said. "We made sure that as a golfer you want to be able to set your iPhone on your bag, look up and see the information. We don't want you to have to play with it. We made it simple on purpose."

One of its features is the ability to use what you would consider your best swing as the model with which to compare the rest of your swings.

"What you can do with this is use your own best swing as your swing model to pursue," Kostis said in a promotional video. "If you hit one just the way you'd like to hit it the rest of your life you push save on your [iPhone or iPad] and that swing now becomes your swing model."

The SwingSmart ($299) will be available later this spring through its website. The company also will have an infomercial with Kostis airing on the Golf Channel.

-- John Strege
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