The Loop

New training aid can help perfect weight transfer

April 13, 2011

The scientific study of the golf swing would likely amuse the old guard that figured it out on its own, but even it might have been able to benefit from aboutGolf's newest product, the Balance Pro, featuring dual force plates on which the golfer stands that delivers comprehensive analysis of the transfer of weight throughout the swing.

Chuck Winger, vice president performance products for aboutGolf, calls it another tool in the instructor's arsenal.

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"I saw this last week a player who at impact had 50 percent of his weight on his left foot and 50 percent on his right foot," Winger said. "Most instructors I think are going to conclude he's giving away a lot of power by making that move."

Winger said the man, 63, was hitting his 6-iron 125 yards with his weight evenly balanced. He was shown the data and given ideas on a better weight transfer and he eventually hit his 6-iron 155 yards.

"I'm not going to tell you that the guy went to the golf course and produced that swing," Winger said. "I don't think so. But at least he gained a useful tip and some drills to help promote the feel of a better weight transfer without the force plates.

"We don't profess to any good, bad, right, or wrong for any of these movements. We're leaving that up to the instructor or individual."

But what the Pro Balance can do for instructors is to allow them to develop a template of the weight transfer they are attempting to teach and use it to help students emulate it.

"Let's take Sean Foley, for instance," Winger said. "If he puts a guy like Tiger on the force plates and those two agree that the swing he just performed was absolutely perfect, theoretically they could use the template recorded as what they want to teach. You could put our software onto practice mode, take practice swings, and look to see if the pattern matches, comparing it swing by swing by swing."

-- John Strege