Robogolfpro review - This robotic training machine fits his golf game to a T [LAT]

[nevets88]

I have my doubts about this machine. It does have some influence on your movement, but you can still "game it", meaning, you'll get the club in the right places, but not your body, but have never used it, so maybe a demo might change my opinion.

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Meanwhile, there are only about a dozen of the robots open to the public around the country: two in Pebble Beach, this one in Irvine, one in downtown Chicago, among others. Purportedly, Tom Kite has one of these $150,000 contraptions in his garage.

Were I a rank beginner, I wouldn't hesitate to book one of the $150 teaching sessions. Imagine taking up golf with a near-perfect swing. Imagine the frustration that might save you, the psychic anguish you'd avoid.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-robot-golf-erskine-20160317-column.html

[SavvySwede]

1 hour ago, nevets88 said:

I have my doubts about this machine. It does have some influence on your movement, but you can still "game it", meaning, you'll get the club in the right places, but not your body, but have never used it, so maybe a demo might change my opinion.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-robot-golf-erskine-20160317-column.html

Sounds like a major flaw to me, swing feels come from the body not the club. It's a backward approach.

[iacas]

In my experience with it, and being on the machine, and seeing others do it, it's almost tough to swing really poorly. You have to do some weird things like intentionally move your head in a weird way, etc. to swing poorly. The club moves, so your grip moves, so your hands move, which moves your arms, and obviously that pulls on your shoulder, which moves your torso…

The farther you get from the grip the more likely the "pull" from the prior segment is less likely to be effective, but the "pull" is pretty strong and so long as you have some basic understanding of how to stand and to keep your head kind of down toward a fake ball, it's pretty good. And that's for pretty close to beginners.

@SavvySwede why didn't you try it out at the PGA Show?

[nevets88]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

In my experience with it, and being on the machine, and seeing others do it, it's almost tough to swing really poorly. You have to do some weird things like intentionally move your head in a weird way, etc. to swing poorly. The club moves, so your grip moves, so your hands move, which moves your arms, and obviously that pulls on your shoulder, which moves your torso…

The farther you get from the grip the more likely the "pull" from the prior segment is less likely to be effective, but the "pull" is pretty strong and so long as you have some basic understanding of how to stand and to keep your head kind of down toward a fake ball, it's pretty good. And that's for pretty close to beginners.

@SavvySwede why didn't you try it out at the PGA Show?

Interesting. Will look out for one if I'm ever near it.

 

[boogielicious]

3 hours ago, nevets88 said:

I have my doubts about this machine. It does have some influence on your movement, but you can still "game it", meaning, you'll get the club in the right places, but not your body, but have never used it, so maybe a demo might change my opinion.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-robot-golf-erskine-20160317-column.html

I would never use it. It would only encourage the robots. They would eventually take over golf and then the world. 

[GolfLug]

Paging Sir Charles....

IMO a great piece of equipment to learn club mapping for a beginner at least. I think many a beginner might be incredibly surprised where the club is (especially shaft angles) at each stage of the swing ideally. for e.g. many beginners try to throw the club head down from onset of downswing. The club moving through with lag and unraveling of lag at impact even if demonstrated only positionally and visually and without real dynamic feels would still be nothing short of eye-opening IMO. I would think positional feels (vs. dynamic feels) are still hugely beneficial to the beginners for sure but even advanced folks.  

Isn't that what we do when we check swings on camera..?.. sort of not trusting 'feels' completely and putting more emphasis on the picture. Picture driving the feels.  Also, I am guessing this might not be a full speed movement anyway. So not intended to give you a full dynamic feel experience anyway.

 

[Hardspoon]

I think the concept is interesting.  Just a thought/theory, but I'd guess that learning "backwards" like this would take a longer amount of time than the typical approach.  More reps (compared to a traditional lesson) might be needed to figure out how to get the club to be where the robot "wants" it to be?

If that's true, the limiting factor might not be the overall approach, it would be the amount of time it takes to learn, and whether a 30- or 60-minute lesson is enough.

 

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

Just a thought/theory, but I'd guess that learning "backwards" like this would take a longer amount of time than the typical approach.

The problem with the "typical approach" is that you can go down some roads from which recovery is nearly impossible (in the amount of time golfers spend working on their game).

[DrvFrShow]

We have one up here in Seattle. If I don't see any improvement through June, I might book a couple lessons up there.

[SavvySwede]

8 hours ago, iacas said:

In my experience with it, and being on the machine, and seeing others do it, it's almost tough to swing really poorly. You have to do some weird things like intentionally move your head in a weird way, etc. to swing poorly. The club moves, so your grip moves, so your hands move, which moves your arms, and obviously that pulls on your shoulder, which moves your torso…

The farther you get from the grip the more likely the "pull" from the prior segment is less likely to be effective, but the "pull" is pretty strong and so long as you have some basic understanding of how to stand and to keep your head kind of down toward a fake ball, it's pretty good. And that's for pretty close to beginners.

@SavvySwede why didn't you try it out at the PGA Show?

Idk, seemed gimmicky, didn't want to wait in line for it, etc

[Goubli]

There's one of these close by the TPC Scottsdale. My buddy went for a free 30 min demo and was wanting to sign up for 3 lessons. He's like an 11 hcp. It's always booked and hard to work around my schedule to get in. 

If I get in, I'll report back. 

[natureboy]

Quote

Hitting live, away from the machine, I found the sweet spot much better. It also drove my seven-iron true and high, about 170 yards, with very few RPMs.

He could have been using a Super Game Improvement iron, but that sounds to me like the machine didn't cure his flip. As a way for a beginner to ingrain some 'feels' that are hard to convey verbally (and to get how extreme some differences should be) seems to have merit. But didn't instructors just used to physically manipulate students clubs / arms in a similar way in the past?

Thing that concerns me about it is that it sounds like it follows a very specific model rather than the process where a player builds up their swing from understanding of some fundamental concepts that they then adapt through their own body awareness / feels and possibly refine to what may be more ideal for their own physique than the model - like a Bubba Watson.

[Rainmaker]

They have one of these at the teaching center where I use the range.  I didn't see the machine in person but I saw the brochures and a video-demo. 

I don't know if it will work or not . .but somebody has GOT to do a candid-camera type prank where they demo the machine to a crowd with a pro . .and then have a "plant" from the audience come up to try it.  A small, chubby guy would be perfect . . and then have the machine toss him down the range like 15 yards.  The guy running the demo freaks out and realizes he forgot to change the settings from when the pro hit. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mike Boatright]

Seems kinda cool mimicking Jack Nicklaus swing or Ben hogans move but in the end it's looks like a fancy toy that might be helpful to some tour pro's or very good players but that's about it.. Over the 15 years I have played golf seriously I have learned one very important thing and it's each good shot gives you a + 1 and each negative shot gives you a -1 or whatever you wanna call it. The beginner can learn from this by simply not hitting bad shots in essence every good shot you hit equals improvement and every bad one the reverse. Each range session by amateurs or 20+ers is 100 balls 15 pretty good shots 10 playable the rest junk and awful!

The ratio is so far off that you have negated your game by a + 25 and negative 75 session. To get better it's way more important to hit a 7 iron 80 yards or less over and over and over even 100 times all the balls which will probably result in a +85 or more session. The muscle memory ingrains and you have improved and it's much cheaper that a 150,000 dollar robot gees!

 

Here is a cool video on it I would definitely try this sucker but just don't see it being that great.

 

 

Edited March 25, 2016 by Mike Boatright

[Patch]

An add came across my Face Book page. They call it "Robo Pro" or something like that. 

Their ad claims this machine can improve a golfer's swing 10 times faster than a human instructor. 

It's basically a robot showing the golfer how to swing a club. After the being on the machine, the golfer moves to a launch monitor which shows what the machine has taught them 

Apparently there is one in Vegas now. Regular $160 per hour, but now discounted down to $99 per hour. 

Anyone heard of this? Is it something new, or have I just been snoozing through the latest swing instruction methods. 

Sorry, no link. I can copy it, but can't paste it here.