These days, you can get a piece of wearable technology to do just about anything. Need something to track your steps? That’s old technology. Want a watch that tracks your sleep? No problem. Looking to track your cycling and swimming activity? Done. But one sport missing out on the wearable technology fun has been golf. Well, John McGuire understands this, and he wants to fix it.
John McGuire, CEO of Active Mind Technology, recently announced Game Golf, a wearable product that combines near field communication technology with GPS and motion sensors to seamlessly track copious amounts of data during a round of golf with little effort from the actual golfer. “Play a game of golf,” McGuire says, “and we will do the rest.”
Here’s how it works. Small transmitter tags are inserted into the end of each club shaft, while a receiver device – with enough battery to last two rounds of golf between charges – clips to the belt or waistband of a golfer. Before each shot, golfers tap the transmitter at the end of the club to the receiver and then swing away. Yes, it’s that easy. “We set out to create something that is easy to use and seamless, ” says McGuire.
By tapping each club’s transmitter to the receiver, Game Golf tracks which club is used on every drive, chip, and putt during a round of golf. With each shot, Game Golf tracks shot distances, ultimately combining the data to compile statistics about fairway drives, greens in regulation, scrambles, and putting performance.
All the while, Game Golf syncs your playing data with the cloud, which users can access via desktop and mobile devices. Golfers can track trends in their data, view their performance averages, share their statistics and accomplishments socially with Facebook and Twitter, and compare their statistics with other members of the Game Golf community.
Two particularly recognizable and influential members of that community are Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell, professional golfers and Game Golf testers and investors. McDowell in particular has been very pleased with the technology. “I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of the ease of use and access to measure your game very quickly and very effectively.”
Weekend warriors can check out McDowell and Westwood’s tweets about Game Golf statistics and try the product out for themselves by going to the nearest Apple Store or Pro Shop. Active Mind Technology is still securing financial backing for Game Golf, and says customers can expect a public launch of the product, priced at $250, sometime this summer.