Swing when you’re winning

Swing studios and simulators can offer major benefits to a golf club but, states Kiran Kanwar PhD, it’s essential to research your members, the target customers, available products and local competition first before investing in them.

Golf courses everywhere are most fascinated and, at the same time horrified, by how the indoor golf industry is making huge inroads into their traditional ‘turf’. Some golf course owners and managers might even wonder, should we go with the flow and have a swing studio at our club?

Not so fast, unless the money is flowing as readily as the influx of simulator-based facilities! (A simulator uses data acquired from a launch monitor (which captures club and ball movements using doppler 3D radar, cameras or infrared sensors) and then simulates a shot on a virtual golf course that is projected onto a screen.)

Some simple research will quickly tell you whether your idea is a good one.

The first question, naturally, is who at your club would benefit from, or be excited about, a swing studio? In other words, who are the regular golfers at your club – seniors, juniors (and their parents), female golfers?

If most golfing members are seniors, perhaps they are more set in their ways, don’t wish to make swing changes using the numbers captured by a launch monitor, and would rather play their usual game with their buddies?

If you have an active junior community, a simulator might be fun as well as very useful. For the younger ones, simulator games designed for kids can be great fun. For instance, when a junior hits a great shot they ‘catch’ a larger fish than with a mediocre one, and the name and size of the fish is displayed on a screen! For the more competitive junior golfers, launch monitor numbers can be invaluable, especially as they grow and change physically, particularly if they are in a fitness training programme at your club too.

Simulators have, of course, been most popular with the Gen X (born 1965 to 1980) and the Millennial (born 1981 to 1996) groups, who are known to enjoy new experiences and spend on leisure activities that interest them. If your golf course has, or wishes to attract, these age groups, a swing studio sounds like a great investment.

Some other questions that could also be answered include what type of golf do your members or potential members most like to play? On-course, driving range or just a casual few shots while ‘hanging out with friends’? If the latter, why lose potential business when a swing studio can be easily incorporated into a relatively small space and not interfere with other activities? Unless, of course, there are other local places that already offer indoor golf with the entire ambience of loud music and food and beverage on offer.

What is the golf mentality of your membership? Do they prefer to simply play golf as usual or would they spend time and money on improvement, in which latter case the numbers thrown up by a launch monitor will be most useful? If you have a large junior population, both the simulated games and the serious launch monitor data would be useful.

Another important concern is, who are your golf coaches? Who are the most popular ones? Old fashioned and swing-fundamentals-only, or modern and tech-savvy, using all the latest apps and gadgets? Is there a match between your coaches and your active members?

What about inclement weather? Do you often have bad weather, making indoors a good idea?

And finally, the main question is, do you have the ability to market your swing studio to existing members as well as to others in the community? Marketing can achieve miracles. Perhaps even get those golfers set in their ways to ‘play’ in a championship (perhaps on a cold winter’s day) at ‘Pebble Beach’ or ‘TPC Sawgrass’ while hanging out with their buddies and imbibing a few of their favourite drinks (your club’s bartender knows everyone’s preferences after all) in convivial surroundings.

Once the decision to have a swing studio has been made, the next question would be what equipment should the swing studio have? Once again, that should match the users as well as the coaches. Some coaches these days will go so far as to set up a university-level biomechanics lab and incorporate sophisticated equipment like force plates, motion capture cameras and, of course, a top-quality launch monitor-simulator package. Might that be overkill for most of your members? Are they likely to wish to play at top professional levels? If that is not the case, your swing studio could be fitted out with just a good quality launch monitor-and-simulator. There are so many in the market these days that some research on the topic of which brand(s) to install would be important.

Another decision to be made would be how many bays to plan on? How many golfers might be interested in using the swing studio at any given time? Might parties be held there? Might one of the bays be used for club fitting?

With some good marketing by your managers, golf coaches ,and simulator-addicted members, a swing studio should be a great addition to any golf facility.

LPGA Master instructor Kiran Kanwar has a PhD in kinesiology (biomechanics and anatomy) and wrote a thesis on causes of golf swing-related injuries. Kiran is also chair of Stanton University’s golf department. Visit her website www.YourGolfGuru.com