Media - Swing Machine Golf

Golf Article - Newsweek Blog

Could a robot offer the secret to the perfect golf swing?
06/25/2007
USA Today

The golf instruction business is just that, a business. Every year new videos, books and camps spring up promising the Holy Grail of golf, an easy repeatable swing. We've had the "Truth," we've had "Natural" golf, we've had a whole slew of celebrity instructors, and golf magazine full of tips and drills every single month, yet golfers as a whole are not getting any better. In some ways, golfers are like people trying to lose weight: Come up with a fad diet and they will buy it. Now at the Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, instructor Paul Wilson claims to have gone beyond gimmicry and bottled the perfect golf swing. Wilson runs the resort's new golf academy, and he is the author of the book and video series "Swing Machine Golf."

The name comes from Iron Byron, the club swinging robot named after Byron Nelson's perfect swing, that for years was the gold standard for club and ball testing for the USGA and top manufacturers. Iron Byron does what every golfer wants; hits the ball perfectly, time after time. After years of working as PGA teaching pro, and even giving a lesson to one Tiger Woods, Wilson became disillusioned with the golf swing, seeing even the best players come and go in terms of their swing quality. The way golf is taught involves dozens of variables, all of which have to align perfectly over and over for the swing to work. Iron Byron, by comparison, has only two moving parts, which replicate a player's spine twist and straight arm takeaway and delivery. Wilson became fascinated with the machine, which relies heavily upon physics, then compared the segments of Iron Byron's swing to that of the best swings of top pros like Tiger and found an uncanny resemblance.

He now wants to make you a golf robot, and instead of teaching you to swing like Woods, he teaches you how to swing like a robot. This has three distinct advantages: First, it is much easier to understand. Secondly, it is infinitely repeatable, meaning he is teaching the thing golfers struggle with most, consistency. But best of all, it allows instant self-diagnosis at any point. Anyone who has taken a lesson or gone to golf school has reached that point of feeling the perfect swing, only to have it vanish minutes, days or weeks later, when no one is there to explain what went wrong. With Swing Machine Golf, you don't need anyone else. After a brief visit with Wilson, I was sold enough to sign on for a month of Swing Machine drills. I have had lessons with most of the top instructors in the world, but this program impressed me immediately. Why? I witnessed golfers, especially high handicappers and novices, groove a perfect swing quickly and with little thought for the mechanics of the swing itself.

The program offered at the Broadmoor may truly be bottled golf magic. I'll let you know how things go a month from now... The golf instruction business is just that, a business. Every year new videos, books and camps spring up promising the Holy Grail of golf, an easy repeatable swing. We've had the "Truth," we've had "Natural" golf, we've had a whole slew of celebrity instructors, and golf magazine full of tips and drills every single month, yet golfers as a whole are not getting any better. In some ways, golfers are like people trying to lose weight: Come up with a fad diet and they will buy it. Now at the Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, instructor Paul Wilson claims to have gone beyond gimmicky and bottled the perfect golf swing. Wilson runs the resort's new golf academy, and he is the author of the book and video series "Swing Machine Golf." The name comes from Iron Byron, the club swinging robot named after Byron Nelson's perfect swing, that for years was the gold standard for club and ball testing for the USGA and top manufacturers. Iron Byron does what every golfer wants; hits the ball perfectly, time after time.

After years of working as PGA teaching pro, and even giving a lesson to one Tiger Woods, Wilson became disillusioned with the golf swing, seeing even the best players come and go in terms of their swing quality. The way golf is taught involves dozens of variables, all of which have to align perfectly over and over for the swing to work. Iron Byron, by comparison, has only two moving parts, which replicate a player's spine twist and straight arm takeaway and delivery. Wilson became fascinated with the machine, which relies heavily upon physics, then compared the segments of Iron Byron's swing to that of the best swings of top pros like Tiger and found an uncanny resemblance.

He now wants to make you a golf robot, and instead of teaching you to swing like Woods, he teaches you how to swing like a robot. This has three distinct advantages: First, it is much easier to understand. Secondly, it is infinitely repeatable, meaning he is teaching the thing golfers struggle with most, consistency. But best of all, it allows instant self-diagnosis at any point. Anyone who has taken a lesson or gone to golf school has reached that point of feeling the perfect swing, only to have it vanish minutes, days or weeks later, when no one is there to explain what went wrong. With Swing Machine Golf, you don't need anyone else. After a brief visit with Wilson, I was sold enough to sign on for a month of Swing Machine drills. I have had lessons with most of the top instructors in the world, but this program impressed me immediately. Why? I witnessed golfers, especially high handicappers and novices, groove a perfect swing quickly and with little thought for the mechanics of the swing itself. The program offered at the Broadmoor may truly be bottled golf magic. I'll let you know how things go a month from now...

Larry Olmstead

Golf Links Radio 2003 - 2005 - co-host of Golf Links Radio which aired from 2003 - 2005.  Due to the re-location of the show's host, Mike Sudinsky, the show will no longer be on the air.

Aug/Sept 2003 - Golf Tips Magazine - 6 pages of Swing Machine Golf (book version) was featured in Golf Tips Magazine in the Aug/Sept 2003 issue.

November 1, 2002 - March 22nd 2003 - Guest on GolfTalk.com - Syndicated Golf Radio Show. Golf Talk is available live in Northern California and is rebroadcast in several other parts of the country. It is heard live every Saturday morning throughout Northern California - from Monterey to Redding - on KHTK, 1140AM (Sacramento, 50,000 watts clear channel). Show time is from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.

August 4th, 2002 through November 2002 - Fox 4 News - Weekly golf swing tips and golf playing tips by Paul Wilson  between 9:00am & 10:00am every Sunday.

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