Indoor Golf - More Realistic than You Would Think - aboutGolf PGA Tour Simulators

- Golf is a game meant to be played outside, but the thrills of indoor golf are catching up to the outdoor game, thanks to aboutGolf. The Ohio-based company is revolutionizing the way the game is being played and taught indoors.

More than 20 years of research and innovation have led to aboutGolf’s greatest breakthrough: The development of the 3Trak launch monitor that spurred a partnership with The PGA Tour to create, market and sell PGA Tour Simulators. One of these simulators was installed in The Golf Channel’s new studio that debuted in January.

The partnership with the PGA Tour gives aboutGolf a leg up on its competition in the simulator market. The company’s simulators are the only ones to feature the Tournament Players Club network of courses, many of which host PGA Tour and Champion’s Tour events. The most famous, of course, is the TPC of Sawgrass.

Maybe you can’t pony up the $250 it costs to play the home of The Players Championship. Instead, try it indoors on a simulator considered the most accurate in the business. If you fail to stay dry on the island green, blame a faulty swing, not the computer.

Bill Bales, CEO of aboutGolf, told Golfweek at the 2010 PGA Show that 36 percent of his business in 2009 was for home studios. He estimates that figure could grow to 70 percent, even though simulators with giant wrap-around screens can cost between $20,000 and $40,000.

“This partnership with the PGA TOUR has validated our long-stated belief that our simulators meet the highest quality and performance standards,” Bales says. “Selection by the PGA TOUR recognizes that truth and we are very proud, but this simulator partnership is only the beginning. We look forward to working with the PGA TOUR in many capacities for a long time into the future.”

In years past the biggest knock on indoor simulators was their accuracy, but the 3Trak has helped resolve that issue. The 3Trak is the only indoor launch monitor capable of measuring the “axis of spin, or the direction of the ball as it spins toward a target,” according to Chuck Winger, aboutGolf’s Vice President of its performance products division.

“What the 3Trak has done has provided a long sought-after solution for fitting and teaching indoors,” Winger says. “There was no reliable system that would show you an accurate ball flight, especially if it curved left or right. The 3Trak provides accuracy.”

Carl’s Golfland in Bloomfield Township, Michigan., one the largest golf superstores in the country, served as the original test site for the 3Trak. Store management was so impressed it now touts the 3Trak as a great way for accurate club fitting.

“We are very happy (working with aboutGolf),” Carl’s Golfland vice president Neal Feldman says. “Probably from the standpoint of indoor launch monitors, it is the most sophisticated you can get.”

Winger says an experienced club-fitter like those at Carl’s can take the data from the launch monitor and find the proper shaft, both length and flexibility, and loft and lie angles for the club head for the person being measured. The system works with any club manufacturer, so customers can ultimately decide what brand they want. The company aboutGolf also acquired Henry-Griffitts, a proven club maker with an emphasis on club-fitting, in 2008.

“Through club fitting, you can force a golfer to hit closer to the center of the clubface,” Winger says. “With shaft length and lie angle, all of those things balance together to get the person to deliver the best swing they have the ability to do.”

The Golf Channel uses the simulator for its instruction shows and sometimes to demonstrate shots on famous Tour stops like Pebble Beach Golf Links, site of the 2010 U.S. Open.

“Our process for securing simulator technology was based solely on finding the best technology to meet our needs,” says Dan Overleese, GOLF CHANNEL vice president of operations. “Our research verified that the PGA TOUR Simulator was the only product that had the definitive accuracy in measured launch data and modeled ball flight that our needs demanded.”

To learn more about the 3Trak Difference and the aboutGolf line of Simulators visit: aboutGolf