Wire robot yanks your golf game into shape

IS YOUR golf game lacking a finishing touch? Driving your balls straight down the fairway but struggling when it comes to the finer art of putting? Never fear: a robotic aid made from wires could pull your game into shape.

The novel training machine has been created by Katherine Kuchenbecker at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and colleagues, who specialise in haptics - the technology of tactile feedback.

The final stage of a hole of golf occurs on the green, when a player attempts to tap the ball into a 10-centimetre-wide hole using a flat-faced club called a putter. To do this consistently well, players must adopt a steady stance while ensuring the putter's flat face is directed at the hole during their swing's follow-through. There is little room for error, as small changes in the putter's angle send the ball's trajectory askew. What's needed, says team member Jacquelyn Kunkel, is a way of teaching a player how to putt that instils the correct muscle memory of the action.

To do this, the team created a 1.5-metre-long by 70-centimetre wide-metal training frame with a green baize base and a practice hole. The player stands at the centre, using a practice putter with four steel wires attached, two to the front and two to the back. These wires go to the four corners of the frame, where they are each attached to an electric motor, which can alter the wires' tension.

As the player swings the putter, fast-acting software controlling the tension of the wires corrects any deviation to the swing, keeping it straight. "The golfer feels forces pulling them back to the correct position when they go wrong, making it feel natural to swing correctly," says Kunkel.

Early tests show promise, with some volunteers having less variation in shot accuracy, the team told the World Haptics Conference 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey, in June. "The cues it delivers are subtle, not even noticeable if you're trying to putt straight," says Kuchenbecker. "The system helps you feel what it is like to putt correctly, and the ball tends to end up closer to the target." They plan to improve the system by reducing the friction in the wires so the altered swing feels more natural.

Many golf training devices make the user rigidly follow a certain line, says Steve Otto, director of research and testing at the R&A in St Andrews, UK, the governing body of golf outside the US. "But I haven't seen a training device that lets you deviate and which then brings you back on line. That sounds an interesting new approach."

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