K-MOTION Bridges Feels and Launch Monitor Data with Smart Tiles Feature

In late 2018, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to try out the K-MOTION and K-COACH system. In short, golfers simply wear four small, lightweight sensors on their torso, hips, upper arm and lead hand to help create a 3D, bio-tracker to help identify certain tendencies, both good and bad, in the golf swing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by KMOTION3D (@kmotion3d) on Jun 23, 2017 at 12:25pm PDT

While the K-MOTION already provided its users with an abundance of invaluable information, it didn’t mean that the company was ready to rest on its laurels. Instead, K-MOTION spent that past year developing its newest feature: K-MOTION Smart Tiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One of the most frustrating parts of taking lessons is figuring things out in the moment, and then trying to develop and engrain that new feeling later on your own. After doing a bunch of drills, you probably start getting into the right position while you’re working under your coaches supervision and, when you least expect it, you flush one.

Unfortunately, however, this often occurs when you’re not actively conscious and focusing on swing feels and, as a result, you immediately start searching for what you felt—additional hip rotation, higher hand position in the backswing, steeper shoulder angle, etc.—when you pured that shot.

“Smart Tiles ensures our coaches and their players are able to easily train and track progress on key elements of the swing,” says K-MOTION CEO Michael Chu. “The instant and clear feedback is a game changing advancement in our player development technology.”

K-Motion Tiles looks to eliminate the guesswork by integrating FlightScope and Foresight launch monitor and K-VEST data. By comparing 3D body (the cause) and ball flight (effect) data, coaches are able to work with their players, compare swings and identify certain body positions that created both great and less-than-desirable ball flights.

“The body-swing connection is perhaps the most powerful dynamic in modern golf coaching,” says Mark Blackburn, a Golf Digest Top-50 and GOLF Magazine Top-100 instructor. “Now, K-Coach’s Smart Tiles with launch monitor integration seamlessly merges 3D data with club delivery numbers to identify, measure and train that body-swing connection. This product will be a catalyst for better coaching and motor learning practices moving forward.”

In other words, when you finally hit that perfect, power draw you’ve been working on for weeks, you and your coach can now easily turn to the data and see where your hips, lead arm, hand, and torso were throughout the entire. Likewise, when you start slicing the ball off the tee, the information provided by Smart Tiles can help you identify certain body positions that could be causing these errants shots and, as a result, narrow you down to 1 or 2 swing thoughts (instead of trying to balance 10,000 possibilities) that should help get your swing back on track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In addition to comparing each golfer’s own 3D data, coaches are able to select key areas of the swing to work on and then compares future shots against PGA/LPGA Tour averages. To help reinforce certain target positions, the Smart Tiles can be set to turn green, yellow or red to indicate accuracy to the comparison swing.

There are tiles for nearly every data point, including tempo, body positions, wrist angles, peak swing speed, swing sequencing and more. Furthermore, the experience is fully customizable, with coaches having the ability to compare as little as 1 tile or as many as 12.

In sum, technology continues to have a larger influence over all aspects of golf. Arguably one of the biggest places useful technology can have an impact is golf instruction.

K-MOTION Smart Tiles looks to evolve an already very potent system in the K-Coach and K-Vest by allowing coaches and players to actively monitor body positions in connection with ball flight data. Ideally, being able to identify and rehearse those target positions will help accelerate the learning curve and help golfers be able to take those “feels” out with them on the course, which is where it matters most.