Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of golf is just how easily things can go wrong. If even the slightest component of a person’s swing is off – speed, tempo, rhythm – a ball can be sent soaring wide left into the trees. But a new wristwatch may provide assistance to all those golfers tossing their clubs in defeated aggravation (yes, we’re talking about you, John Daly).
Though it looks like a standard watch, with a stylish (if slightly bulky) silver face and a black leather strap, the Suunto G6 Pro contains an internal sensor that measures various aspects of a golfer’s swing. Whenever a wearer swings a golf club, the watch records information on the tempo, rhythm, backswing, length and speed of the hit. The G6 Pro also can be used to keep score of a golf game, and register statistical data on fairway hits, greens in regulation, up-and-downs, sand saves, putts and penalties. It features practice and test modes, and settings for four different game types: scratch, match, strokeplay and stableford (a type of play where golfers compete to get the highest score). On top of all that, it’s waterproof up to 100 feet, and has an alarm, calendar and stopwatch.
According to Suunto, the benefit of having this little computer on your wrist while golfing is that, over time, it can help a person develop a more consistent golf game. And, as any avid golfer knows, consistency is key. The G6 Pro enables players to monitor stats after each shot, and analyze entire rounds with included PC software when they get home. With the software, users can look a numbers, charts and graphs to find deficiencies in their games. The device helps golfers identify the major inconsistencies between their good and bad shots. Say a player slices a drive left, he or she can immediately view the numbers on the shot to see what they did differently from the beautiful drive hit on the last hole. Supposedly, the watch encourages golfers to adjust aspects of their swing to mimic their best shots and develop permanent muscle memory.
That’s what the Suunto G6 Pro is designed to do anyway. But the question arises: do numbers really make a difference? Just because a person knows that their backswing length differs five degrees between good shots and bad shots doesn’t necessarily give them the ability to correct the problem. Still, having someone (or something) to keep track of statistics makes a golfer feel like a professional, and it can be good fun trying to analyze the numbers. At the end of the day, whether the Suunto G6 Pro will help improve golf games is questionable, but it may encourage users to go golfing more – and more practice almost always leads to lower scores.
The Suunto G6 Pro is available for purchase from a number of online retailers (including amazon.com) with a pricetag of around $399.
