Golfers watch measures swing speeds
SAN FRANCISCO -- One of the latest sports watches from the Finnish company Suunto looks to remove a few variables from your golf game, or at least limit variables to things you can control.
While many golf electronics can keep score and estimate the distance to the pin, the Suunto G6 ($399) goes a step further by measuring the speed, tempo and rhythm of your swing.
This is vital information when you're trying to hit the ball in the general direction of the hole, ostensibly the goal of golf. Now that I've tried out the G6, I have all the data I need to explain why I rarely break 90.
The silver-faced, black leather-strapped watch is easy on the eyes, though I felt it was bulky. I don't normally wear a watch at all when I play, so it felt weird at first. It wasn't so bad after a few early holes out on the course, however.
I chose traditional stroke play scoring over the match play and Stableford options, but it was nice to know the others were available.
Before heading to the course, I went online and downloaded the course scorecard yardage and pars and then transferred that information into the watch using the Golf Manager software it comes with. That was a 15-minute task from beginning to end.
I began my golf day with a bogey on a 554-yard par 5, not a bad start for someone of my humble talents. I recorded that score into my watch and trudged on. A double-bogey on No. 2, another double on No. 3 and so on. I faithfully recorded each hole's performance by depressing shiny silver buttons along the side of the watch. I recorded greens in regulation (4), putts per hole (averaged 2.06), everything except the total candy bar count.
When I got home I connected the watch to my laptop with the provided USB cable. The transfer only took a few seconds. Then my round of golf -- all 95 strokes, including one lonely birdie -- popped up.
This was a lot better than simple scoring stats. The watch recorded all of my swing tempo deviations and something called BSL, or backswing length.
The tempo deviation measured the duration of my swing, from club takeaway to ball contact. I averaged 1.25 seconds for all of my woods and irons, which is fairly smooth but I got a little quick when I was trying to chop out of tall grass.
On the software chart, my good shots were represented by green squares and bad shots by red. The BSL turned out to be the important statistic for me to monitor and work on, as I would later find out.
At the driving range, my backswing length averaged 137 degrees on my good shots and 135 degrees on my bad ones. The key was that my average swing speed on those bad shots was two miles per hour slower than on the good shots.
The moral? When I get tired, I get bad. When I'm out of energy, I'm out of straight shots. I always had a feeling this was true, but the Suunto G6 confirmed it.