Ping iPhone cradle can lower your handicap, but you are still by yourself with the gophers (video)

Finally, a reason to take advantage of your cellphone at the course that will not earn you icy stares across the old clubhouse. Golfing accessory manufacture Ping this week announced an iPhone / iPod touch cradle that clips onto your putter, using the company’s iPing app to quantify your putting handicap number. The system measures your stroke type, impact angle, and tempo, comparing them against your folks and a few pre-entered golfing pros. Al Czervik will be proud. The app itself is free, however the cradle will run you $30 — both would be available online, later this month. It’s certainly cheaper and lots less bulky than systems we have seen , but don’t take it from us — hearken to teaching professional Jeff Ritter within the clip below.

New iPing putter app targets consistency for better putting

PING®, a corporate with a legacy of putter innovation and success, introduces the iPING™ putter app – a free, wireless, go-anywhere putting improvement tool that identifies a player’s stroke type, analyzes their impact angle, and measures their tempo. After a sequence of putts, the iPING app records the golfer’s consistency in each area and establishes a Putting Handicap™ (PHcp™), which gets lower because the player improves their consistency, the foremost to holing more putts.

The iPING app is a free download from the iTunes® App Store™ for the iPhone® 4 and the smaller iPod touch® (4th gen). The iPING app works along side a PING cradle ($30 MSRP), which holds the mobile device and clips onto the putter shaft slightly under the grip. Cradles come in for either the iPhone 4 or iPod touch (4th gen) end result of the different sizes of the devices.

The iPING app would be on iTunes on June 20th. PING cradles may be available at the same date through key golf retailers’ websites. Other PING retailers will offer the cradles in early July.

The iPhone 4 and iPod touch (4th gen) are the best mobile devices that contain both accelerometers and gyroscopes – the main technology features that let iPING to measure and record data. The accelerometers measure linear acceleration, while the gyroscopes detect rotational speed.

“Innovation takes many forms,” said John A. Solheim, PING Chairman & CEO. “My father, Karsten Solheim, started PING with a single putter design. The engineering principles of that design and subsequent models ignited a revolution in golf club design and putter fitting. The Anser putter, which he designed in 1966, still dominates the Tours today greater than 45 years later. The iPING app continues in our long tradition of innovation by allowing golfers to research their putting strokes more closely than ever. It really works like a launch monitor for putters by measuring key aspects of your stroke. It’s going to help every level of golfer see better results by adding more consistency at the putting green. Besides that, it is a lot of fun to take advantage of and has several other features.”

The iPING app analyzes and displays a golfer’s consistency onscreen using three criteria:

STROKE TYPE: Stroke type is the classification of a player’s closing angle, the volume of rotation of the putter face in the course of the forward stroke. PING’s research found that golfers could be categorized as certainly one of three stroke types: Straight, Slight Arc, or Strong Arc, measured in degrees of face rotation. (Straight has little or no or no rotation; Strong Arc has the foremost.) The research shows that players are usually most in step with a balance of putter that fits their stroke type. Face-balanced putters work best for Straight strokes while toe-down putters are ultimate for a powerful Arc.

IMPACT ANGLE: Impact angle is the putter’s face angle at impact, relative to handle, measured in degrees. PING’s data shows that even the suitable players on the earth don’t necessarily have a zero impact angle average, but all are highly consistent.

TEMPO: Tempo is a measure of the duration of the backswing relative to the forward swing and is expressed in a ratio: 2 to one, for instance. The typical tempo will vary among players, however the best putters have extremely high consistency in tempo.

MEASURE MODE: In Measure mode, the golfer hits five putts and their stroke type, impact angle and tempo are displayed for each putt in that session and stored. The iPING app calculates a consistency score, after which averages the scores through the years to construct a Putting Handicap (PHcp). Because the player improves their consistency, they’ll watch their PHcp come down.

PRACTICE MODE: In Practice mode, the user can isolate one aspect in their putting that’s lacking in consistency – tempo, for instance – for added attention. Stroke type, impact angle, and tempo are displayed for individual putts.

COMPARE MODE: In Compare mode the player can compare their results with previous sessions or with those in their friends. They are able to even do side-by-side comparisons with several PING tour pros, whose results are pre-loaded into the iPING app.

Users also can share and compare their results through social media, Solheim said. “The social aspect and the power to form a community around it’s far another exciting feature of iPING,” he said. “Golfers can share their results by emailing friends and posting sessions on Facebook® or Twitter®. We think golfers to totally embrace these features as they develop fun and friendly competitions using iPING and their mobile devices.”