The Mind
• Dr. Bob Grober, 46, designed the "tempo tuner" that helped Vijay Singh win the FedEx Cup
"The human ear is wonderful at pattern
recognition, and that can be the secret
to creating a smooth, repetitive swing.
My Sonic Golf System-1 works on that
principle by turning your swing into sound. The more rhythmic your tone, the more rhythmic your swing. Here's how it works: Sensors in the shaft insert measure your club speed throughout your swing, 400 times per second. Those sensors then talk to a microprocessor that converts the measurements into audio, which you hear through a headset. When your swing speed is slow, the corresponding sound is low and soft; when it is fast, the sound is high and loud. It's useful for all levels of golfers. Novices, for example, can focus on grooving a smooth, uniform swing speed; better golfers will want to ensure
that their top speed occurs at impact;
and Tour pros, like Vijay, can analyze the
transition between their backswing and
downswing by listening for a brief pause
in the tone. When a respected player
comes up to me and asks how quickly I
can get him a system ... man, that's cool." See a demo at sonicgolf.com

Grober is the Frederick Phineas Rose Professor of Applied Physics at Yale
University in New Haven, Conn.