Driving the green | Les Otten's new company targets frustrated golfers looking for a leg up on the links

Upstairs from the Casablanca Cinema in Bethel, two projection screens sit on opposite walls of a large, airy room lined with windows. The lights are turned off, and one screen is glowing with a computer-rendered image of a driving range dotted with yardage markers. Jay Russo adjusts his stance on an artificial turf mat, extends his arms and waggles the head of his oversized driver behind a ball teed up on a rubber pad smaller than a legal pad. After a smooth backswing, Russo drives down onto the ball and smacks it square into the center of the projection screen. As the ball bounces back behind the turf mat, the computer takes over and translates Russo's swing into a raft of numbers that cover the left side of the screen. Swing tempo, club speed, ball speed, club face angle ˆ— it's all there, enough data to make even the most hardened golf geek flush with envy.

Russo, managing director of Sports Vision Technologies, which has its offices just across the street, is demonstrating the company's sole product, the P3ProSwing, a swing analyzer and golf simulator that uses optical sensors to translate the movement of a golf club head into usable data. The product was the brainchild of serial entrepreneur Les Otten, the founder of American Skiing Co. and a part owner of the Boston Red Sox, and hit the market two years ago to critical acclaim from industry types. Among its latest accolades, the product last month received a training aid innovation award from Golf Tips magazine, and it's featured in the magazine's 2005 GT Tech Awards in the current issue.

But even with all the attention from the golf industry, Russo and Otten face an uphill battle in their attempt to gain prominence in the golf products market. The pair face a landscape that's thick with new clubs, training gizmos and other ephemera promising to help golfers lower their handicap. Golf retailers routinely are bombarded by hopeful companies trying to get their product on store shelves; more often than not, the retailers pass. Chris Hargett, the senior merchant in charge of training aids at Golfsmith, a national chain of retail stores based in Austin, Texas, says he gets up to 30 unsolicited submissions a week from individuals or companies claiming to have the key to fixing peoples' golf games. "There are thousands, if not millions, of products out there," says Hargett.

But there's also a sizable consumer market for these products, according to the National Golf Foundation, an industry tracking group based in Jupiter, Fla., which estimates that roughly 6.7 million people in the United States will purchase a golf training aid during the next two years. Mike Stachura, equipment editor at Golf Digest magazine, pegs the size of that market at a minimum of $100 million a year. "It's a large world when you're talking about training aids," he says. "Training aids run the gamut from hand-sized pieces of plastic to an onboard diagnostic support device that measures club head speed. The P3ProSwing would be on the super high end of that scale."

Better golfing through technology
The P3ProSwing's patented design employs 64 light sensors embedded in a sturdy rubber-and-metal pad to track the path of a golf club through the impact zone. The pad relays information from each swing to the P3ProSwing software, which then translates that information into data that shows up on the projection screen or, for home users, a laptop screen or PC monitor. Bits of data are matched with graphical representations of, say, how close the ball was to the club's sweet spot, or an overhead rendering of the club head coming through the impact zone.

The data that pops up after each shot, however, isn't immediately intuitive, and is likely difficult to read for anyone not up on the latest in golf terminology. But these days, golfers increasingly are understanding the relationship between swing components like swing tempo and well-placed shots, according to Stachura of Golf Digest. "Impact, club head speed, angle: Those are the kinds of things that golfers are becoming more versed in with their own games," he says.

And manufacturers are keying into that trend, developing higher concept products that even just a few years ago would have attracted only the most dedicated golfers. Stachura cites as an example a set of drivers and fairway woods released last month by Cobra Golf, a division of Lincolnshire, Ill.-based Fortune Brands Inc. According to the company, the Speed series clubs are designed around players' swing speeds and ball speeds ˆ— the speed at which the ball comes off the club. "Fitting a driver based on ball speed is a new thing," says Stachura. "But the upshot is that it's becoming part of the language. Just like people talk about shaft flex or loft, I think in very short order people will be comfortable talking about ball speed and swing tempo."

Meanwhile, as many consumers seem to be warming up to the idea of incorporating technology into their practice routine, Russo says the technology in recent years has advanced to a point where it's possible to price a product like P3ProSwing at less than $1,000. Faster, more powerful computers also mean better graphic capabilities and the ability to quickly crunch swing data.

Otten says the product's $699 retail price is based on a calculation that will allow the company to amortize the roughly $1 million in development and startup costs ˆ— a bill Otten footed himself ˆ— over sales of 10,000 P3ProSwing units. During the last two years, the company has sold roughly 4,000 units; sales so far this year are up 38% over last year. Though the company was founded in 2000, the P3ProSwing was in development until late 2003. And last year, its first full year of sales, the P3ProSwing helped turn a profit at Sports Vision Technologies.

Russo says that he expects the company to remain profitable this year, though he declined to say how much Sports Vision Technologies is expected to make. But he and Otten say the company last year booked more than $1 million in revenue thanks to sales of its only product, and that sales this year are on track to hit $1.7 million. "We need to move a decimal point on those numbers, but we're happy with where it's going," says Otten.

Simulation of life
A small room tucked away in a corner of the old American Skiing Co. offices in the Norway Savings Bank building in Bethel serves as the assembly line for the P3ProSwing product. A set of metal shelves holds the circuit boards, metal plates and heavy rubber pads that make up the P3ProSwing. Two of the company's eight employees assemble and test each sensor before it's shipped off; Russo says that only a few dozen customers have sent units back for repairs.

Meanwhile, Russo and Otten say that the P3ProSwing gets results as accurate as other simulators on the market that cost tens of thousands of dollars more than their product. Other simulators recreate actual golf shots by tracking the ball's movement through sensor bars set up in front of or above the hitting area. The ball's spin and velocity are tracked and each shot's performance is extrapolated from that data. But to accommodate those sensors, says Russo, you need a much larger and more elaborate setup. The P3ProSwing, however, contains all the necessary sensing mechanisms built in to the hitting pad. In fact, Russo explains that duffers don't even have to hit a ball with the P3ProSwing: Just the swing of a club through the pad's optical sensors will relay data to a computer running the included P3ProSwing software. (The software includes an 18-hole custom-designed virtual course, but Russo says the unit also is compatible with PC versions of Electronic Arts' popular Tiger Woods PGA Tour video game.)

Mike Stachura and other Golf Digest editors rated the P3ProSwing as "highly recommended" in the magazine's 2004 Hot List rankings of the year's best products. Stachura says that unlike most golf simulators that focus on creating a virtual golf experience for their users, the P3ProSwing is positioning itself more as a learning tool to help improve the average golfer's game. "For the amateur player who doesn't necessarily understand the correlation between club face characteristics and ball path outcome, it helps link those things together," says Scott Mayer, director of instruction at Nonesuch River Golf Club in Scarborough, who served as a consultant during the development of the P3ProSwing.

But while the P3ProSwing is a relative bargain compared to other simulators that can cost as much as $40,000-$50,000, the base model price of $699 is still, well, $699. What's more, buyers quickly can spend more than $4,800 to purchase a deluxe P3ProSwing package with bells and whistles like a full-scale hitting cage with a projection screen. As a result, Stachura doesn't expect the P3ProSwing to become a blockbuster in the consumer market. For starters, he thinks even the base model automatically prices a large segment of potential buyers out of the market. Golfsmith's Chris Hargett agrees; he figures that if a golfer had that kind of money to spend, he'd probably spend it on something like a top-of-the-line driver.

Instead, Stachura thinks the product's niche lies with golf professionals and retailers. Pros can use the data generated by each swing on the P3ProSwing to show their students, for example, why they keep shanking their long irons or slicing their drives. And retailers, he says, may jump on the product as a low-cost alternative to the other simulators, or launch monitors, commonly used for in-store product testing. "I think what you're seeing is that launch monitors have become almost a mandatory tool for the retail side of the game," says Stachura. "They're the best for selling a product because you can get on a launch monitor and try three different versions of a driver with different shaft flexes and lofts."

Star power
In marketing the P3ProSwing, Russo and Otten have largely avoided traditional advertising mediums like magazines, opting instead to push the company's marketing dollars towards websites and retail locations like Golf Etc. and Dick's Sporting Goods. "For any young company, it's about getting the noise of your product above the din," says Otten. "When I bought Sunday River in 1980, it was, 'Sunday what?' That's what we're trying to do now ˆ— get above the din and get people comfortable using the product." (For more on Otten's background, see "Follow through," p. 18.)

Russo and Otten say that it's hard to get comfortable with the product through a magazine ad, and that the P3ProSwing's real selling point is its usability. As evidence, the pair point to a number of industry accolades that the product has earned in recent years, from a best-in-show award at the 2004 PGA Merchandise Show to this year's award from Golf Tips magazine.

But for many golf products manufacturers, the holy grail in getting a particular product noticed in a crowded market is television. According to Golfsmith's Chris Hargett, television often plays a big part in his decision whether to carry a certain product among the company's 50-plus retail locations and on its website. He says adding a new product to the stores' inventory means a lot of added upfront cost for the retailer, and with any new product he's looking for a return on that initial investment. To lessen the risk of a dud product, Hargett says he often waits for customer demand to begin bubbling before he decides to carry a product. The infomercials that run on cable channels like the Golf Channel and ESPN often raise consumer demand for a particular product ˆ— especially if the infomercial includes a big-time golfer such as Vijay Singh or Jack Nicklaus.

Take Singh, for example: The 42-year-old Fijian won nine PGA tour events last year, including the PGA Championship, and wrapped up the 2005 season with four PGA Tour victories and a number-two world ranking, behind only Tiger Woods. In the past few years, Singh has emerged as one of the most respected golfers on the pro tour, and has credited that success to his methodical and grueling practice routine.

So it was a publicity coup when he became a paid endorser for the Speed Stik, a practice aid that purports to help golfers increase the speed of their swing. Dave Shillinglaw, Speed Stik's media coordinator in Papillion, Neb., says that having Singh endorse the training aid has helped lend legitimacy to the product. But in getting the Swing Stik into the hands of consumers, the infomercial was an important part of the company's marketing strategy. "It's been instrumental in driving the retail side of the business," says Shillinglaw.

That said, Shillinglaw warns that a company needs fairly deep pockets to go the infomercial route: It typically costs between $500,000 and $1 million to produce a quality infomercial ˆ— including the cost to hire a recognizable personality from the golf world. (Shillinglaw wouldn't disclose how much Singh is paid for his Swing Stik endorsement, and stressed that Singh is a devotee of the training aid.)

And the check-writing doesn't stop once the cameras stop rolling: Shillinglaw says that running a 30-minute infomercial on the Golf Channel, an Orlando, Fla.-based cable channel that's beamed into more than 70 million U.S. homes, can cost $5,000-$30,000 each time it airs, depending on the time of day. (A spokesman from the Golf Channel declined to discuss airtime costs.) "It's not uncommon to spend $300,000 a month if you put a good schedule together," says Shillinglaw.

Swing time
Jay Russo doesn't expect to hire a PGA Tour star like Vijay Singh to shill for the P3ProSwing, however, and he isn't planning on shelling out big bucks to get an infomercial in heavy rotation on the Golf Channel. But Russo acknowledges that there's a certain attraction to selling the company's product via television. For starters, even a short video that walks prospective buyers through the P3ProSwing's highlights would explain the product more thoroughly than a simple brochure. And getting that product on the airwaves has the potential to reach millions of people across the United States. The trick, however, is finding ways to do that without shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars every month.

Russo thinks he may have found a good alternative: He recently scheduled a two-day commercial shoot at the McGetrick Golf Academy in Denver, Colo., where he spent two days watching the P3ProSwing get put through its paces by a group of amateur and pro golfers. The footage from the clinic will be edited down to a 15-minute segment that's expected to run on an upcoming episode of Golf Life, a half-hour television show airing on cable channels like Fox Sports Net and Comcast Sports Net.

It was a pretty good deal, says Russo. After paying roughly $5,000 to produce the video, Sports Vision Technologies will get the 15-minute program aired on Golf Life, which reaches a potential audience of 52 million. What's more, SVT gets to keep the video to use as a marketing tool at industry trade shows. "Compared to a static ad, it's important to have more time to explain the product," says Russo.

Meanwhile, Russo and Otten are working to further differentiate the P3ProSwing from other products on the market by bolstering its role as a high-tech training aid. They're planning on developing a video component so users can pair video of their swing with the corresponding data to further identify weak spots in their stroke. And Russo says he's working on a deal to allow users to upload that video and data to a PGA teaching pro to get more detailed swing analysis.

And while neither Russo nor Otten will venture a guess as to where P3ProSwing will take Sports Vision Technologies in the next few years, they're embracing the company's underdog status. "We're just a little upstart trying to break into a giant market," says Otten.