V1 Sports - more than just lines on videos

Boomer-aged golfers can recall what a difference home video systems made to their daily lives.

Suddenly, you didn’t need to watch a tournament when it was broadcast, because you could record it for later viewing. 

Suddenly, you could stop, go frame-by-frame, or slow-motion your favorite athletes in action, perhaps gleaning something useful for your own game.

Eventually VHS technologies were replaced by digital systems found in cellphones and millions of other devices.

V1 Sports has been around for 30 years, making videographic athletic training readily accessible to avid amateurs and teaching professionals for golf and baseball. As V1 Director of Sales Chip Carrell said in chatting with me at the 2023 PGA Show, “We’re the ones that put lines on videos.”

That was nicely self-deprecating, but hardly the whole story. The company’s long tenure and popularity with millions of players and coaches continues. V1 is expanding new technology to advance golf analytics.

Carrell showed me the company’s pressure plate system, a new device that captures motion data and uploads it to coaches and/or players ($3,000). “For example, it can show early extension or show slicers why they slice,” Carrell said. “The data is stored and goes up to the cloud. The safety of the data is assured because there’s no dropped laptop risk.” 

The V1 systems enable golf pros to record lesson dialogue as the video records the swing. What the pro is recorded noticing becomes “part of the process for later playback,” Carrell said. “The pros can also send these voice-overs to their students, and that option can free up their lesson scheduling. We still want the PGA pro involved,” he said. “Our products make it so much easier to do online lessons.”

The V1 consumer app records your swings and includes a collection of model videos for comparison. A subscription service for $59.99 provides additional learning tools.

The pro version of the V1 mobile app permits unlimited lessons, access to the model swing library, branding elements, pressure mat integration, and software and technical support. There are bundle packages available for the various pieces, but pros can pick and choose which pieces they want as they develop their teaching practice.

Putting in practice

Ayaka Furue is a young Japanese LPGA golfer who won last year’s Trust Golf Women’s Scottish Open. She finished 14th at the 2023 ShopRite LPGA Classic, earning $27,253.

Before Furue’s final round at the ShopRite, she used two putting warm-up routines.

She first placed two tees in the putting green about 12 feet apart. Using two balls from one location, she tried to hit the other tee. If Furue missed by more than a foot, she would hit the same ball again to hit that tee from where the ball stopped. 

Furue went back and forth, using a slightly sloping part of the green for added difficulty.

For the second part, she put a single tee in the turf and hit two balls from three feet away, again with hitting the tee as the goal. If Furue missed, she raked the ball back and putted again until she hit the tee, usually only needing one more try. 

Furue made these 3-footers from six different spots around the tee, each location about the same distance from the next. If there were chalk lines for each spot, it would have looked like a freshly cut pizza.

If those routines were good enough for her, they are good enough for you.

Ocean Pines club trade-in event

Ocean Pines Golf Club in Ocean Pines, Md., will hold a club trade-in event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 23, seeking brand-name clubs sold in the last 20 years. Trades earn pro shop credit. 

Local club competition results

The Mulligan’s Pointe Ladies 18-Hole group played a 2 Better Balls of 4 game Aug. 15, won by Wendy Michaelson, Valerie Grib, M.L. York and blind draw C. Boyle. Boyle also was the blind draw for the second-place team, with Janece Hausch, Jackie Adams and Linda Kaufman.

The Kings Creek CC Ladies 18-Hole group played a team Cha Cha game Aug. 10, using one best net score on odd holes and two best net scores on even holes. 

Jean Chlastawa, Joanne Yurik, Anne Farley and Ana Dittel won first place. Marilyn Hewitt, Linda Outlaw, Darci Whitehead and blind draw Donna Deely finished second. Sara Cavendish, Katie Heintz, Marie Murray and Alicia Polsky took third.

The Kings Creek CC Ladies 9-Hole group played a T and F game Aug. 8, limiting scoring to holes beginning with those letters.

Linda Outlaw won first gross in the first flight. Sandy Singer won first gross for the second flight, with Donna Rommer winning first gross for the third flight.

Chris Piasecki won first net for the first flight, with Lynn Sweeney in second and Marjorie Adis in third. Beth Cohen won first net for the second flight, with Prabha Karapurkar and Joanne Yurik tied for second. 

Brendan Schilli and Tish Brey tied for first net in the third flight, with Margaret Connors in third.