Review: Swingbyte 2 – mobile golf swing analysis

Can one tiny device and a smartphone turn you into the next McDowell or McIlroy? The lads at BreakingPar.ie seem to think so. JOE took to the range to have a look

It's the middle of the golf season, and JOE is still struggling. You tell yourself you're just a bit rusty, it'll work itself out - just get to the range, pound some balls, make a few putts and keep on grinding. But it never quite works that way, so you go and get a lesson half way through the season and COMPLETELY ruin your game. So when the guys at BreakingPar.ie sent JOE the new Swingbyte 2 claiming it could lower our score, we had to give it a try. The idea is simple. Swingbyte 2 is a neat device that sits around the shaft of any club, from driver to putter, without adding noticeably to the weight. It’s filled with accelerometers and gyroscopes, and connects to the Bluetooth in your smart phone or tablet. Big whoop. But when you open the free Swingbyte app the way you think about your golf swing changes forever. We could bore you with numbers, details, and analysis – but the long and short of it is Swingbyte is gives you the best features of Trackman, it fits in your pocket, and it only costs €149. Swingbyte gives you all the data you could ever need, but also maps the path of your swing, back, down to impact, and through, and delivers you a 3D model that you can play over and over, from any angle, giving you instant feedback about what you’re doing – right or wrong.

JOE’s  swing

JOE took to the range to see how Swingbyte could help the weak, pushy/cutty/fadey shot that has ruined so many rounds this year. (Click on the image for an interactive 3D model) Our first, and most common swing, instantly showed a good take away, a total over sing, and coming down “over the top” with a closed club face – the swing down and through was above the plane of the back swing, all resulting in that ugly fade/slice. Good to know, but what to do? Well having had a look at all the numbers, and the swing planes, it seemed obvious that we needed to come back at the ball with a shallower plane, at least if not below, the takeaway. So we gave it a shot, and a few swings later, we were here (Click on the image for an interactive 3D model): Making progress sure, but still a little steep in terms of the angle of attack, and the club face very closed – this generates a lot of spin you don’t want, and makes a bad swing much worse in the wind. Again, good learning, so we tried a few more swings (Click on the image for an interactive 3D model): Here, the through swing is on coming down inside the back swing, and straight away, meaning we were hitting a draw. You can see the club face is actually slightly open now at impact, getting rid of that spin, and allowing us to clear our hips and flip our hands over at impact, imparting that draw shape. From swing 1, to swing 96, we had discovered a massive flaw in my swing, and made huge inroads to fixing it. Sure, it might be tough to trust it when we hit the course this weekend, but little changes over a couple of weeks will have us hitting a McDowell draw rather than a Monty Fade. And there’s still plenty to do, you can see in all the models that we're over swinging all the iron shots, which in turn is messing with rhythm and tempo. No doubt, when we fix that, there’ll be more flaws to deal with, but the best thing about Swingbyte is that you can start big, make changes to obvious mistakes, and then dial down to the more intricate changes to dial it in.

Golf Bag Gimmick or Necessity?

Is it accurate? Can something so light, compact, neat and easy to fit be accurate? Well it would appear so! There’s a reason Trackman and it’s competitors are so expensive. But if the numbers you’re getting are out by a couple of percent, who cares. You’re getting like with like feedback that you can compare, and make massive inroads into improving your game, without the need for a professional coach. There’s a million features (including a nifty autoupload to a desktop app for perusing your swings at the office), but we've only scratched the surface - check them all out at Swingbyte.com. If you want to get your hands on one in Ireland, it's exclusively available from the lads at BreakingPar.ie.   Rating: 5 / 5 - A fantastic piece of kit for any golfer trying to improve their game, and a bargain at €149.