I'm in Carlsbad, California at the moment getting ready to drive to Scottsdale, Arizona. Yesterday, I had the joy of going to TaylorMade's headquarters to get fitted for golf clubs. I've spent the last 20 years working for software vendors and I've hosted many customer visits for the companies for which I worked. Yesterday, it was my turn to go to a customer visit center. Visiting TaylorMade's Kingdom fitting center was a tremendous experience.
It was my turn to be the customer and I was truly awed by the experience and the technology I saw. I had a chance to meet Jim Flick, a golf instructor I've watched on T.V. many times. Retief Goosen was on the range tuning up for an upcoming tournament. And, I, Dave Dargo, was about to get a real treat.
After warming up on the range I was taken into a room and fitted with a lot of dots. There were 9 cameras capturing my swing along with a launch monitor watching the ball. The image above is of me with a driver. The system showed a full-motion picture with full 3-D rotation so I could watch my attempt at swinging the club from any angle. The picture above is just as I'm starting the down-swing. All-in-all, I spent about four hours at TaylorMade looking at my swing scientifically and hitting lots of clubs. My new clubs are being made now and will be available to me in just a couple of days.
Emotionally, the personal experience was a bit disturbing as I could see many of the swing flaws I knew I had. Objectively thinking, though, it was a tremendously exhilerating experience as I went through a process that few others had. I got to see a clear picture of what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. I was fully engaged in the process and could have stayed all day looking at the technology and learning about TaylorMade's products.
The experience was more fun than I've had in a long time. It's so unfortunate that software customer visits can't be as exciting. We might just accomplish so much more if they were.
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