It's then onto getting pulled and pushing into position to follow the robot swing. This part for me was hard on two areas, first of all because the machine starts off slow and Nate (the pro at the center), along with Steve (our pro) explains why it feels strange and where the differences to my swing lay. I struggle with getting feel into my swing, so most of the time I just swing without thinking (many many years of poor swing mechanics ingrained for me to unteach). Second was having your body and muscles being pulled into positions that it normally doesn't go to during my swing, ouch those muscles were in for a shock!
I got the opportunity of have a session at the Fairweather facility in Camberley, the assistant pro at my course is currently using the facility during winter to allow late night teaching sessions on both the robotgolf machine and using the simulators too. I had the initial session on the robogolfpro machine, which consists of video your own swing, some (many) repetitions on the machine to find the shape and extremities that your body can cope with
after repeating over and over again for lots and lots of repetitions, from half swings to full swings, to feeling the transition over and over and then finally feeling a more speedy swing I was jumped off the machine and given my own club to hit on the simulator. Holy crap, first swing and trying so hard to get the same swing I'd just been practicing and the simulator shows a 7 iron increase from 155yd carry to 185yd carry .... Ok it was a little pull left and wasn't a true in to out swing (down to less than a degree of out to in) but it was a huge difference and something the cynic in me never believed I'd see!
there is lots to work on and I'll have to try really hard over winter to both remember the swing and try and practise it too, but I was very impressed with the initial starting point.
The one I would take away from it, is that it gave me the opportunity to feel the club is supposed to be throughout the swing, for a while you just hang on to the robot club and see where it takes you but after a while it starts feeling better and that's where you start feeling the changes.
I'm sure if you used it for quite a bit longer each week/month (or whenever) you'd get a lot of benefit from it, for me id need to get to the point where my body can cope cope again with being pulled into those positions again. I can fully understand how a pro can use it to ingrain the muscle feeling into a new, or improved, swing ... not sure an amateur would get the same usage out of it, without spending many hours on it, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and if I had the money id probably use it again and again.
