When James Driscoll ensured his return to the PGA Tour in 2012 with a share of 12th place at October’s Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic in Orlando, he may have heard the cheering all the way from Norwood to Chicopee. For while the 34-year-old Brookline, Mass., native may have heaved a sigh of relief to finish the 2011 season at No. 114 on the money list — 11 spots clear of the 125th and final fully exempt position where he started the week — so too, we’re sure, did two fans who personally wished Driscoll well on his Disney adventure.
“Now that I’ve met him, I’ll be following him a lot more,” Rob Lukomski, one of a handful of grand prize winners of NEGM’s TaylorMade Experience give-away, said after meeting Driscoll during a mid-October fitting at The International’s TaylorMade Performance Lab. “I wasn’t following him until this past week when I won the contest.”
Chicopee, Mass., golfer Lukomski was likely not the only fan from New England and elsewhere rooting for Driscoll, who gained some national renown by entering the fall series finale as the bubble boy. Driscoll himself, a TaylorMade Golf tour staffer who tuned up for the Disney event on the lab’s 3D Motion Analysis Technology by TaylorMade (MAT-T) system, was no stranger to his precarious position.
“There has been a lot of years where I’ve been right on the bubble,” he told reporters following his final-round 4-under 68. “One year [in the] Nationwide Tour Championship I was like 24 from the money list going into that one, and had to grind out a 32 on the back nine on Sunday. Last year at Q-school it was close; this year it was real close. So been a stressful career so far.”
Fran Rush, another grand prize winner, noted that Driscoll appeared relaxed on the Monday before he would play for all the marbles in Orlando.
“He was pretty cool,” Rush, a 12-handicapper from Norwood, Mass., said. “He didn’t seem too pressured or upset.”
As for what the amateurs gleaned from their MAT-T experiences, here’s how the two-hour session works: a trained technician (Steve Tolpa, at The International) places reflective markers on strategic parts of the golfer’s body as well as the grips, shafts, and heads of specially designed clubs. Tolpa essentially turns the participants into avatars in their own video games, because six high-speed cameras record the motion of each marker and send the data from each swing to a computer. At the same time, a launch monitor measures the ball speed, spin rate, and launch angle of each shot.
The results, which provide measurements down to a tenth of a degree for driver down to putter, let pros fit golfers with clubs that meet their specific needs. For Rush, an engineer, the experience was exhilarating.
“This was the first time I got to see videotape of actual numbers,” she said. “Now I can see exactly what I have to work on, just with hitting a half-dozen balls.”
Rush, who chose an R11 driver with a senior-flex shaft as her parting gift, said she would focus on her loft angle. “I had my club face open too much at impact so I’ll try to close that a little bit,” she said.
Lukomski was equally enthusiastic about his experience. “Just to see exactly…what I do with the club face if it’s open or closed helped out a lot,” said the 14-handicapper, whose prize package included a white-faced 3-hybrid.
Driscoll, who suited up for his session after sharing some tour gossip with the winners over lunch, liked what he saw on the MAT-T screen — especially the 360-degree view of his swing.
“That’s awesome,” exclaimed Driscoll. “It’s a great way to get better because if you [use the MAT-T system] consistently, you’ll always have a finger on where your game is and where your swing’s at, which is a great advantage instead of guessing all the time.
“It’s a tough enough game,” Driscoll noted, “and they’re making it a lot easier with stuff like this.”
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out on the The A Position, Waggle Room, Boston Golf Examiner, National Golf Examiner, and GottaGoGolf websites. You may also follow Kay on Twitter @golfexaminer.)
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