InPutter: an engineered putter for on-the-fly golf putting analysis

This paper presents the development and experimental assessment of an engineered putter, denoted as InPutter. InPutter was designed for research, analysis and training, so as to improve the performance of the golf putting. The device has the same physical properties of a common putter club, thus keeping its ecological validity and being ideal for both novice and expert players. The engineered putter is equipped with an inertial measurement unit, force sensitive resistors and heartbeat radio-frequency receiver compatible with Polar electrocardiogram transmitters. All these are connected to an internal CPU with WiFi technology that allows retrieving all golf putting process variables, in real-time, at a high frequency of 100 Hz. As an internet-connected product, all data can be analyzed on-the-fly using a common interface connected to the cloud (e.g. laptop or smartphone). The putter is battery operated and able to keep an autonomy of up to 4 h, ideal for both Pitch & Putt and traditional Golf games, with a full charge time of approximately 4 h. After describing the hardware and software development, this paper will highlight and assess the benefits of this device by experimentally validating it with a sample of 10 novice golfers.