What started out as a project with my daughter to improve her high school golf game, turned into something we both could not have imagined.  My oldest daughter is the hardest worker I know. She strives to achieve excellence in all that she does from her school work, participation on the math team, playing piano, to her extracurricular activities.  So when she joined the high school golf team her sophomore year, she was determined to improve her game.   She came to me and asked, "What is the perfect golf swing supposed to feel like"?   With the intention of strengthening her interest in engineering, I decided we should figure that out.

  

So I put my mathematical and engineering know-how to work and embarked on a quest to emulate that perfect golf swing.  My daughter and I set out to attach a golf club to some type of a propeller that would swing the club in a circular motion. That circular motion had to be angled or tilted somehow on the correct inclined plane.  We started with the club and went backwards. We realized how significant the club's lie angle was.  We came up with an innovative way to connect the club to the rotating propeller. We connected the club in such a way that makes the club stay on plane and swing in a perfect elliptical motion. What's even more significant than how the club is attached is how it forces you to apply the proper text book mechanics to the entire golf swing. After numerous hours of hard work, the SwingDuke Golf Stroke Machine was born. 

 

I'll always cherish the many hours I spent with my daughter throughout this endeavor. She is currently a freshman in the School of Engineering at University of Illinois.  Her best golf season was last year, her senior year. We had completed a working prototype just a couple of months before the golf season began so she was able to practice on it.  The machine made a tremendous difference.  This past June, I signed up my 12 year old daughter, her friend, and my 7 year old son for the Drive, Chip and Putt Competition.  None of them had any structured lessons outside of practicing on the SwingDuke Golf Stroke Machine.  I'm not kidding when I say I can count on one hand the combined total hours they spent practicing on the machine.  I'm sure you are all aware of how difficult it is to get your kids to do something that doesn't have an “I” or an apple on it. None of them qualified to go on to the next round as only the top three overall finishers do that.  However, I can tell you that my son who had just turned 7 took 4th out of 24 boys in the 7-9 year old bracket in chipping.  My daughter's friend also took 2nd for chipping in the 12-13 year old bracket.  A few months later and more hours logged on the SwingDuke, I signed the 3 up again for another First Tee sponsored Drive, Chip and Putt event.  This time, my daughter took first for the all around, crushing her personal best from June by 50 points. Her friend also took first place in driving and my son improved his personal best from June as well.