When he was just three or four years old, Rory McIlroy showed exceptional talent at golf. By 13, he was beating men 10 years older than him, much to their frustration.
Even for the boy genius of golf, though, there’s always room for improvement. Athletes like McIlroy are increasingly using technology to analyse their performance and give them an edge on the field. At his sponsor, Nike’s, Sport Research Lab in Oregon, every factor in the playing process is tested – even down to the grip on his shoes.
Whilst the Nike Lab has been around since 1980, it’s only with the rise of big data that the role of sports science and tech in aiding athletes is becoming more prominent.
At the Ulster University’s Jordanstown campus, in an Assembly Hall sized room which is practically underground – one floor below the building’s lobby – there is a miniature makeshift golf green. Suspended from the ceiling are cameras. Here, golfers of all abilities come to have their game tested and analysed by Eric Wallace, Director of the University’s Sports and Exercise Sciences Research Institute.
Wallace could be described as an expert on golf (though he jokes that his own game is poor – “paralysis by analysis”). An expert on golf biomechanics and the effects of equipment on performance, he refuses to talk about who he’s worked with, though he confirms that the University has a development squad of young golfers who show promise. Using the facility, their performance is captured by the cameras and analysed, with the resulting data shared with coaches.
To explain the impact of technology on sports, he uses swimming as an example. In a lecture he gives to his students, sometimes called Technology Vs. Traditional – “which I don’t agree with, because tradition and technology can go hand in hand” – he tells them:
“So you have what we call the S-es. It’s size, stature, I put in an W for psychology as well, all this so-called s-es contribute to how you perform, and evolution is, in our terms, how you progress over a period of time, or how results improve. So you look, for example, at swimming performances over the years – this is evolution, going from there to there. And then you look in the 90s, see what happened? What’s happened there? That’s performance. It suddenly shoots up. That’s not evolution, that’s revolution. Revolution is huge changes in a small time frame, evolution is small changes over a long time frame. This is training, better teaching, better coaching, better techniques – this is technology. What does technology contribute to that? The Speedo swimsuit. A piece of innovation cut down – demonstrably – and so all the world records are being smashed, such a level was unforeseen.”
Are there limits to how technology can – and should – be used to aid an athlete’s performance? Yes, he says.
“There was a suit that came out for downhill racing and skiing, which shaved off 0.01 of a second, that’s a lot of time at the top level, and at $60,000, the access people had to that was very limited, the poorer countries couldn’t afford that for their athletes. Is that fair? That’s a question I will leave out there. So there is a moral aspect to all of this, as well as a safety aspect. Is it fair? Is it equal to all people? If it boils down to… this is where the tradition vs. technology thing comes around again – if it’s purely tech driven, it ruins the whole concept of sport and sporting performance, because sporting performance, at the end of the day, should be the performer, performing assisted where necessary, and where agreeable, by technology.
So one of the things in golf, for example, I could play the same courses as Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods. I can play with the same golf clubs and the same golf ball, but I can’t be as good. So the technology in golf is strictly controlled – and I use that word carefully – by the governing bodies, and what we do in most of our research is to examine the effects of that technology with the effect of a longer shafted club, or a different shafted club – that’s the main driver of our research, and to come out of that, then you have the applied work.”
A lot of the technological innovations creeping into sports seem to largely be in the area of analytics – entrepreneurs taking advantage of the rise of big data.
One such entrepreneur is Fergus Wallace. With a team of seven, trading under the name of performanceActive International, he’s working on products utilising “smart technology” for professionals and amateurs in the sports industry. The company’s first product is an app aimed at golfers, Intelligent Play.
“We’ve taken the traditional scorecard and collect the data from that scorecard using what we call GameScan technology. We built a companion app for your mobile phone, which allows you to take a photograph of your scorecard at the end of your round and produce a dashboard or analysis of your data within seconds…fairways and greens hit or missed, putts and scores. You can see immediately where your game needs to improve and your stats can also be sent to your coach straight after a round. One big issue this addresses is the use of more and more technology during your game of golf. Golf is challenging enough…leave your mobile phone in your bag, the locker or the car until your round is finished…then get all the performance stats you need in seconds”
Taking advantage of the trend in athletes and players using wearables to monitor factors that could impact or improve their performance – fatigue, for example – the company is building a dashboard that analyses the data collected by various wearable devices used by players in Premiership Football, GAA and international rugby teams. “…A lot of these gadgets and wearables are good at collecting some data but it’s what they do with that data which is the important thing, and that’s where we come in. We take the data, analyse it, and then report it back to the players and teams in a format which basically helps to change behaviour, which changes performance, so we look at your training plans and advise you on other ways to train and practice, moving you towards intelligent practice and performance readiness.”
The possibilities are endless. Ever watched your favourite golfer have a bad time on the course after missing countless holes – or a footballer leaving the pitch cursing after missing a penalty kick? Behind the scenes, video and analytics technology is crunching those moments and turning them into data that can be used to improve the next game’s score.
