Trackman Comes To Boyne Golf In Northern Michigan

Trackman Comes To Boyne Golf In Northern Michigan

The internet is not available at our lakeside family vacation home in Northern Michigan. Nor do we have other high-tech niceties such as air conditioning. Indoor plumbing has only arrived in my wife’s lifetime.

At Boyne Highlands in nearby Harbor Springs, however, they’ve upped their golf game tech to Silicon Valley levels. The Trackman Range at Boyne’s Ross Golf Center opened this last May at Boyne Highlands’ Ross Golf Center and has quickly become a star attraction.

On a recent Boyne Golf vacation, I had the opportunity to spend an hour on Boyne Highlands’ new Trackman range. It’s addicting. I wanted to return the next day to fiddle with my swing to see what kind of performance gains I could eke out.

Boyne Highland’s thirty bay Trackman Range has two primary attractions.

The first is the plethora of stats that it can generate about your swing and download to a phone app for your analysis. The range and app will track each shot and provide data on carry, total distance, ball speed, height, launch angle, launch direction and more.

For me, that was the addicting part. It’s like a real-world, physical old-school video game. In the games of my youth, you navigated a character through a maze of some sort, making small adjustments until you perfected the pattern. At the end of each run — either through death or level completion — you were shown a screen that told you how far you went, how long it took, how many power-ups you acquired and so forth.

In the Trackman range mode, you hit a series of balls, trying with each shot to make small adjustments until you perfect the groove. At the end of each “run” at one of the distant flags, you are shown a screen that shows how far you went, how high you flew, how fast you got there and so forth.

Addicting.

The other mode lets golfers play virtual courses and compete in games.

In the virtual courses function, you can play a variety of famous courses on a tablet app. The app shows you the hole, then tells you which of the flags downrange to target with your swing. In this way, it gives you a sense of distance and angle with real world visual cues.

Games on the Boyne Golf’s Trackman range include Bulls Eye, Hit It and Capture the Flag. All can either be played alone or in a group.

I was guided through using the range by Josh Richter, Director of Golf at Boyne Resorts. It turned out to not be difficult at all.

It’s all quite a lot of fun and adds another activity to Boyne Golf resorts which already have a ton of entertainment options, including golf, swimming, bicycling, hiking, zip lines, horseback riding, Segway tours, fishing, lawn games, disc golf and dinner theatre (which I have never seen but hear is quite good). You won’t be bored at Boyne.

If all you’re interested in is golf, in addition to the ten courses, Boyne offers instruction, clubfitting, TPI (Titleist Performance Institute) evaluations, GEARS (a high tech body and club tracking facility for training ) … and now, Trackman.

Director of Golf Richter said “TrackMan Range will provide another fun resource for our members and guests to play golf. We feel that for those looking to improve their game will find this opportunity by utilizing the data points provided, that a standard range does not offer.”

Richter also noted that Trackman turns out to be a fairly low stress for people to get into the game: “TrackMan Range can be an exciting way to introduce golf to new golfers as well as an alternative way for the novice golfer to come have fun as they learn and improve. “

It makes sense. While playing at the Trackman Range, no one is groaning when you top a shot, or tapping impatiently while you are taking too long. Boyne Golf’s Trackman Range will not judge you, but will offer helpful insights.

An unlimited day pass at Boyne’s Trackman Range is $100. A sixty ball bucket for use with Trackman is $25. The best value if you’re a repeat Boyne visitor or an area resident, is a $600 season pass.