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Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
High-tech workroom lets Pa. resident train indoors year-round
By Marla Ridenour
Beacon Journal sportswriter
Published on Thursday, Jul 31, 2008
When he began his career, Sean O'Hair and his wife, Jackie, traveled to mini-tour tournaments in a trailer and often parked at Wal-Mart.
Now the 26-year-old PGA Tour pro has a golf room in his home in suburban Philadelphia that might put the mega-retailer's electronics department to shame.
Living near where his wife grew up, O'Hair can't play year-round like many of his peers who gravitate to warm-weather climates. So aided by one of his sponsors, CDW, he has outfitted a golf workroom with the latest high-tech equipment.
''Sean has totally embraced technology,'' said Mark Gambill, chief marketing officer for CDW. ''He's got a putting area; he has a software and digital tool that will allow him to track his putting. It tells him if he's hitting it square on the head, if it's slightly tilted, speed, angle, approach, and he feeds that into a software system. He also has video cameras where he monitors his swing for his driver and irons. He'll put that into software and analyze it and shoot that information to his trainer.''
Fellow tour pro Bill Haas, 26, said he has seen pictures of O'Hair's room in magazines.
''It does sound really cool,'' Haas said. ''He lives up in north; he needs a room to hit balls. His wife won that battle.''
O'Hair doesn't believe that his setup is anything special.
''It's stuff that other players use on a regular basis, but I don't know if they have that type of technology at home,'' O'Hair said earlier this month at the AT&T National. ''I don't like to film too much when I'm out on the road because I tend to get too technical. It's a good thing working on your game, especially during the winter when you're making a few changes.''
Gambill said he has seen Jerry Kelly go even further than O'Hair and take his laptop to the driving range.
''He'll have his hitting coach watching him through the video camera on the laptop,'' Gambill said. ''I think you're going to see that more and more. And the technology behind it will get better so there's more clarity.'' The company has already found a notebook visible in daylight for the LPGA's Paula Creamer.
When he's at home, O'Hair could also put on swing videotapes of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and match his against theirs. But with a swing that has been described as near-perfect already, he doesn't study his predecessors too much.
''I've got a lot of different swings. Swings from Tiger (Woods), Kenny Perry. You name it, they're on there,'' O'Hair said. ''You can go side by side and stuff like that; it's pretty neat. You can add swings. But I'm not a tech guy who's going to go up to somebody and say, 'Can I film your swing and put it on my computer?' I'll leave that to the instructors.
''I don't look at their swings too much. I don't pay too much attention to other people's swings. I do my own thing.''
Gambill helps provide state-of-the-art equipment for O'Hair, but he doesn't believe O'Hair is the only one who's onto something.
''I think it's a byproduct of that generation,'' Gambill said. ''Sean is 26 years old and all of the folks that age; it's like me growing up without a television clicker. I couldn't imagine life without it. They can't imagine life without technology surrounding them.''
Marla Ridenour can be reached
at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com.
When he began his career, Sean O'Hair and his wife, Jackie, traveled to mini-tour tournaments in a trailer and often parked at Wal-Mart.
Get the full article here.
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