OnCore Golf Technology, Inc., a Buffalo, New York-based leading innovator in golf ball technologies, announced today a partnership with Omaha-based vGolf, LLC.
The partnership combines vGolf’s mixed reality technology using augmented reality glasses with OnCore Golf’s chip-embedded GENiUS BALL™.
GENiUS BALL is a smart ball with embedded advanced chip-set technology that captures performance data including ball velocity, spin rate, spin angle, trajectory, GPS location, distance to the tee, and more. The information is delivered to the player’s mobile phone and a back-end portal for insights and understanding of their game performance.
vGolf’s simulator allows the user to virtually play a real-world golf course by wearing a pair of augmented reality glasses and hitting a ball into a net or onto a driving range.
“Hitting a golf ball and being instantly able to see where it is going, what the ball flight characteristics are, and then knowing that you can replay that shot later on to see what you did right or wrong, is something that we think golfers of all skill levels will appreciate, enjoy, and learn from,” said Tom Kudirka, President of vGolf. “Merging the virtual and real worlds of golf through the combination of the GENiUS BALL and our vGolf technology is truly game-changing.”
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Golfers can play their favorite courses with a GENiUS BALL and, using the vGolf AR glasses, see a visual trace of their golf ball’s flight path in real time for every shot, combined with a head’s up display readout of their performance data.
Each shot is recorded along with course and hole details and uploaded to a cloud-based server for review later on a tablet or PC or even “replayed” using a 3D graphic that can also be generated at home with the vGolf AR glasses. The Virtual Caddy is intended to become a personal golf assistant which can be used on any golf course.
By combining the two technologies, the company’s believe they can create an entirely new golf experience that they’re launching this year under the trade name The Virtual Caddy™.
“We are very excited about the potential that the Virtual Caddy system brings to increase the on-course golf experience and expect that this will help grow the game amongst, in particular, a tech-savvy young demographic,” said Bret Blakely, Co-founder of OnCore Golf. “As innovators from core to cover, we continue to look for ways to make golf more enjoyable and accessible.”
The companies are also working with industry leaders to bring artificial intelligence to the shared platform which will provide true predictive and suggestive player actions.
The companies expect to complete the development and integration phases mid-year in 2018 and begin offering the Virtual Caddy systems shortly after.
