MEMBER REVIEWS: 18Birdies AI Coach! See What Members Are Saying

[knudson81]

 

We have GolfWRX members testing out 18Birdies latest technology, AI Coach, and ready to report back to the community. 18Birdies AI Coach is a revolutionary coaching program that lets you upload a video of your swing and then gives you instant feedback and drills to help improve your game wherever and whenever you want to. The members testing AI Coach are...

@tocino

@arenapoutine

@LarryHill

@kthomas

@sminaudo

@raurness

We also want to give a big THANK YOU to 18Birdies for putting on this testing event. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have on 18Birdies and AI Coach.

Edited August 26, 2020 by knudson81

[tocino]

Wow.. with COVID, wondering wth my kids’ schools are going to do, and now the wild fires happening in my area, I had the damndest time trying to get a chance to test and review 18Birdies. So my apologies for how late this is but here goes

 

Quick review:

Make sure you have a tripod or phone/camera attachment that you can use to record your swing.

 

Recording your swing is pretty intuitive. The interface is simple and editing prior to submission is nice and easy.

 

It loads very fast and I didn’t have to wait that long before I was able to review my swing. 

Based off of the results it was very easy to see where my faults were (excessive head movement and my spine was all over the place). I had a feeling I knew what was wrong with my swing but it’s been a number of years since the last time I had someone record it. 
 

the drills they offer from the coach seem pretty easy so far. I’ll try it out for a week and do a follow-up report after.

 

Let’s say I’m pretty stoked about this app so far and I can’t wait to see how it helps my swing.

 

disclaimer* i actually tested it first as course GPS tracker. I have another system that uses sensors to register hits so it was a bit of a pain to have to  do something prior to every shot on my phone but I do consider it a bonus since the real reason I wanted to participate was for the coaching aspect.

Edited August 22, 2020 by tocino

[Seidinho]

Looking forward to seeing this!

[sminaudo]

Hopefully my future posts aren't this long, just trying to start off with the basics.

Figured I'd start off with a little player background for myself. When I started with the AI coaching i was sitting at a 16 HCP. I played hockey and baseball growing up and played baseball in college. I've never had any experience with golf coaches or taking golf lessons, but I have always played. For me in a typical round i usually always would have those 1 or 2 holes that i fall apart on and kill my scores. Within the past few years I've developed something in my swing that will cause me to shank horribly off to the right. That needs to go.

 

Initial thought of 18 birdies AI coaching:

easy to upload swings (tripod is extremely useful)

quick swing analysis time (if you have good internet connection it takes less than a minute)

instant recommended drills (will go into)

handy practice log

can be kind of difficult to find the side by side comparison between your swing and proper swing

 

So the way the app works is, you record your swing, down the line and face on. Trim it to make sure the full swing is being analyzed, upload the swing and wait for your analysis. Once the analysis is done it will go into a video of what the #1 issue with that swing was. Tell you what it can cause and then take you do the drills, so far for me its typically been 2 drills you can do anywhere no club or hitting the ball required and one drill to work on at the range. The analysis also gives your swing a rating out of 10 so you can see your progression with each uploaded swing. So far for me there are usually at least 3 things for me to work on.

 

I have noticed, that for my at home drills, multiple issues in my swing they have the same drills to work on. Not sure if that's just due to the fact that my issues build on each other or if that is because of a lack of drills. I will try to keep track of that and see if others are experiencing the same thing.

 

I believe that this AI coaching will help out my iron play which I believe will help out my game. I just don't want to forget about my short game and putting. I think it would be good if the app would kind of make a practice schedule for you and incorporate the swing drills as well as short game drills and putting drills.

 

My next post I will include some of the swing analysis that I have. Sorry again for the long post just wanted to give some background info and my initial thoughts.

[OhYeahPlayer]

This is a very interesting product. I haven't dove too deep into the training plans and uploaded more than a couple swings, but thoughts at this point -

--The instant feedback is pretty dang cool. To make a swing, upload, and have a training plan back in about a minute is something you can't get unless you have a coach standing behind you.

--The ability to upload a swing without a club is great. I don't know much not having a club will affect how you make your swing and the coaching results, but to be able to upload a swing in your house and get instant feedback for something you're working on is great.

--Having the multiple areas of improvement for each swing is cool. The coaching varies swing to swing, but you can view three or four areas to improve, drills, and a plan for each under each swing analysis. In my experience, the areas of improvement are similar, but not close or spot on from swing to swing. I would be really interested to see/hear how a scratch golfer's areas for improvement would vary from swing to swing against my 8 handicap variances.

--I went to use this at the range last week and their servers were down, so I couldn't access my drills/plans. Likelihood of this happening again is probably very low, I probably just had this happen at an inopportune time, but was a bit of a bummer on my range day nonetheless.

I'm excited to keep using this, and to use it more diligently to try and improve. I've noticed I'm getting stuck in my downswing, so I want to film a couple down-the-line videos and see if the app picks up on that. All in all, it's a pretty cool product and I'm looking forward to seeing improvement in my swing with more diligent use.

 

[kthomas]

I'm a little late to the game, which I apologize for! Took a bit of a hiatus from GolfWRX the past month, but I'm back in full swing and have started using the 18birdies app.

I'm a casual golfer, the wife and I aim to go once a week, and I've been trying to squeak in even more rounds then that when I can. Going into this, I felt that my ball striking was half decent, however I'm certainly not going to be mistaken for Collin Morikawa at the local muni. My handicap hovers between ~15 to 18, and like everyone here I would love to score better on the course.

I'll get into the app, my experience thus far (I've only been using it since late last week), and what I've learned and have implemented as a result.

First off, you can use the app anywhere where you can safely swing a golf club, no actual ball striking required. When first using the app, I set myself up in the biggest room in the house with a tall ceiling, 6 iron in hand (you can use any club, I arbitrarily picked my 6 iron), and setup my swing area. I have a tripod, so I set that up behind me so that I could get a full view of my swing. Opened the app, set up the AI swing analyzer, put my phone on the tripod and grabbed my 6 iron and took a few swings.

Before I go any further, I should mention that the AI swing analyzer will score your swing out of 10 points. To be honest I'm not sure exactly what the exact criteria is, at this point I'm assuming the AI swing analyzer knows more about the golf swing then I do (which isn't saying much if I'm being used for the benchmark ). I uploaded a swing from my first set of swings, and anxiously awaited my score. I got a 4.0 . While I know I'm not Tiger Woods, I didn't think I was that bad! Anyways, I looked at the video I uploaded, and realized that the AI swing analyzer was not happy with my head bobbing as I was setting up in my golf stance. What I didn't realize is that the video should show only the swing. There's a way in the app to cut the video you took up, to show only the swing. Make sure you do that so you don't get disappointed in a low score!

Okay, so I took another video of a swing, this time chopping the video to show only my swing (start of backswing through the follow through). This time I scored a 7.5, which seemed a lot more aligned with my expectations . After your swing gets analyzed and scored, the app gives you one thing to focus on to improve your swing, and some drills to improve it. It will highlight the "opportunity area" that it found, and will show on a split screen your swing juxtaposed with that of a professional, to highlight the differences. In my case, I was not rotating my hips enough. Prior to the app I always felt like that was the case with my swing, but with no training to correct it, I didn't really know how to address it.

The app will represent your drills to you in video format, being led by a golf professional. The first drill was a very simple drill that could be done anywhere - no golf club needed for it. Home, office, out on public transportation if you want some stares. The drill was very easy to perform, and got your head and body used to feeling in a certain manner - in this specific case hip rotation and how your weight feels on your feet on the backswing. The next drill was one to be performed on the driving range - it required a PW and a 7 iron (I used 6 iron), and started with half swings with the PW, evolving to full swings using your new swing adjustment, and once you were comfortable with the PW, graduating to the 7 iron.

This morning I performed the last drill on the driving range, and it certainly took a little getting used to, as you would expect with any swing changes. The half swings went really well, I had no real problem adapting to my new swing adjustment with the half swings. The full swings took a little more getting used to, and will require some more work to get more ingrained. I will see that the balls I did flush with my full swing, was noticeably different then flush hits with my previous swing. The ball sounded different coming off of the club face, with a nice high and long piercing flight. The ball certainly seems to be coming off of the face faster then before, which is really exciting. I wish I had a launch monitor to actually quantify the results, I may have to look into getting something. In the meantime, I'm going to continue to practice this new swing adjustment, before I move on to the next swing analysis.

I like what I am seeing so far, and I see a lot of promise in my new swing adjustment, I'm definitely getting more hip rotation. With my new range of hip motion being incorporated into my golf swing, I've even noticed that my transition, specifically with the weight on my feet, feels much more natural rather then being forced. Before I struggled with ending with weight on my front foot, now it seems hard not to do with this new swing adjustment. I also end up with my hips square and facing the target, which wasn't happening before.

My wife and I have our weekly golf game tomorrow, at 6 AM, so I'll be sure to post back and let you know how this new swing adjustment has carried on to the golf course, stay tuned!

[kthomas]

I'm still working on incorporating the changes from the first opportunity area the AI swing analyzer has brought to my attention - more hip rotation.

I've been to the driving range about 4x in the past week, and have played 2 games of golf, with another 9 holes scheduled tomorrow AM.

I've definitely noticed an improvement in my swing and ball striking. I used to have a two way miss with the irons, but I've been finding that my well struck shots are much more precise. I've been landing on greens, pin high not far from the hole, on holes I've previously always miss to the left or right. Incorporating more hip turn has so far eliminated my right miss, but occasionally I'll still push one to the left. Sometimes I get carried away and I'll chunk the odd one, but when I focus on a smooth and easy swing I get a delightfully high and straight shot, with pleasing regularity.

I plan on having another AI swing analysis done soon, after my 9 holes tomorrow and another driving range session. I'll report back on the results from that, as well as my continual interaction with the app. I'm taking each swing improvement slowly and one at a time, to properly incorporate and practice each new swing improvement. 

[sminaudo]

So far based on my swing analysis I am still struggling with the same issue, head movement. I sticking with the drills and I know its not something that can be changed overnight. The nice thing is I feel like I can tell when I am getting into my bad habits. If I am on the course and I have a bad swing I run through a couple of the drills that seem to help me and I can make the adjustment. Before it was like oh great don't do that again. Now I feel like I can make the adjustment. I won't lie I still have no clue if that's just a mental thing or if I am actually learning. Regardless, it is helping me. I will try to post some screen captures of the app and the interaction of how everything works. 

[Chris29]

I gave this a shot and wowsers was it eye opening how bad my swing is. I am looking forward to using the recommendations to see if I can improve anything. I will report back.

 

Stance width was my biggest issue followed by head movement. Somehow my arm bend at the top of the swing was the last of 6 issues it identified which I find interesting as that was the number one thing that stood out to me when I saw the video. Hopefully this helps. 

 

Now its time to buy more equipment since these lessons are fairly cheap!

[kthomas]

Course update:

 

Played 9 holes with my wife and a couple that are friends at a course none of us have played at before. 

 

Driving was very good - hit every single fairway in regulation except for one. My irons have become lasers! Almost every iron shot was struck pure and went high and straight, some of my best iron performance to date. Made a birdie and four pars on the front 9, not bad for a ~15-18 handicap on a new course. Overall I've hitting my shots better then ever - from drivers to wedges, my performance has seen a noticeable improvement since using this app, and I hope it continues!

 

I'm still working on the first swing update, but I think I'm at a point now where I can incorporate a new swing update/drill. Will update with progress when I take the swing analyzer again. 

[MysteryV]

This thread got shockingly little response.  For an app that's free to test, I'm surprised.  Even more so as BeBetterGolf promoted it recently.

 

Just tried it for the first time and it's interesting.  My TL;DR version:

 

- The app is fun and worth downloading for the free trial.  Seeing the "bones" feature during your swing is enlightening.  That said, it only really focuses on the hips up.  I personally think my left knee is one of my biggest trouble areas (it wants to stay in place and buckle at the last minute versus a nice, gradual kick in / kick out) - and while there's definitely a cascade effect that shows up in the hips, it's odd that they don't highlight lower body at all.

 

- The analysis seems good not great.  It pinpointed that I need more hip rotation in the backswing from the face on view - which was true for the cold, half assed swings that I tested with at first.  It pinpointed tempo in the DTL view - which may also be true.  It would be MUCH better if it actually showed you your tempo which I assume they calculated - and should be easy to surface.  Saying "work on your tempo" without telling you the ratio is a bit lazy.

 

- The coaching videos are extremely meh.  The "Tempo drill"  was to go to the range and work on my temo.  Thanks - SUUUPER helpful Miaya Tanaka!  

 

Overall, I doubt I'll pay for it down the line - but who knows.  Getting swing scores and seeing what goes out of wack when you make changes is actually really helpful.  Definitely download and give it a shot!

[sminaudo]

I would like to apologize to the community for the lack of content on this thread. I just completed a move to Texas and will be working on getting some more useful information about this product out there as I know there have been some recent updates to the app. Again I am sorry for the lack of info on my behalf. 

[Rbsiedsc]

i will say i did try the free trial of this and it did help my ball striking. i may try that again once the system forgets i existed.