Technology has been evolving, and with it have come advancements in how athletes can train. These advancements have been particularly helpful to athletes in areas where weather does not permit year-round practice. These advancements also supply athletes with a simpler, more efficient way to train. Two sports these advancements have helped in particular are golf and basketball.
Golf is a sport that is extremely difficult to play depending on the weather. As a result, most golf courses are closed during winter seasons. To combat this, golf simulators allow play in any condition and a much faster paced experience.
Playing a round of golf on a course can take up to four hours. Players will hit, then all members of a group must find and hit their ball again until finally reaching the objective on every hole. This process is time consuming and repetitive.
On a golf simulator, which is a device that allows players to simulate golf experiences from the comfort of their home, players can play rounds in almost a quarter of the time. Players are instantly taken to their ball instead of having to find it, for constant golf with less breaks. Players are also able to play famous courses without having to pay the obscene cost.
Having a golf simulator can also save the player money in the long run. Although the initial cost is significant, you never have to spend money on a course or range again. “It can save the player money, because hitting on the virtual range is free, hitting on a real range costs money,” Ian Scott ‘25 said, a member of the Mount Michael golf team.
However, breaks can sometimes be a good thing. On a course you are stuck there for a permitted time. On the other hand, with a golf simulator you can simply leave and come back to golf as you please. This allows players to go eat, relax, and much more without any consequences to play.
Golf, however, is not the only sport with technological advancements at The Mount. Basketball is a sport that takes many repetitions every day to master. Trying to put in work by yourself can result in a lot of wasted time, when stuck chasing down missed shots. The Gun, an automated basketball shooting machine and rebounding tool, solves this problem by combining passing and rebounding into one machine. The Gun can hold up to four basketballs that fire out to the shooter after the number of seconds they selected.
The Gun’s rebounding capabilities are enforced with nets reaching out 12 feet to snag balls out of the air. This allows for more shots to go up in a significantly smaller amount of time. The Gun’s netting is also clear, so it does not obstruct the shooter’s view of the basket.
While The Gun can rebound and pass to you all by itself, the most beneficial factor is its ability to count the made shots and relay onto the shooter the percentage they are shooting. The newest prototypes of The Gun can even track the shooters makes over the course of months to show the users improvements.
The Gun can be used individually, or with a group of teammates. This modern technology is used by historically great colleges, such as Kentucky, Gonzaga and North Carolina, as well as NBA players throughout the country, such as the league’s leading scorer, Luka Doncic.
