By Brian Beaky, CG Editor

As well as many courses manage the weather, winter is not the ideal season for the Northwest golfer. Wet fairways, cold temperatures and limited daylight are a three-headed monster that drives many golfers indoors until spring. Which is exactly where Gregg Rogers wants them. Rogers, 45, is the owner of Bellevue’s Gregg Rogers Golf Performance Center, a leader in a high-tech wave that is bringing the game of golf into the 21st century. The reason for the digital revolution is simple — there are just too many variables in any golf swing for the human eye to track. Traditional pros have about 1.5 seconds to analyze grip, address, backswing, shoulder rotation, hip rotation and clubface angle — all while trying to track a club moving at speeds upward of 100 miles per hour. Using cameras and motion sensors, computers can track all of these elements and more, while also providing visual and statistical feedback. Rogers’ Bellevue headquarters is virtual laboratory of simulators, motion-capture sensors, cameras and big-screen video and computer monitors — what Rogers calls “golf candy” for par-minded data heads. “Most of the clients we get are really into the data,” he says. “We live in a pretty analytical community, where people like to base their opinions on facts and numbers. Those people enjoy being able to apply that same analytical mindset to their golf game.” The Puget Sound region is flush with indoor golf centers, from the instruction-oriented facilities like Gregg Rogers’, GolfTEC and Puyallup’s Concept Golf Studios, to more recreational-minded ones like The Golf Club at Doubletree and the soon-to-be-opened Links Golf Café (see below). There are even companies such as Mukilteo’s Virtual Golf Systems from which you can purchase a simulator to have installed in your home. What sets Rogers’ performance center apart, however, is Rogers. The 2008 PGA NW Section Teacher of the Year and 2007 TaylorMade/adidas West Region Club Fitter of the Year, Rogers is one of the region’s brightest minds when it comes to first-class golf instruction. His nomination letter for the Teacher of the Year honor lists some of his more famous clientele, ranging from local college and Tour players to celebrities like Bill and Melinda Gates, Steve Ballmer and former Seahawks safety Jordan Babineaux. Raised in Oregon, Rogers first picked up a golf club at age 12, “hacking through the weeds” at local courses before eventually working his way up to the mini-Tour level until one day, in the middle of a 1989 lesson with his golf instructor, his career path took an unexpected turn. “At one point, he said, ‘I can see exactly what’s going on with your swing, but I don’t know how to fix it,” Rogers recalls. “That ticked me off. So I got my own video equipment and started working on my own swing.” Armed with a VHS camcorder, VCR and TV monitor, Rogers began recording his swings, then replaying them in slow motion to carefully analyze every aspect. Friends who dropped by took notice of the equipment and soon were paying Rogers to evaluate their swings, too. After a run at TaylorMade’s world-famous club fitting and instructional center, The Kingdom, Rogers returned to the Northwest to open his own year-round indoor golf performance center. On one recent Tuesday morning, one of Rogers’ regulars smacked balls to a virtual driving range in a state-of-the-art simulator, while the pro showed a guest the facility’s various technological marvels. There’s the BalanceLab, which uses a carefully-calibrated weight pad in the floor to  project a visual analysis of a golfer’s balance and weight shift onto one of two wide-screen LCDs set up in the facility’s main lesson room; the PuttLab, which clips onto your putter and feeds data back to a computer, providing immediate feedback regarding swing path, club face rotation and angle; and the About Golf 3D Simulator, allowing golfers to play some of the world’s finest courses — or just warm up on the range — through the use of Doppler radar technology. The centerpiece, however, is the Motion Analysis Technology by TaylorMade (MATT-6), which uses a combination of six cameras, Hollywood-like motion sensors that attach to a golfer’s body and clubs, launch monitors and the BalanceLab to generate a 3D model of the golfer’s swing, plus almost indigestible amounts of data regarding angles, swing paths, rotation, etc. Even for a true stats geek, the sheer volume of information spit out by the computer can be overwhelming. That’s where Rogers comes in — rather than simply present golfers with the facts and figures and send them on their flummoxed way, Rogers uses his certified knowledge of the system to turn the on-screen data into a handful of easy-to-use instructions that any golfer can understand. “The technology is so much better than it was even just a few years ago,” says Rogers. “Now you get immediate feedback on everything from weight balance to swing path, and you can see the ball flight, which lets you know immediately if what you are doing is working.” And it does work. As an example, Rogers points to the client warming up on the simulator, who he says was a 22 handicap when he first walked in the door two years ago; he is now a nine. Rogers estimates that he’ll give about 3,000 lessons this year, 90 percent of which will be repeat customers. “We want this to be a fun lesson,” he says. “We like to take our time with each client so that they know that the value of their time and their improvement as a player are important to us. Ultimately, it’s all about helping people become better golfers. That’s our number-one goal.” Not all of the indoor golf centers in the Puget Sound area are geared towards game improvement, however. At The Golf Club at Doubletree, it’s all about fun. The “club” — really a simulator located off the lobby of the Doubletree Hotel Seattle Airport in Seatac — allows golfers to play some of the world’s top courses, year-round, without ever having to worry about overcrowded fairways, travel expenses or inclement weather. The Doubletree’s simulator uses infrared lasers to track the speed and path of the ball off the golfer’s club, then illustrates the ball flight on a video projection of a real course, including Bayhill, Banff Springs, Kapalua, Castle Pines and more. Golfers can bring their own sticks, or borrow from the hotel’s well-stocked bag, including Titleist and Cobra models for men, women, juniors and lefties. In addition to the ability to play nine- or 18-hole rounds in stroke play, Skins Game or even Ryder Cup modes, the hotel holds regular closest-to-the-pin and long-drive contests, and allows both private and hourly (2-4 players at a time) play. It’s a fun way to spend the afternoon on a rainy Northwest weekend, or simply an affordable and convenient way to play a course that you might never otherwise have the chance to experience. With the abundance of indoor golf centers offering high-tech analysis that the most eagle-eyed pro can’t match, plus the chance to play the world’s top courses without ever leaving your hometown, it’s easy to imagine the traditional club pro turning into a spike-wearing version of the Maytag repairman. Rogers says not to count on that happening anytime soon. “There’s always going to be a place for on-course instruction,” he says. “There are things you do outdoors that you can’t do indoors, and vice versa. We hit a niche for analytical players who crave data about their swing. But no matter how many people turn to a center like ours for instruction, it’s never going to replace going out on the course and doing the real thing.”