Performance Enhancing Technology
Features of the Grooved Golf Grip
Longitudinal Grooves: Unlike conventional golf grips, the Grooved Golf Grip has longitudinal orientation to its grooves. They are not oblique as seen with conventional grooves. This feature eliminates any brain confusing geometries on position of the golf club in space. The remainder of the grip surface has minimal texture that is below the threshold of perception, thereby removing easily palpable conflicting features.
Tour Proven: Extensive testing has been performed with the cooperation of PGA tour players. During preliminary testing, various players were asked to tell us how this new grip feels. They were not told about the features of the grip. They discussed everything but the grip while saying the test club’s head geometry was not to their liking. They often complained the shaft was too weak or not to their specifications. Occasionally, a player recognized something different about the grip, but they were not sure. When asked about feel, one summarized what others expressed in other ways, “It feels like an extension of my arms and body.” We then revealed the nature of the grip. Unprejudiced and unbiased, the participating players were obviously influenced by the subliminal neurological input from the alignment biofeedback imprint on their fingers and hands that yielded such better impact spots on the club face.
The Merits:
- USGA conforming
- Protected by at least one of US Patent No. 7637821, 7794332, 8062147, 8092317, and additional patents pending
- Grooves are non-distracting
- Subliminal cerebral perception
- Grooves in each quadrant without competing geometry insuring a great read on club shaft position in space
- Increase confidence
- Comfortable
- Dynamic biofeedback
- No lessons, no learning curve
- Great FEEL
The Grooved Golf Grip enhances swing path repetition for hitting consistently in the center of the club face.
Protected by at least one of US Patent No. 7637821, 7794332, 8062147, 8092317, and additional patents pending
USGA conforming
The Technology of Feel
The Grooved Golf Grip is a revolutionary game improvement golf grip. The introduction of longitudinally oriented miniature sized grooves has provided a seamless neurologically perceptive connection between the golfer and the club. The orientation of the miniature grooves are perpendicular to the forces that would produce unwanted shaft or club face twisting. They provide a firm hold that controls shaft torque.
Why the name “Synapse” and what is “Synapse”?
The term “synapse” was coined in 1897 by the English physiologist Charles Sherrington. It was fashioned from the Greek word “synaptein” meaning to fasten together. In neuroanatomy, a synapse is the site of functional apposition between neurons, where an impulse (information) is transmitted from one to another, usually by a chemical neurotransmitter across the gap as there is no physical continuity.
The word “synapse” is used in describing the Grooved Golf Grip in that there is no physical continuity between the player’s skin and the rubber golf grip. The player’s skin is in intimate contact with the golf grip’s groove allowing the transfer of information from the golf club to the player’s neuromuscular system. This intimate contact for controlling torque gives the golfer a high level of shaft position and club face direction at impact.
The concept is protected by at least one of US Patent No. 7637821, 7794332, 8062147, 8092317, and additional patents pending.
The various Grooved grips are USGA conforming.
A medical doctor upon hearing the grip’s name, Synapse®, for the first time, concluded; “Oh, there must be electronics in the grip”. No, the electronics are in you, the golfer. “I get it” he proclaimed. “I get it. It works because of how the body’s electronics work.” He got it.
WHO IS BEHIND THIS DEVELOPMENT?
This revolutionary grooved golf grip was invented by Dr. Johnson.
Expectations: The Grooved Golf Grip provides a true innovation for golf grips; a game improvement and enjoyment feature. Testing shows most golfers, independent of ability level showed an impact pattern of the driver face that was more compact and closer to the center of the face than with the control driver. This should produce a longer and more accurate ball flight due to the consistent center hit on the face. This contention was confirmed with a pilot study with PGA tour players. The performance was better with 90% of players tested with a golf club they had never seen with a Grooved Golf Grip than a driver perfectly fitted to a PGA Tour player by their sponsoring manufacturer that does not have the Grooved grip. It will not correct a flawed golf swing no matter the level of expertise nor instantaneously lower one’s handicap. However, early experience has shown surprisingly improvement in consistency, distance and direction with practice and play in a few weeks.
Potential Adverse Reactions: There have been none related to the use of the grip. The size of the grooves although large enough for a neurological imprint have shown no physical adverse effect on the player’s hands. In the practice of medicine we hold to the old adage of “do no harm”. This grip does not do any harm.
THE TECHNOLOGY OF FEEL
Golf is a game played by feel, while being supported by new advances in technology every year. Professional golfers will tell you they play by feel while having uniformly the best techniques supported by the latest technology. So there is a dichotomy in golf. Is it feel or technology? Technology is easily understood and or explained. Feel is a more illusive term to define. It is so personal. Defining feel is like quickly and completely describing a puff of smoke flowing through a room.
However, during the development of the Grooved Golf Grip the definition of feel became more apparent. Simply put, one could say it is biofeedback. That is true, but the term is so frequently used it is almost trite. The following description of the human biological factors that in combination result in feel has lead us to understand the technology is very much a part of feel. In fact, read on to better understand The Technology of Feel.
Sensibility or The Ability to Sense or Feel: The human finger tips and the lips have the most nerve endings per square inch of anywhere in the body. Therefore these areas have the highest level of sensory perception or sensibility. The finger tips can be thought of as high level neurological information collectors. The golfer’s hands “feel” were the golf club is in space.
In medical terms, this high level of perception is measured by what is known as 2 point discrimination. It is the body’s ability to determine if it is being touched with one or two pin pricks at successive narrower distances. The norm for humans to discern 1 or 2 pin pricks on the finger tips is a width of 2-4 millimeters. On the back of the shoulder it may be 100-130 millimeters since there are fewer nerve endings in the skin of the back than on the finger tips or our lips.
Based upon these known human findings, the Grooved Golf Grip has patented 2 mm wide and 1 mm deep longitudinal channels. These dimensions provide the highest level of sensibility. Most humans cannot perceive a structure of lesser dimensions.
When the player grasps the Grooved Golf Grip only the player’s skin sinks into the longitudinal channels. The grooves are no different than any other golf grip; i.e. the grooves on the traditional wrapped grip. The difference is the longitudinal physical orientation of the grooves. There is no corresponding grip geometry on the Grooved Golf Grip to any anatomical structure on the hand; i.e. finger, thumb, etc.
This intimate physical between the golfer’s skin and the longitudinal grooves in the grip has two other functions.
Anti-rotation: The intimate integration of the locking of the player’s skin and the grip prevents rotation of the club in the player’s hands at impact, even with miss hits off the toe. Thereby, torque is controlled.
Palpable Cognitive Recognition of 3 Dimensional Objects: A common test used to test a patient’s sensory cognitive skill is to place various small objects in a black bag. In the bag are several items of different shapes; a marble, a dime, a penny, a tooth pick, and a safety pin.
The patient is asked to blindly identify an object in the bag (a pencil) and then pull it out for confirmation.
A normal person can easily identify the objects felt by their hand without looking. The human hand has ability to perceive and distinguish various three dimensional shapes.
The relevance of this medical test to the longitudinal grooved golf grip is that the superficial imprint on the skin of the player’s hand and fingers. This shape replicates the golf club shaft. Importantly, the three dimension imprint on the player’s hand is in the same spatial relationship as the golf club shaft. Therefore, without any cognitive intention, the player perceives where the club shaft is in space to an extent not otherwise available to their nervous system. The golfer does not need to be consciously thinking of this feature of the DrLanny/Grooved grip, it is automatic. The golfer’s psychomotor system is now functioning as an extension of the golf club via the Grooved Grip.
The high level of sensibility and that of cognitive discrimination of the Grooved grip provides a sensory input to perceive and instantaneously know where the golf club shaft is in space and thereby direct the golf club’s movement in space. That is the point where the normal human function of proprioception takes over.
Proprioception is a medical term. It is defined as the unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself. In humans, these stimuli are detected by nerves within the body itself, i.e. joints, tendons, muscles. The semicircular canals of the inner ear also participate.
A practical demonstration of proprioception is the ability to close one’s eyes and touch your index fingers of both hands together without looking. You can do the same with little fingers, index to the point of the elbow, put both index fingers in your ears, and put your right heel on your left knee cap. All these moves are made without looking. Why is this? It is because by design and experience your body knows where it is in space.
Remember, the golf club does not know were it is in space. There must be a connection at a high level of sensory perception which the Grooved Grip provides.
NeuroMuscle Memory: The human body has a wonderful way of remembering past movements. This is often referred to as muscle memory although the proprioception is registered not only in the muscles but in and around the joints. As mentioned above the golfer gets the muscle memory from the sensations recorded in the hands, coupled with the registration of where the entire body was in space. After that information is in the memory bank, the information is sent back through the body to the hands so the muscles then are able to repeat the recorded performance to be transferred to the golf club via the grip.
In the familiar computer terms one must have an adequate hard drive, sufficient memory, and lots of RAM to be a good golfer, plus the solid, seamless, and continuous connection to the golf club grip which simulates the position of the golf club shaft. Technology is supporting the feel.
Very little has changed over the years with golf grips, until now. Until now, the technology has focused on the material; leather, rubber or various synthetics. The annual “innovations” have been limited to material consistency, weight and changes in the color de jour. The golf grip’s potential to exploit the dynamic connection (the synapse) between the player and the golf club has been ignored, until now; until the Dr. Lanny Grooved Golf Grip.
“A Better grip for the better golfer,
and for golfers who want to get better.”