Hard Drives: Golf Goes High-Tech at MIT’s Rudovsky Indoor Driving Range

Golf is all about angles and inches, so it makes sense that one of the world’s best scientific- and technical-research colleges would have its own lab to teach the game. In 2007, a squash court at MIT became the Rudovsky Indoor Driving Range (a.k.a. the Swing Lab), a state-of-the-art golf facility with 3-D body-mapping technology. Here, Jesse Struebing, a private instructor and MIT golf coach, uses cameras to analyze swings from every angle. “Video is excellent, but it can’t tell you everything,” Struebing says. “We see the swing plane in actual degrees, in horizontal angles.”

He also tracks the impact of golfers’ swings using Doppler radar. By looking at what happens when the clubface meets the ball, Struebing can address problems quickly and help improve distance and accuracy. “Everybody wants to hit the ball further, everybody wants to hit the ball much straighter, and with this technology I can make that happen,” Struebing says. “This is what all the PGA tour players are using right now. [It’s] cutting edge. Especially being at MIT, I need to have that.”

Lessons start at $80, 120 Vassar St., Cambridge, 716-228-8845, mitrecsports.com.