The GENiUS Ball might just yet be what most golfers have been waiting for, because it is being billed as the golf ball you simply can’t lose and is set to be a disrupter to the entire industry.
The “ball with a brain” from OnCore Golf uses GPS location technology, a tech innovation that has never been used before in a golf ball. The smart upgrade makes locating your golf ball simple and easy, but OnCore promise there are many more benefits to the unique golf ball they have innovated.
If you aren’t familiar with OnCore Golf, they have introduced products like the ELIXR Tour Ball, Avant and Caliber golf balls in the past. However, their latest innovation, the GENiUS ball, has been four years in the making.
Used like any other golf ball, the technology within the GENiUS allows for shot data from tee to green to be compiled in real time to an app or mobile device during a practice round and reviewed after you return home from the course, giving a golfer access to information on their game like never before.
Data on ball speed, spin rate and axis, carry distance, roll and total shot distance will all be available on the user’s phone after each shot. This ball can provide the information normally associated with the use of launch monitors.
But it is perhaps the use of GPS location technology is the real USP because (technically) the GENiUS can never be lost unless it slips off the radar. In a multi-billion dollar industry of golf balls sales, this could be the biggest game changer yet.
The GPS is incorporated into OnCore’s patented hollow core technology with the electronics embedded. It goes against everything we have heard or read about the core of a golf ball.
Now, the balls will be honed with golfers across the world being asked to partake in testing of the GENiUS to analyse the analytics and data the golf ball can provide. Using a ball to improve your game may seem beyond comprehension to many golfers, but it looks like it is here.
OnCore say they have “demonstrated the G-Force Integrity (15K+ G-Force) of electronics inside our proprietary cores, and we’ve validated the computational mathematics and physics necessary to take the electronic data and turn it into meaningful information.”
Of course, no golf ball can last forever. While losing the GENiUS ball is unlikely due to the GPS, the cover of a golf ball will ultimately have a shelf-life with no manufacturer yet to come up with a casing—the GENiUS has a durable urethane cover—that won’t eventually damage. But OnCore “are designing the battery life to exceed that of the skin of the ball.”
A word of caution though: The ball will “conform to the five quantifiable metrics that the USGA Rules cover—size, weight, symmetry, initial velocity and overall distance. However, the information that the GENiUS Ball delivers would disqualify it from use in most sanctioned tournaments”. So, it will only be an option in practice rounds.
The GENiUS balls are set for public release on Father’s Day (Sunday, June 19) once the rigorous testing by golfers has been undertaken.
See also: Rickie Fowler Signs TaylorMade Ball Deal