Abstract
The purpose of this study was to verify the accuracy of 3D inertial sensor, based on the motion capture system, and analyze 3D motion of human body and putter club during golf putting. To test the accuracy of 3D inertial sensor, we used the physics pendulum of firmly fixed putter club. Ten putts were tried using the physics pendulum as accurately as possible, in order to reach a target distance of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5m. Then three experienced male golfers participated in this study. They executed putts of the same distance. 3D angular velocity of the putter club during golf putting performed by physics pendulum and human was calculated from 3D inertial sensor and motion capture system (MAC 3D). When participants performed putts, 3D angular velocity of the trunk was also calculated from inertial sensor and motion capture system. The results showed that difference between angular velocity calculated from inertial sensor and the same parameters calculated from motion capture system were relatively large. However, the 3D inertial sensor used in this study basically performed well because it captured motion trend of the putter club and the trunk. Additionally, we found that the more coefficient of variance of the angular velocity calculated from inertial sensor at impact increase, the more putting success rate decrease. These results of this study suggested that we can estimate putting skill by computing coefficient of variance of the angular velocity calculated from inertial sensor at impact.
