Image Courtesy Dan Baker
The setting: A golf course in Carlisle. A golfer taking a lesson insisted that his eyes stayed where they were supposed to be, on the ball he was preparing to putt. But golf pro Daniel Baker saw that the man’s eyes were following what was moving, “and that was the putter blade.”
At that moment, Baker had an epiphany. He duct-taped a laser pointer to the brim of a cap. Then, at Baker’s instructions, the student did exactly as he’d always done but with the laser turned on and pointing at the ground.
“I’ll be damned,” the student said. “The laser’s moving.”
And so the Laser Golf Cap was born (lasergolfcap.com). Baker is a Certified PGA Professional, now owner and operator of Waynesboro Municipal Golf Course. The California native played the PGA tour in 1980 and ’81. “I didn’t do any good at it,” he admits.
He came to Pennsylvania in 2001 and now lives in Mechanicsburg. He is a father of three and grandfather of four, with two more due just a couple of weeks apart. “So we’re going from four to six in no time,” he says.
As every golfer knows, the head must stay stock-still when putting and chipping. TV commentators say it all the time, as Baker points out. The golfer who pulls his or her head misses the putt.
“The biggest fault in golf is excessive head movement,” says Baker. “That’s from pros down to beginners. We pull our heads. We move too much.”
Golfers who take their eyes off the ball diminish their chances of hitting it squarely because “everything’s attached to your head–your neck, your body, your chest.”
“If the head moves, everything else moves,” he says. “It’s imperative that you keep your head still and your eyes on the target. We use a pendulum motion, swinging our arms and shoulders back and through, and you have a better chance to keep it square when your body is still and–in our lingo–you’re keeping your eyes quiet.”
Image Courtesy Dan Baker
Image Courtesy Dan Baker
Image Courtesy Dan Baker
Image Courtesy Dan Baker
As that student who inspired the Laster Golf Cap learned, you might think your head is still, but the evidence says otherwise. “You can’t argue with the laser,” Baker says.
After Baker’s epiphany, friends in the retail business encouraged him to go for it, turning his duct-taped version of the cap into a product targeting 38 million US golfers anxious to shave a stroke or two off their scores. After testing prototypes for two years, Baker went to market with a cap that features a clicker for turning the laser on and off. The lithium battery-powered laser is the lowest power available, not even the kind known to disrupt vision, so it won’t hurt the eyes.
Golfers can point the laser at the ball or just above it for “instant feedback” on head movement, Baker says.
“If that laser beam moves, your head has moved. If your head moves, you can’t fight it. You can’t escape it,” says Baker. “Putting is about 40 percent of the golf game. People who want to improve their golf game have got to improve their putting, because you only hit your driver about 14 times in a round. You only hit your wedge about six times. You only hit a seven-iron once or twice. But you’re going to putt 30-some times.”
The Laser Golf Cap has found many adherents. It was featured twice on the Golf Channel, demonstrated by Golf Channel lead golf coach Kenny Nairn, and voted one of the best new training aids at the PGA Merchandise Show. It is worn by some Senior PGA Championship professionals and is offered on golftrainingaids.com.
Baker’s customers include businesses that buy in bulk and customize the caps with their logos as promotional or incentive items. Golf tournament organizers, always looking for unique prizes, are another market.
“You get a prize when you play a charity tournament,” says Baker. “I played yesterday and got an umbrella. Well, I’ve got plenty of umbrellas.”
The Laser Golf Cap helps golfers foster muscle memory in the art of keeping the head still, “so when you go on the golf course, you’re training yourself to not move and to keep that pendulum motion,” Baker says. And while brisk sales would be nice, he hopes that, at bottom, the cap will help more people enjoy the game he loves.
“People want to get better and improve,” he says. “Yes, it’d be nice to sell a whole bunch of them, but as a golf pro, I want to see people improve and play better. That’s really the ultimate goal.”
