Golf Sparks has just gone to internal testing on the App Store. If you play golf, have an iPhone, and want to try it before anyone else, email matt@dyor.com ↗ and I'll add you.
What it does
Golf Sparks does what a coach would do if they walked the course with you: track the round, film the swing, and give you a straight answer about what went wrong on the shot you actually hit.
- Round Recorder. Log every shot as you play: club, lie, distance to the green and where the ball ended up. GPS gives you distances to the green, and the scorecard keeps gross and net scores with your handicap strokes. You can see where your drives actually go.
- Film your swing without a cameraman. Set the phone down and tap Record Swing (or say "record"). A countdown gives you time to walk to the ball, and the clip is waiting for you on that hole. Mark the moment of impact and Golf Sparks trims the clip to the swing.
- An AI swing coach. The Coach watches the clip and names the faults it can actually see: early extension, casting, over-swinging, a chicken wing, an incomplete follow-through. Each one comes with the frame that shows it and an arrow pointing at the problem. It gives you three things to work on at most, because a golfer handed six things fixes none of them. Next to each fault it shows a frame from one of your own swings where you did that part right.
- Range Recorder. The same filming and coaching at the range, the simulator or the net.
- Round review. After the round, the Coach looks for patterns across your whole scorecard and suggests drills for them. One bad swing is just a bad swing; the same fault on twenty swings is what to practise.
- Golf Courses. Install your course with par, yardage and GPS already set up, or set it up yourself and share it with other golfers.
- Share the Coach's notes. Send a swing and its notes to a friend or your pro in one tap.
Your rounds and swing videos stay on your phone. A clip is only sent off for analysis when you ask, and the app asks before anything goes to the AI. New golfers get free credits for the Coach, and there's no subscription.
New and improved merch
Filming your own swing only works if the phone stands up on its own, so I've been designing and 3D-printing stands. Two are new in this round.
The Wrapper Spike ($10). The world's most over-engineered camera stand. Kind of amazing that this thing works: push it into the turf, set your phone in it, and it holds the angle for the whole round. It also happens to be a very good fidget spinner.
The Tee Holder ($7). Stop digging around in your pocket for tees. It holds four short and two long tees, which keeps you organized and focused on making your next bogey. It works perfectly with the Wrapper Spike.
The lineup also has the Range Stand, built for filming yourself at the range, the simulator or the net, plus the Wolverine and the Hinged Spike. All of them can be ordered from Golf Merch inside the app, with free shipping in the US.
How it's built
Golf Sparks is written in Kotlin Multiplatform, with Compose Multiplatform for the UI. One codebase covers the round tracking, the swing review and the Coach, and the app runs natively on iPhone and Android. I'm launching on the App Store first because most of the golfers I'm connected with have iPhones. Android is coming soon.
Want early access?
Email matt@dyor.com ↗ with the email address on your Apple ID, and I'll send you a TestFlight invite. Tell me where you play, too. If your course isn't in Golf Courses yet, I'd love your help getting it in.
See you on the first tee.
