As printout sketches of former President Gerald Ford

and Jimmy Connors indicate, a Californian's computer

methods may help everyone from hackers to superstars

By EARL GUSTKEY

Special To The Harold

It is 1984. A 12-handicap Miami golfer has flown to Southern California. His mission: to chop a half-dozen strokes oft his golf game.

He spends a week at the Coto Sport Research Center in Orange County. Here, Dr. Gideon Ariel measures the golfer's physical dimensions, tests his leg, hip, trunk and shoulder strength and photographs his swing from various angles with 10.000-frame-per-second movie cameras. Computerization reduces the golfer's swing to stick-like cartoon figures.

Tests completed, Dr. Ariel condenses a stack of computer printouts into a report that tells the golfer exactly what club length to use, what club to use at varying distances and, finally, outfits him with a strange-look

ing pair of high-top golf shoes and a key to adjust their height.

The man returns to Miami, tees it up where his best previous score was an 83, and shoots a 77.

Science fiction? Now, yes. But Dr. Ariel, dlrector of computer science/mechanics for the U.S. Olympic Committee, says such a future is closer than you think.

At a private tennis resort in Orange County, Calif., Coto de Caza, a facility is rising that will be called the Coto Sport Research Center. Here, fathers will bring young, athletic sons to learn which sport best suits them. Golfers will pare strokes off their game. Tennis players will be shown how to get more power into their serves.

Ariel. a Ph.D. in both computer science and exercise science, is a transplanted Israeli who believes the nation that leads the world in computer technology should lead the world in sports.

"It's incredible to me that the nation that put men on the moon is so slow to change its athletic training concepts," he says. "Coaches should be using computer technology as tools. Computers can put us back on the victory stand ... as well as teach weekend athletes to play better golf and tennis."

Ariel's method involves taking ultra highspeed movie footage of an athlete performing. The frames are turned into stick drawings. showing body bones and joints. A sequential ..cartoon" of the action is created. enabling a

THE MIAMI HERALD March 1980