PEBBLE BEACH, California -- It was easy to miss Greg Kraft among the dozens of golf pros on the driving range after Thursday's first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Kraft was the tournament's co-leader at that point after firing a 6-under-par 66 at Pebble Beach. But since most golfers look much the same, Kraft did not stand out until his teacher, Robert Baker, started videotaping him.
Even Mr. Poker Face himself, Tiger Woods, gave a quick, curious glance at Baker and Kraft from his spot at the extreme end of the range. It's not that no one else in golf uses videotape or other technology, it's just that no one does it as energetically and imaginatively as Baker, a South African who works with a number of touring pros, including fellow countryman Ernie Els.
"I actually get criticized a lot for using the camera," Baker said. "Teachers will walk by and mutter, 'All the answers don't lie in there.' But the naked eye is useless compared to the camera. I can break the swing down frame by frame. All it does is reconfirm what I see with my eye."
Peter Jacobsen -- one back of Kraft and co-leader Brett Quigley after one day -- and Kraft are among the golfers working with Baker. If Kraft somehow follows up on his hot first round, or if Jacobsen makes a move, count on Baker attracting more and more attention in golf with his devotion to the idea that smart use of technology can ultimately redefine the power of the imagination.
Baker videotapes his golfers' swings every day and stores the images in his laptop, which he carries around with him in a shoulder bag. So at any time, the golfer can compare this or that aspect of the swing to what he was doing on another day -- or to the swing of various greats also captured in the laptop, everyone from Ben Hogan to Woods.
