The most-talked new product of 2026 – GENIUS – a first-of-its-kind golf ball featuring embedded electronics that capture crucial putting data – is expected to drop this summer. A big hit at the PGA Show this past January in Orlando, GENIUS Chief Executive Officer Mike Jordan is a game improvement platform” to improve putting. What it’s not is another run-of-the-mill training aid.
“Putting has always been an art and a feel,’’ Jordan told me. “You can take a launch monitor out on the range, but you never know what’s going on with the putt. We’re breaking that constraint with a product that has analytics in the actual thing that you’re rolling,so it can give you that feedback.’’
Ideal for players and coaches, Jordan said GENIUS is the only regulation-size, regulation-weight “smart’’ golf ball that looks, feels and rolls like a premium, Tour-quality ball. Its core contains a sophisticated sensor array that identifies the moment of impact, plus skid and roll of the ball, resulting in precise data that external devices cannot reliably detect.
Crucial performance metrics, such as velocity, launch angle, side spin, skid distance, roll characteristics, deceleration pattern, consistency across strokes and green speed are captured and, using proprietary algorithms, processed and delivered via Bluetooth to the GENIUS app on a user’s smartphone.
The GENIUS app, Jordan said, then instantaneously shares actionable feedback specific to each user’s unique putting stroke. The guided sessions improve alignment, direction and distance control, skid and roll quality, lag putting and other core disciplines.
Developed over five years of intense R&D by leading golf ball engineers formerly with Titleist, TaylorMade and Srixon, GENIUS delivers pinpoint-accurate insights at a fraction of the cost of high-end indoor putting studio systems. Two-time PGA Champion Dave Stockton, Sr., – one of the great putters of his era – along with his fellow acclaimed putting coaches and sons Dave, Jr. and Ron Stockton, heavily contributed to GENIUS’s groundbreaking technology.
“It comes down to how well you roll the ball,’’ Jordan said, a 25-year veteran of golf ball innovation. “You want to keep the stroke the same. You want to control movement.
’“Data has historically been focused on the full swing despite accounting for 40 to 45% of the average golfer’s strokes. This imbalance is where the breakthrough GENIUS fits – electronics inside a golf ball identify exact problems and associated fixes, keeping the complicated super simple.”
Photo Courtesy of GENIUS