A participant checks out the Flightscope technology at the 69th PGA Show at the Orange County Convention Center, Thursday, January 27, 2022. The trade show showcases retailers, manufacturers and industry trends from more than 600 participating brands demonstrating equipment, accessories and apparel. The show, presented by the PGA of America, includes special events and programming and runs through Friday. The PGA Show is not open to the public. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

This was going to finally be the year.

Instead, Memorial Day arrives with many golfers still battling inconsistency and seeking new ways to save strokes.

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Any solution requires time, energy and resources. Invest wisely.

Here are some ways to improve your golf game that might not be obvious.

John Preston caught you cheating again, only this transgression could hurt much worse than a two-stroke penalty.

The director of education at TrueTurn, Preston has made improving thoracic spine mobility his mission. Few recreational golfers correctly rotate their 12 middle vertebrae and short-change their swings.

“People know they need to have a shoulder turn,” Preston explains. “So they grab their 5-iron and start trying to rotate and start swinging all over the place. It’s an illusion of rotation.

“It looks like rotation, but my body is really not rotating.”

True thoracic rotation generates speed and power while preventing injuries. Achieving it requires practice.

To use TrueTurn, extend both arms to grip the device, brace the two shoulder attachments and assume an athletic position. Slowly rotate to a point of resistance, then repeat the movement while incrementally increasing range of motion.

Executing two sets of a half-dozen exercises in 10 minutes regularly will unlock the spine and expand the mind.

“It’s hard to teach rotation because people don’t know what it feels likes,” Preston said.

John Preston of TrueTurn, Inc., of Scottsdale, Arizona, demonstrates the TrueTurnPro during the 69th PGA Show in January at the Orange County Convention Center. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

A resistance band is included to use as golfers advance. Whatever one’s fitness and flexibility level, TrueTurn ($269) will improve it.

“Your body plays golf; the club is the instrument,” Preston said. “If you want the golf club to do what it needs to do, your body has to be able to execute that.”

It’s time to get a grip. Long past time based on Scott Curry’s experience.

The president of PURE Grips has seen too many golfers white-knuckling a wedge due to well-worn grips lacking tactility and texture.

A recent convert had never regripped his 1984 PING Eye2s.

“I was like, ‘What are you doing?’” Curry recalled.

He continued, “The grip may not be the most vital part of the golf club, but it certainly cannot be ignored. It’s the only part you actually touch.”

Sensing an opening in the market the Arizona-based company launched in 2009, when many grip manufacturers were moving production to Asia and material costs were rising.

Scott Curry of PURE Grips of Chandler, Arizona, demonstrates the Injection Mold Technology that ensures a uniform grip. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

Made of 100% natural rubber, PURE Grips ($12.99 each) remain tacky in humid or wet conditions and durable enough to offer a 100-round guarantee. Available in an array of colors — from traditional black to neon yellow ― and styles, including conventional wraps and the highly textured DTX model.

Most important, Injection Mold Technology ensures PURE Grips retain a consistent thickness and weight distribution. Curry maintains Tour pros grip each club several times to find grips of similar weight.

“We spend so much time and investment making a perfect grip,” Curry said. “The disparity is only a gram of its original design. Other grips have a variance of 5 grams, 8 grams, 10 grams.”

Scott Curry, president of PURE Grips in Chandler, Arizona, discusses his diverse product at the 69th PGA Merchandise Show in January at the Orange County Convention Center. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

Curry guarantees golfers will feel a difference.

Consider the golfer with the 1984 PINGs and 5-handicap.

“I don’t think he went to a 2-handicap, but he said, ‘I swing more freely,’” Curry said. “’I’m not putting on a death grip when I have 120 yards in.”

Henri Johnson said your clubs are probably fine. You are the problem.

Johnson, the South African-born CEO of Orlando-based FlightScope, has a fix for golfers willing to follow the data and exert the effort.

“Whatever clubs you have, you are guaranteed to make an improvement if you use the technology, pay attention to the details and change your behavior accordingly,” Johnson said.

FlightScope’s tracking technology is available in four devices with wide-ranging price points, including the X3 ($14,995) used by PGA Tour pros like Bryson DeChambeau.

The Mevo ($500) costs as much as a new driver and produces more reliable results.

“You might hit some good shots,” Johnson said. “After a few weeks, months you’re going to be pretty much where you are now. There’s not going to be a behavioral change.”

Bryson DeChambeau practices at the 2019 U.S. Open using the tracking technology of FlightScope, an Orlando-based company. (Ross Kinnaird/Getty)

Set up 6 feet behind a golfer at the practice rage, FlightScope’s Mevo registers on a free app eight data parameters for each swing, including ball and club speed, carry and spin rate.

Johnson suggests golfers focus on a single reading with a single club. Work to duplicate to the data point over and over.

“We’ve got very complex brains, but it’s very difficult to focus on more than one thing at a time,” said Johnson, an electronic engineer who in 1989 founded FlightScope. “Choose one thing and then try to get control. Once you have control, you’re going to have confidence.”

A golfer able to produce similar ball speed, for example, with a 7-iron suddenly owns a repeatable golf swing — the foundation of a quality game.

“If you do the work, put in the hours, you will improve,” Johnson said. “The one thing we can’t do for everybody is do the work for them — and that’s the disconnect. We can’t solve discipline.”

FlightScope's hitting bay was a popular spot during the 69th PGA Merchandise Show in January at the Orange County Convention Center. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

The allure of a quick fix is FlightScope’s main competition. Johnson hopes golfers serious about improving will consider a new path.

“You cannot buy a game,” he said. “There’s no magic solution.”

A good short game goes a long way toward lowering scores.

Most golfers still would rather drive for show than putt for dough. But investing time to select a set of scoring clubs pays off.

“Most fit their drivers or irons,” said Rob Lang, president of Indi Golf. “When’s the last time you heard of someone getting fit for wedges and putters? A lot of people go to the rack and they look at it, ‘Oh, this looks cool.’

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“Then they take it out on the course.”

Lang is on a mission to change this self-defeating mentality.

In 2018, Indi turned heads in a crowded wedge market. Lang’s clubs boast a thick top line, shorter hosel, center of gravity toward the toe and 22 grooves on a milled face.

The result: better contact, superior control and significant spin — even on mishits.

“We found if you have the ability to spin the ball, you’re just going to be a better wedge player,” Lang said. “Our product’s designed for that.”

Indi Golf, a Southern California-based company at the 69th PGA Show at Orange County Convention Center in January, offers wedges in six lofts, ranging from 50 to 60 degrees, with three different sole grinds, depending on a golfer’s angle of attack and home course conditions. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

The Southern California-based company offers wedges in six lofts, ranging from 50 to 60 degrees, with three different sole grinds, depending on a golfer’s angle of attack and home course conditions. Indi wedges come with steel ($160) or composite ($170) shafts.

Indi’s line of putters are available in blade and mallet style ($350) with toe hang and face balanced models depending on a golfer’s stroke.

Consult the Web site’s fitting tool for questions.

“That is more important than getting the latest technology,” Lang said. “If you have something you’re fit into correctly, you’re just going to play better.”

This article first appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email Edgar Thompson at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com or follow him on Twitter at @osgators.