Carswell have become the first Oxfordshire club to offer radar technology as a teaching aid.

The club have installed a ‘Flightscope’ system, which works on a similar principle to Hawk-Eye in cricket and tennis.

Head professional John Strode said Flightscope should help golfers find the ideal club to suit their swing.

“It is a radar tracking system developed by the military for tracking missiles,” said Strode.

“It picks up the flight of the ball and tells you everything about the shot.”

Strode invited me along for a trial of the $10,000 system at Carswell’s driving range.

Flightscope uses a monitor placed behind the golfer to record the shot and all the information is beamed back to a computer.

It claims to produce far more accurate readings than existing technology that relies on one or two camera images at impact.

Carswell charge £50 for an hour session, so it is not cheap, but you get half refunded if you buy a club within 21 days.

And Strode says it gets results.

“People can argue about distance until they are blue in the face,” he said.

“But if it is there in black and white, there can be no dispute.

“I imagine this as being the way forward for teaching.”

Although I was testing out drivers, Flightscope can be used for any club.

The raft of information it provides includes club speed, ball speed, spin and something called ‘smash factor’.

Strode said smash factor was key to finding the right club and that scratch golfers achieve a score of around 1.5.

I had never used anything like Flightscope before, but it definitely seemed to zero in on my ideal driver.

The shortest distance came from my existing Ping driver, which averaged 193 yards of carry.

At the other end of the scale, the top-performing Cobra driver gave me an average of 224.

The most consistent club added 18 yards to my drives.

If using the technology can find a club to do that for most golfers, I guess Carswell may be on to a good thing.

By way of context, Strode showed an example of a lady golfer, who had added almost 50 per cent to her distance by choosing the right driver.

He said: “It is a unique opportunity for people in this area to come and have a go.”

We will just have to see if Flightscope catches on with local golfers.