Trackman is currently on its 4th unit. It has 2 radars and a camera. It has software updates constantly adding features and tightening things up. They’ve added lie angle, ground impact location, face impact location and other things over the past couple of years.
I think there’s lots of confusion about what Trackman, radars, and launch monitors do in general. They just measure and track stuff. Its up to you what you do with the information. Same with gears. It measures and gives you the data. What you do with it from there is up to you.
Outdoors it will track until the ball drops below the horizontal plane of the unit then it will extrapolate based on algorithms. Indoors it’s obviously using a ballflight algorithm…they keep improving indoor performance, but limited ballflight distances don’t always give the most accurate spin readings. The new balls have helped tremendously with spin rates and spin axis.
It wouldn’t assume anything. It would measure your swing direction, face angle, path, angle of attack, dynamic loft, impact location, and vertical and horizontal swing planes among other things and it would measure the ball launch conditions. If one set of 6 irons was measuring 5600 rpm with Pro V1s and then you switched to range balls and the spin jumped to 7100 and your ball speed dropped then you would know it was the ball if all of your other numbers remained within a consistent range.
Sounds about right… sounds about the same as watching a golf ball on the range hook or slice or shank or top or hit fat or thin or any combination of those actual things.
It would just tell you your club data and launch conditions. You could then look at the shot data and see what was changing. Your data wouldn’t wouldn’t be identical shot to shot. You would be within a range and you would notice patterns. Everyone has patterns and tendencies. And you could tie your feels to how your club data changed based on them.
There are things a launch monitor will tell you that you absolutely cannot see with the eye and most people can’t feel. So many hookers of the ball feel over the top. Their path might be 10 degrees right. So many slicers feel like they square the club up, but their face too path relationship is 7 degrees open. It’s eye opening when “let me show you the most possible inside out swing I can make “ is 4 degrees left.
And gears is even on another level. Trackman would show you your angle of attack. Let’s say you’re between 1 and 2 degrees up and a 3 degrees right path with a driver consistently. Trackman would tell you that. Let’s say you then switch heads or shafts and you jump to 5 degrees up consistently, your path moves to 1 left, and you start hitting some pulls. Trackman would tell you that too, but you would have no clue why. On gears you maybe learn that your swing is within your normal range on all shots, but the new head/shaft combo is kicking more or earlier and it’s increasing your angle of attack and shifting your path left. You’re doing nothing different with your swing, but the equipment change is manipulating your impact conditions.
Just relying on ballflight and feel you might think you did something in your golf swing to cause pulls or cuts. Or you just randomly lost your draw and you have no clue why.
I mean if you go to the range at any Tour event, from the Korn Ferry to the LPGA to the Champions Tour to the Tour you see Trackman, Flightscope, GC Quad and often a Trackman/Quad combo running simultaneously. There’s a reason that’s happening. Trackman is capturing data at the equivalent of 40,000 frames per second. The Quad at about 10,000 frames per second. Flightscope uses Phantom cameras running at 25,000 frames per second to test their units and verify their algorithms. Gears uses 8 cameras triangulating sensors at 360 frame per second. They simply give you data that you can’t see with the eye and can’t see on regular video. All of this stuff is the real deal. They aren’t guessing. Look at the histories of these companies, especially radar.
Sure, there’s more to golf than data and using tech. I haven’t seen anyone claim otherwise and I’m certainly not. But it is incredibly useful to figure out what’s happening, to sharpen your ability to consistently repeat stuff you can’t see and can’t often feel easily, and to help you match up feels to what’s really going on.
It seems as if you don’t like technology being used in golf? Is it because you don’t see the use for it? Because you doubt the accuracy of the devices? I guess I’m a little confused. You think the player or instructor or coach having more information is bad?
I suppose you would have to define technology in the broader sense. There have been a lot of good technological advances in the game of golf.
That being said, golf is actually a game by definition. There are things that orbit around the game such as various businesses etc. It’s a big industry, but that is outside of the game itself.
Golf is a ball and stick game… like many others. It’s played outdoors and has rules that govern how it is played and scored traditionally.
People play the game for many reasons… exercise, social events, business contacts, fresh air, getting out of the house, competition and some play it for a profession while others teach the game.
I feel pretty neutral on the use of technology in golf… but before I could give any kind of opinion, I would have to assess how the technology would be used in what area of the game… and what would be the purpose and objective in the greater picture at large.
For example, if we look at steel spikes, which when introduced was a form of technology, offered a golfer a better ability to grip the ground and that in turn changed the way a player could swing the club. I do not consider plastic spider spikes to be an advancement in technology… actually the opposite. It’s regressive. So just because something is new, doesn’t necessarily make it better. It depends upon the application. In the case of plastic vs steel spikes, plastic spikes are not better for the golf swing.
I guess I mean technology as it pertains to the player who is trying to improve and/or the instructor who is trying to broaden their knowledge base and level of instruction they provide to their students.
I don’t disagree that golf is a ball and stick game player outside on the course. But I hardly thing learning to play golf or improve your skills is best done on the course. Changing your swing is often best done without even seeing the flight of the ball. Hit into a net, check video, see if there was a change, and repeat. Hit, a series of shots, check launch monitor data for a few parameters, make some adjustments, repeat. Hit a shot on gears, do a set of drills or rehearsals for a few minutes, hit another shot and check the data. Use hackmotion during a shot, check your wrist data, make some rehearsals in training mode, hit another and compare. I think that’s how real learning takes place and I think it’s much better than hitting a few balls, watching the ballflight, and guessing what you need to do to change it or fix it.
Sounds like you are teaching golf, and that kind of approach works for you.
When a student comes to me, it’s because they don’t like the way they are striking the ball. So we start there. All I have to do is take two quick videos, caddy and DTL. I will be able to see everything I need in 5 minutes. From there, I will show them how to get control of the clubshaft and the clubface, then I will show them how they can add more power and force to the strike. Then I show them about aiming and ball position and explain how they can tilt things in their favor with some equipment knowledge/ adjustments. Once we are there, I show them how to shape the ball the more advanced or sophisticated way.
Ball flight, the real ball flight is what we are after, so I want to see that.
What about when you hit the ball worse when starting to make real changes? You don’t think it can take awhile to learn to coordinate new motor patterns at speed? How do you check to make sure you’re moving the way you’re trying to move if the ball is flying bad or if strikes aren’t how you want them?
With ABS we initially do drills without a ball, so no negative feedback due to hitting bad stots. Just lots of feel from a golf club hitting a very heavy bag. Most can master a drill in about a month, so learning is fast.
When we do start hitting balls, it is with a short modified swing that again is quite easy to master in a month or so and quite easy to hit solid shots.
The bag tells us everything then the ball. To this day I still take an extra divot after each mod8 shot that I hit to recreate the feel of the shot. Deep practice.
Divots are a voice from the ground speaking back to you. I also know by looking at my dirt lines on the clubface which is about the extent of my involvement with technology. Matsu’s line:
Speaking of which, on Mall Rat’s laptop as I spilled coffee on my nest apparatus and it’s probably needing replacement- it’s acting crazier that deformed balls so time here will be limited until that situation resolved.
