Anyone use Trackman to learn your distance with each club?

[chimpo1]

I had a golf lesson today (pushing for a big handicap cut next season) and my pro brought out trackman. I now have a precise average(does that make sense?) for my 6 iron carry and total. I am wonderingly if I told would be worthwhile having a session to measure each and every club in the bag. Surely this would be of benefit? I already use a laser on the course but has anyone tried something similar?

 

[duncan mackie]

No - I use the real distances I hit day in, day out, on course.

 

[chimpo1]

Doesn't trackman provide real distances?
Which method do you use to gather your ACCURATE distances?

I think I have a pretty good idea of total distances but the idea of knowing how far each club goes through the air etc sounds like a useful piece of information

 

[garyinderry]

Knowing your average carry is certainly useful. Just have to factor in the conditions when on the course.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Game golf sounds like the answer. Real figures out on the course, not on a range.

I don't know how golfers don't know their distances but maybe some exaggerate and kid themselves.

 

[Imurg]

Game golf sounds like the answer. Real figures out on the course, not on a range.

I don't know how golfers don't know their distances but maybe some exaggerate and kid themselves.

Problem with GameGolf distances is that they include roll
Unless the ground is soft and there's no run its tricky to gauge the carry.
A 230 yard drive could be 225 carry or 150 carry + 80 yards of roll via GG....

 

[Papas1982]

I had a session at the start of march and am sure it's what's lead to the biggest improvement in my golf.

Knowing my actual distances to well hit shots lets me know what club I need when playing well. It's easy enough after a hole or too to see if they're going a club longer or less due to weather.

i did it through the whole bag including pitch shots with wedges. On course is vital too. But as has been mentioned. Gg gives total and that can vary massively on the ground under foot.

 

[chimpo1]

I had a session at the start of march and am sure it's what's lead to the biggest improvement in my golf.

Knowing my actual distances to well hit shots lets me know what club I need when playing well. It's easy enough after a hole or too to see if they're going a club longer or less due to weather.

i did it through the whole bag including pitch shots with wedges. On course is vital too. But as has been mentioned. Gg gives total and that can vary massively on the ground under foot.

That is what I was expecting, GG doesn't seem to be what I am after but I will look into using trackman at the start of next season. Cheers everyone!

 

[Dasit]

Yeah I have had full gap testing done on trackman.

Very useful for knowing carry and total for all clubs.

Also used it to work on partial wedge swings so can get my 30 yard to 100 yard game dialed in.


Well worth having done, I personally prefer doing it alone with the pro, so can delete what I feel were miss hits and take an average of 10 normal shots for each club.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I've done it the old fashioned way of hitting shots on the practice ground and using GPS and pacing (into & down wind) to get an average, taking longest and mis-hits out to get an average. Of course that includes roll. I have then used launch monitors which gives carry and roll and to be honest give/take maybe 5-6 yards in most clubs there wasn't much difference. Off 14 I'll take that margin. I have a ball park figure of averge distances, not Sunday best, on my clubs and I think it helps. Of course you then have to out a good swing on it. That's perhaps where the problems start!

 

[Neilds]

Couple of things to remember when doing a gapping session:
Try not to chase numbers. It is very easy to see if you can beat the previous distance by trying to over swing. Make sure you use the same swing speed every time.
Secondly, make sure you use the distance that you hit most often, not the furthest, shortest or the middle of the group. You need the distance you were most consistent with.
I would recommend a gapping session if you remember the basic rules

 

[351DRIVER]

Couple of things to remember when doing a gapping session:
Try not to chase numbers. It is very easy to see if you can beat the previous distance by trying to over swing. Make sure you use the same swing speed every time.
Secondly, make sure you use the distance that you hit most often, not the furthest, shortest or the middle of the group. You need the distance you were most consistent with.
I would recommend a gapping session if you remember the basic rules

You can try a Trackman GOLFWRX gapping session

Take your best number
Ensure it was downwind
Say you were swinging slow that day PLUS 20 YARDS
Your course is at alititude add 5 yards per hundred feet
Assume their balls were just not quite right and robbed you of 5 to 10 %

So yes it was useful but i know i do not hit my 6 iron 160 i hit it 215
There you go

WRXd the crap out of it

 

[mikejohnchapman]

It's an interesting exercise to do - particularly if you are making significant equipment changes.

I found a couple of things though:

Make sure you use the balls you play with and not range balls.
You tend to swing far harder in a net or Sim compared with the course.

 

[Tommo21]

Yeah I have had full gap testing done on trackman.

Very useful for knowing carry and total for all clubs.

Also used it to work on partial wedge swings so can get my 30 yard to 100 yard game dialed in.


Well worth having done, I personally prefer doing it alone with the pro, so can delete what I feel were miss hits and take an average of 10 normal shots for each club.

Had it done as well......very important to know the gaps. Okay, you have to take the elements into consideration but carry distance under normal conditions with each club is so important IMO.

 

[the_coach]

I had a golf lesson today (pushing for a big handicap cut next season) and my pro brought out trackman. I now have a precise average(does that make sense?) for my 6 iron carry and total. I am wonderingly if I told would be worthwhile having a session to measure each and every club in the bag. Surely this would be of benefit? I already use a laser on the course but has anyone tried something similar?

yep i do

it's key to being able to score to have distance control through the bag, prime key #number in this regard is carry distance
(ground weather conditions always vary so it's about 'experience' through play too)

have to be disciplined to use 'normal' controlled swing motion - object is not to hunt best ever distance through swinging off of the charts

talk to your pro to find out how the unit is set-up - regarding the software (depends which version he has in & if it's up to date through the software license etc)

as a bunch of stuff like weather conditions, ground conditions & gradient, sea level etc is part of the 'set-up'

plus it may not be possible/practical at the facility to hit the ball make and type normally used out in play

but again in the software 'normalization' you can factor in what type of range ball is being used and 'optimize' the settings to give a different type of ball result (it's pretty accurate) - so say for arguments sake my ' ball data normalization setting' would for the ball type in my sig (if hitting range balls)

big factors in the range balls themselves in terms of quality - new versus old (worn dimps etc) are the balls wet or dry
this has a pretty big say in spin rates and launch angles so carry distance

also there can be a fair significant spin rate difference from 'dry' or 'wet' range balls (or non range for that matter) - and the difference with range balls can be a whole bunch different to 1000 - 1500rpm less with wet range balls so get high launch very low spin and completely non realistic #'s - carry a towel

from experience with launch monitors iron club head speeds from good strikes off of grass consistently show CHS up around approx 3 or 4 mph faster than the same swing/strike quality off of mats - spin rates off of mats again are generally shown to be consistently higher also than equivalent swing/strike quality off of cut turf

 

[chrisd]

Ive done it too with my last few sets of clubs except I've used GC2 rather than Trackman. I hit about 6 to 10 shots with each club, take out the duffs and then record the average carry and roll out. I've written them on a card and carry that card on my electric trolley

 

[Evesdad]

I worked mine the old way of hitting on our practice range. Measured the middle balls. Our range has quite fluffy grass so not as much roll out. It was quite interesting as I found i was actually hitting further than I thought.

 

[SteveJay]

Have used it for iron fitting which gave me some data, but for all the reasons mentioned above, I think its only an approximation, due to varying on course and lie conditions, especially for higher handicappers who have variable swings.

Whist I accept that carry distance is a more comparable measure, I do like Game Golf as it gives me ongoing feedback on distance, albeit overall and perhaps not as accurate to the yard as Trackman etc. But, I can look at recent stats and gauge how far and how much roll I might get that day rather than having to try to assess how much roll I am likely to achieve before hitting a shot.

What I would say though is a combination of knowing yardages and being able to use GPS to measure distance on course has made such a difference, especially as I was always rubbish at gauging distances just by sight. Just need to work more now on being consistent when I hit!

 

[351DRIVER]

Normalisation mode will never make your shots shorter, but can make them longer (People are more inclined to accept this)
It certainly adds to ball speed figures when you hit a driver

 

[duncan mackie]

Doesn't trackman provide real distances?
Which method do you use to gather your ACCURATE distances?

I think I have a pretty good idea of total distances but the idea of knowing how far each club goes through the air etc sounds like a useful piece of information

Everytime I play a shot on the course I get the carry distance from where it lands relative to either a fairway feature or green front, middle or back.

On the one hand I'm para old about knowing what distances I face when playing a shot on the course, but on the other I see remarkably little benefit in all this detailed analysis of Distance at the range - I hit maybe 0.1% of my golf shots on the course from a mat and only hit 2 consecutiven shots the same when playing a provisional (when I clearly don't wish to hit them the same!).