Flightscope

[apj0524]

Hi

Thinking of having a session on a local driving range with a Flightscope, to get some facts and figures.

Does anyone know whether it uses a Doplar Radar, or another method of measuring the shot, and calculate Carry Distances etc?

The reason I ask, is that with a Trackman (Which I believe is Doplar Radar System) you would need to use proper golf balls.

Thanks

 

[Foxholer]

Yes it does.

In fact, it's the 'original'!

No point using Range Balls for this sort of thing imo.

Better to hit into a net and have the LM do the Calc of flight - though (I believe) both Trackman and Flightscope can flip between Calc and Real (Indoor and Outdoor) modes.

 

[ger147]

Hi

Thinking of having a session on a local driving range with a Flightscope, to get some facts and figures.

Does anyone know whether it uses a Doplar Radar, or another method of measuring the shot, and calculate Carry Distances etc?

The reason I ask, is that with a Trackman (Which I believe is Doplar Radar System) you would need to use proper golf balls.

Thanks

Depends what facts & figures you're after. I'm doing this just now as I'm working on path and attack angle. Using range balls is perfectly fine for me.

However if you're after distances etc. then it is pointless without real balls.

 

[philly169]

I think there are quite a few people who would moan about using flightscope and trackman for a lesson without seeing the full flight of the ball, however I had a lesson on flightscope, indoor and was able to see my swing path and work on that so it didn't bother me.

Yes it would be great to use it outside, but working on swing path indoors into a net is fine with me.

 

[mab]

...and calculate Carry Distances etc?

It does.

The problem is that carry is a product of ball speed, launch and spin... and if you're using range balls, those metrics will likely differ somewhat versus your preferred ball.

I was on flightscope at the weekend, but it was indoor and I used my own balls (just a case of sticking a tiny silver sticker to the ball). Ideally you'd be outdoor with proper balls to see actual ballflight in addiiton to Flightscope metrics, but that's rather tricky to find I would imagine.

 

[the_coach]

Hi

Thinking of having a session on a local driving range with a Flightscope, to get some facts and figures.

Does anyone know whether it uses a Doplar Radar, or another method of measuring the shot, and calculate Carry Distances etc?

The reason I ask, is that with a Trackman (Which I believe is Doplar Radar System) you would need to use proper golf balls.

Thanks

Yes Flightscope uses Doppler radar to analyze ball flight, carry and distance in real time, but it also has a few more parameter measurements than Trackman does in relation to what the Club and shaft is actually doing throughout a golf swing.

If your prime objective in using FS is to find the distances of all the clubs in your bag, so you know the more important carry and 'gap' distances between each club which is essential to good scoring out on a course, rather than looking at what your swing and club-head is doing, it would still be possible to give you a reasonably accurate view of your ball numbers.

Providing it's a FS that a teaching professional uses (you'd get better input from a teaching pro in this regard rather than a FS at a place where there prime objective is more to sell you new clubs) the PGA teaching pro should know the distance/flight characteristics of the range balls they use.

As a general rule (unless the range is very short and they are using range balls that in essence go nowhere, these fly 50% dsitance) range balls normally travel 10% or 15% less than a normal ball. So with a little bit of math you could easily work out the numbers to give you a reasonable approximation of your carry distances through your bag, which would be better than not really knowing them at all and having to completely guess.

It would still be useful doing this, this way, until you're able to find somewhere that will let you use a FS or Trackman or GC2 (the latter uses the first few inches of the balls flight and calculates flight and carry distances but is still accurate although it doesn't use doppler radar to track real time ball flight) with real balls, preferably then only the balls that you would normally use in play to give you definitive 'numbers' through the bag.

 

[apj0524]

Thanks for your replies and your insight, the Flightscope is located at teaching range so it would be more than just hitting balls inside. I will ask whether they know what difference in distance between their Range Balls and Real Balls, and the the 10% ~ 15% less will give me and idea if they don't, so for £30 for a half hour lesson and then £10 per hour to use the Fightscope I feel I haven't got much to loose to gap my clubs and get some insight into my swing.