road2ruin
Q-School Graduate
So, having picked up the Swing Caddie SC100 off eBay last week I finally managed to get down to the range to give it a go.
Out of the box, set up is very straight forward, batteries in (included) and away you go! The device is set up anywhere from 1m-1.5m behind the ball.
I hit around 125 balls and it didn’t miss a single strike which was the first thing I was impressed about. It is pre-set with lofts so there is minimal setting up that you can actually do and it also comes with a handy little remote which means you can switch between clubs and mode without having to bend down every 5-10 minutes.
I found that to begin with I was just hitting everything as hard as humanly possible just to see how far I could get the ball to go. Obviously the ball disappeared off in all directions so I decided to calm down and just go back to hitting balls as I would if the machine wasn’t staring at me. The first thing it seemed to prove was that trying to hit the granny out of a ball seemed to lose me distance rather than just relying on a smooth swing (or as smooth as I can swing) and timing. Whilst I have also been taught this it’s always nice to see proof!
In terms of accuracy it seemed to be pretty good with the distances as expected.
Having been for a shaft fitting for my driver at Precision Golf a fortnight ago the figures are still pretty fresh in my head and those given for the driver really weren’t far off those given by Trackman on the day.
Once you have finished a session of just hitting balls you can go back through clubs and look at average distances. I guess once you’ve hit a decent number with each club to get rid of the extremes at either end it will give a pretty good either of club distances.
Once the novelty of hitting balls in practice mode wears off you can try ‘Target Mode’ which gives a little more focused practice.
Essentially it will give you a target distance and you have to try and hit it. You get points for how close you get to the score and each ‘round’ lasts for 10 shots. You then move on to a different club. This really helped to try different swing lengths etc for the different distances. If you want to practice a specific distance then you can set the range to the desire distance and hit away.
I guess a useful mode for those of us who can get bored at the range without having goals to aim for. I would admit myself to being in that category.
Overall, having had just the one session with it I found it a good laugh to use although it could still end up as being another golfing gadget that gets consigned to the draw in the future. For the time being though, it’s quick and easy to set up so will definitely be joining me down the range for the foreseeable.
Out of the box, set up is very straight forward, batteries in (included) and away you go! The device is set up anywhere from 1m-1.5m behind the ball.
I hit around 125 balls and it didn’t miss a single strike which was the first thing I was impressed about. It is pre-set with lofts so there is minimal setting up that you can actually do and it also comes with a handy little remote which means you can switch between clubs and mode without having to bend down every 5-10 minutes.
I found that to begin with I was just hitting everything as hard as humanly possible just to see how far I could get the ball to go. Obviously the ball disappeared off in all directions so I decided to calm down and just go back to hitting balls as I would if the machine wasn’t staring at me. The first thing it seemed to prove was that trying to hit the granny out of a ball seemed to lose me distance rather than just relying on a smooth swing (or as smooth as I can swing) and timing. Whilst I have also been taught this it’s always nice to see proof!
In terms of accuracy it seemed to be pretty good with the distances as expected.
Having been for a shaft fitting for my driver at Precision Golf a fortnight ago the figures are still pretty fresh in my head and those given for the driver really weren’t far off those given by Trackman on the day.
Once you have finished a session of just hitting balls you can go back through clubs and look at average distances. I guess once you’ve hit a decent number with each club to get rid of the extremes at either end it will give a pretty good either of club distances.
Once the novelty of hitting balls in practice mode wears off you can try ‘Target Mode’ which gives a little more focused practice.
Essentially it will give you a target distance and you have to try and hit it. You get points for how close you get to the score and each ‘round’ lasts for 10 shots. You then move on to a different club. This really helped to try different swing lengths etc for the different distances. If you want to practice a specific distance then you can set the range to the desire distance and hit away.
I guess a useful mode for those of us who can get bored at the range without having goals to aim for. I would admit myself to being in that category.
Overall, having had just the one session with it I found it a good laugh to use although it could still end up as being another golfing gadget that gets consigned to the draw in the future. For the time being though, it’s quick and easy to set up so will definitely be joining me down the range for the foreseeable.
