Launch Monitor Data - Feedback Wanted

I was on a HD Golf Simulator yesterday for an hour or so. Got lots of swings in and managed to get data on all my clubs. One issue is it didn't record spin numbers, can they be extrapolated from the carry distances and launch?. I do have a lot of other data though and I wanted to see if most people think the data looks good or if there is something I could do to get more distance, better launch, etc. I took photos of the data but I will write it out here for organization. Any feedback is welcome!

Notes:

I am Left handed.

On the course I seem to be a high launch / moderate spin player.

I play a slight draw off all my clubs except driver is whatever it wants lol.

My miss is usually a hook.

Don't usually back up my wedges unless the greens are really soft.

All shots in this data were off the mat except Driver.

Driver was teed slightly higher than I would on the course due to what I had available. (verrrry slightly)

8i I had one really bad strike I should have deleted.

my 6i is bent 0.5* strong. 5i bent 1.5* weak to match lofts a bit between the p770 and 790 sets. 7i 33, 6i 29, 5i 25 as I play them

3i and 4w I use mostly off the tee when on the course. I had trouble hitting the 4w off the mat, and my 3i seems to launch too low from the mat but as a tee club it goes at maybe a 5i trajectory. It likely carries farther.

Club Total (yds) Carry (yds) Ball Spd Launch Angle Hor Launch

p770 AW 116.8 114.0 85.0 mph 31.8* 3.8* L

p770 PW 127.4 124.9 92.0 29.9* 4.8* L

p770 9i 140.5 137.6 98.5 27.0* 5.1* L

p770 8i 150.3 145.4 100.6 24.0* 3.2* L

p770 7i 166.8 161.9 109.2 22.4* 5.0* L

p770 6i 183.6 175.3 113.4 19.1* 3.4* L

p790 5i 197.1 189.7 120.5 15.8* 1* L

p790 4i 210.7 200.2 126.4 13.9* 2.4* L

p790 3i 216.7 203.3 129.3 12.5* 2.9* L 93 mph club speed

m3 3H 19* 224.2 215.4 132.2 14.4* 2.9* L 96mph club speed

917F 16.5* 221.4 206.7 133.3 12.0* -1.4* R 101 mph club speed

F7+ D 242.8 234.2 140.6 17.4* -2.5* R seems to go really high, can someone guess my spin numbers based on the carry? 104 avg club speed

HD golf simulators (or any simulator that doesn't measure spin) need to be taken with a grain of salt. Pretty much the only reliable numbers will be ball speed and launch direction. Everything else is affected by spin and will be different in reality. Carry distance is almost always way off.

As for the data your ball speed numbers look fine in the low end but you should have higher gaps on longer clubs.

Your gaps with the irons seem a bit strange but that aside, your driver isn't very good at all.

I don't know where you got the swing speeds but at 104 your ball speed should be around 150, maybe a bit higher - not 140. Sounds like very poor strikes. Further, at around 104 SS your carry should be close to 255-260, roughly 2.5 times your SS. 234 carry is terrible. I get that carry with my puny 94mph SS (but with excellent launch and spin rate).

Can't really guess about spin rates since it appears the strikes aren't very good. You also start all your other clubs slightly left for your draw. Why do you suppose you start your driver slightly right ? Are you trying to fade it ?

I guess the bigger question with that setup would be, what type of monitor is powering the information? It could be recording spin, just not displaying it for use. Same with the other parameters. As you say, the numbers could be very accurate, or very much just a guess.

Very few simulators measure spin and those that do will display it. MOST simulators estimate spin based on what club you select (example: pick 7iron == 6500rpm) and then calculates ALL flight data using that one assumption. They are basically video games meant to be fun and somewhat realistic but shouldn't be used for trying to identify issues or correct gaping.

Unfortunately you get what you pay for and the monitors able to accurately measure spin aren't used often in commercial simulators. (Trackman, GCQ)

Not necessarily true. The FS Xi was a prime example of that. Lower price point, did not display spin rates. And just the same, settings can make them not displayed if the owner chooses to set them up that way.

Its close to impossible to solve a puzzle like this, there is no common algorithm for launch monitors, they all use their own, so the "weighting" of each parameter is slightly different so equal input numbers gives different return values depending on LM.

But, you Driver carry is way to short compared to your PW. It might sound strange but some years ago i found a connection between the driver and the PW that seems to be one of the best "rule of thumbs" i ever saw. Botrh low, medium and high club speed players seems to have a rather constant factor between PW to Driver carry who say PW x 2.0 = driver. (PW with lofts from 46* to 48*)

Your PW is 124.9 or 125 if you like, so expected carry for a well working driver is 250 yards. yours is only 234 and that means something is off (your factor is only 1.87, and anything below 1.97 is something we should look into)

Its not easy to get 250 yards, from 150 ball speed (100 club speed and a smash of 1.50), we need a launch above 16 and spin below 1750.

Your launch angle is high (17.4). but you only get 234 yards, Ball speed is said to be only 140,6 (smash factor 1.406 if your club speed was 100)

When i enter your ball speed and launch angle at Flightscopes optimizer i have to set spin value as low as only 1600 rpms to get out to 231 yards carry, but total would then be 260 or about 29 yards of roll out, your report say 13 yards, who indicated a way higher spin value (spin dictated roll out), OR a fairway who dont roll as good as the best. When i add more spin, carry goes down, so 234 yards is "generous" from 140 mph ball speed, even with 17.4* as launch.

Something is "off" with your numbers anyway, you are "short" with your driver vs PW, so no matter values, that club is not optimized for you.

Commercial SIMS not launch monitors. Talking about stores and indoor golf facilities that use Golfzon, HDGolf, TrueGolf and many more that simply don't measure spin. These places don't use the good monitors because it's just too expensive. Most of the sim companies will install for free in exchange for a cut of the profits. People go play, have drinks, have fun, but just shouldn't use them as swing analysis tools.

I'm not talking about quality club fitters and privately owned setups.

Yes - my strikes were awful. lol It is the first time I swung a club since the beginning of Dec. Re: club speed, it comes up on the screen after each shot but it wasn't one of the parameters I was tracking on the attached screens.

My best drive was right at 260, and I had a few in the 250's. (I played 18 holes after the range time). So your numbers make sense for shots I hit well. I don't try to hit a fade but I think I was bring the club back too far inside, causing me to be a bit all over the place.

What do you find strange about the iron gaps?

My best drive was 260 and I had a few in the 250s. I was hitting it all the place on the face. I guess my spin numbers could have been all over the place. I felt like I hit a lot of high toe and low heel shots.

Let's say for argument sake that my ball speed was 150 on a good day. Would a 17.4* launch be reasonable? I know the spin rate will dictate a lot of it but I would like to know that I am not losing a ton of distance at least. Also, I play a very low spin shaft (see sig) in my driver. I feel (from my ball flight on the real course) that I have very low spin compared to the guys I play with (we are all single digit index fwiw)

Any thoughts on the iron gapping? Mostly launch combined with ball speed. I guess assume my spin is relatively average for my speed?

Fair enough. My goal was to have a look at my launch angles and ball speed to determine if my gaps were ok from the 7 to 4 iron. I switch sets between 5 and 6 iron and had the lofts bent to mesh together. Once I got this data I thought id ask for opinions anyway.

By higher gaps in the longer clubs are you referring to longer than 4i? I will only bag 2 of the 3 clubs between 3i/3h/4w.

Like i wrote above, the algorithms for each LM company is different, but if we say your ball speed was/is 150 mph, a launch of 17 is "higher than needed", and not beneficial unless you have low spin values.

No LM company have a published algorithm, but ive done enough numbers on Flightscope to at least make a qualified guess based on my files.

If we say your launch was 17.0* i have the numbers for 150 ball speed at hand, with all spin levels from 1500 to 4250 with intervals of 250 rpm and they look like this:

If you wants to know how other launch and spin values from the same ball speed looks like, they are all here. Flightscope does give LOW Spin values high weighting, so when launch gets as high as 17, we loose both carry and Total when spin level goes up, and if launch is low, we gain carry but loose total when spin is raised up to a certain level. At the lowest launch in my chart here who is 8.0*, we are maxed out on carry at 3000 Rpms, but gained 10.7 yards carry vs a spin of only 1500, but the curve turns at 3000. From a launch angle of only 10, the highest spin gives the shortest numbers, so when launch is high, spin hurts the numbers.

What we can see for a ball speed of 150, for each 1* we go up on launch vs 8.0* and 3000 rpm, we must lower spin value by 250 rpms to take advantage of the higher launch angle.

For each mph ball speed, Carry moves average 2.2 yards (both ways from 150) and total by 1.9 yards.

For easier reading ive marked max carry with a GREEN field color, and shortest carry with RED letters.

ALL numbers is from Flightscope using 150 Mph ball speed, and they will be 6-11 yards SHORTER than what we would get from a Trackman after Flightscope changed their algorithm 2-3 years ago.

A number to pay attention to is one you normally dont see on charts or reports, and thats Roll outs amount of total as %.

For a ball speed of 150 mph, NO MATTER SPIN AND LAUNCH, we are maxed out on carry when roll out is 11% of total

To be able to make some good average numbers for what happens to Apex, Carry and Total when we change BALL SPEED, ive done the numbers with the combinations we see here as maxed out, but where ive taken down or raised ball speed with 5 mph, so here is how that looks from 145 or 155 mph.

Talking about Driver through 6 iron. As somebody mentioned you have very good ball speed for wedges and short irons but your top end doesn't match up. Either strikes are poor or you just aren't swinging them as fast as would be expected.

i suggest you read my DIY driver tune up who includes how to measure and find VCOG, and how to improve and tighten up impact with adjustment of club specs. (no special tools needed)https://forums.golfwrx.com/discussion/909991/diy-driver-tune-up-diy-fitting/p1

Well, Since you haven't played ina while it's probably not the best thing to do to make any sort of real judgements on the numbers.

But since you asked. Your gaps seem to be from roughly 10 yards to 17 yards between clubs. In my mind they should be a bit more regular but perhaps that's just a matter of being rusty.

This is some great data, thanks very much. I have ordered AVX golf balls for this season which should launch a little lower and spin less than the pro V1x I was using. Also, the tee was a little higher than I am used to so I was likely a bit high on the face. I will tee slightly lower on the course. Both these factors will probably help my drives according to the data.

I probably got away with the misses a bit more on the shorter clubs for sure.

Fair enough. I think I am fairly happy with the launch angles anyway. Got something from it. haha

Again, excellent information. I have considered looking into shortening my driver shaft, the added stiffness could help as well. I'll read up on it. Cheers