Sky Caddie Exposes The Phony Long

[jzatl04]

Just out of curiosity, what were you guys doing BEFORE you had the SkyCaddie? Just guessing at the distances you hit your drives? That would obviously be a completely inaccurate way to guage distance, but it sounds like that must be what some of you were doing. I simply step off the distance from the tee box yardage marker to where the tees are actually set up. Then step off my distance to the nearest fairway yardage marker to the center of the green. Obviously you have to adjust if you're not in the exact dead center of the fairway, but I played three rounds with a SkyCaddie this summer and the distances I stepped off (on straight holes, dog-legs were different) were never more than 2-3 yards different than what the SkyCaddies said. This leads me to believe that many of you just used to hit your driver and go "That was solidly struck, it easily went 280." Well... what did you expect then when you had an accurate measuring device?????

[joneser]

Just out of curiosity, what were you guys doing BEFORE you had the SkyCaddie? Just guessing at the distances you hit your drives? That would obviously be a completely inaccurate way to guage distance, but it sounds like that must be what some of you were doing. I simply step off the distance from the tee box yardage marker to where the tees are actually set up. Then step off my distance to the nearest fairway yardage marker to the center of the green. Obviously you have to adjust if you're not in the exact dead center of the fairway, but I played three rounds with a SkyCaddie this summer and the distances I stepped off (on straight holes, dog-legs were different) were never more than 2-3 yards different than what the SkyCaddies said. This leads me to believe that many of you just used to hit your driver and go "That was solidly struck, it easily went 280." Well... what did you expect then when you had an accurate measuring device?????

 

I have always been very realistic with how far I hit it. After all, its how many times you hit it not how far you hit it that ultimately counts. That being said, if you have a 350 yd hole and your are 75 yds from the green, its real easy to forget to count the yardage to the middle of the green. Without stepping it off, its also real easy to be off by 10 yds.

[electroleum]

So, from what I'm reading here, the Skycaddie has a feature that keeps a tally of your average driving distance? Or are you guys just keeping your own records if each drive & tallying them up yourselves?

 

I'll admit I haven't fully read up on every little feature on these things...perhaps I'll do that now

 

*goes to skycaddie.com*

[tlflanders]

Just a quick thought jzatl04. Obviously, most people step off yardages and use course markings to guage distances. Like mentioned earlier, unless you designed the course or were hired to measure the course how can you be completely accurate. Don't get me wrong. Think about the new Nike commercial for the Sumo2 that depicts an entirley square golf course. If you were to hit a drive on a 400 yard hole and had 100 yards left, you hit the ball 300 yards. Right? Not necessarily. Why? The shortest distance between to points is a straight line. If you hit it to either side of the fairway, in this instance, it is actually longer. If you were to hit a drive on a 90* dogleg, can you accurately determine how long you hit the ball? Not likely. This is why everyone is so surprised. You would have to do exact calculations with regards to the points where the hole was measured. It sucks finding out that you don't hit it as far as you think but that doesn't mean that people are just going out on a whim saying that "I hit that 3 bills." They use the same method that you do.

 

TL

[jzatl04]

Just a quick thought jzatl04. Obviously, most people step off yardages and use course markings to guage distances. Like mentioned earlier, unless you designed the course or were hired to measure the course how can you be completely accurate. Don't get me wrong. Think about the new Nike commercial for the Sumo2 that depicts an entirley square golf course. If you were to hit a drive on a 400 yard hole and had 100 yards left, you hit the ball 300 yards. Right? Not necessarily. Why? The shortest distance between to points is a straight line. If you hit it to either side of the fairway, in this instance, it is actually longer. If you were to hit a drive on a 90* dogleg, can you accurately determine how long you hit the ball? Not likely. This is why everyone is so surprised. You would have to do exact calculations with regards to the points where the hole was measured. It sucks finding out that you don't hit it as far as you think but that doesn't mean that people are just going out on a whim saying that "I hit that 3 bills." They use the same method that you do.

 

TL

 

Yes, all those things must be taken into account. And the walk-off method doesn't work well at all on doglegs. I'm still very surprised that you would be off by 15-20 yards on straight holes. That is a BIG difference. I guess I was most shocked by this statement:

I hit an absolute bomb on one hole, that a week ago I would have said oh yeah 290 easy. Get up to it & SG4 mark says 272. THIS WAS A BLAST, and came up 272.

That implies a complete guesstimation. I guess what I'm getting at is the course yardage markers should have revealed the shot to be around 272 anyway, so it's not that the SkyCaddie is actually exposing the "phony long", but simply taking the time to measure the distance is, not just saying "oh yeah 290 easy" as you walk off the tee.

[tlflanders]

I get what you are saying. I think that for the most part that people simply compare how a particular shot feels to other similar shots. I know when I hit one on the screws. It simply boils down to other factors. Maybe you were a little steep or it hit into an upslope etc. I have hit shots where I thought I hit a bomb and it ends up shorter than I thought. Then again, I've hit some where I thought that I almost missed the clubface that end up pretty deep. The Sky Caddie gives an exact number, simple as that. Remember that these are the purposes of the Sky Caddie. To give exact yardages through GPS and to speed up play. No need to walk it off if you don't have to.

 

TL

[thenewbie]

well, we all know that our longest drives can easily turn into fish tales. golfers have never been known for "perfection" or "honesty" when it comes to actuall "numbers". BUT, as someone who actually does take it well over 300 on a regular basis, I can tell you how I measure. take how long the hole is from the tee and just subtract how much you have left. then, since there's so much estimating involved (unless your ball is sitting on top of a sprinkler head, haha), I always subtract or round down to the nearest tenth. yesturday I had 65 yards left on a hole measuring 419. so, after some math I'm confident that I can say I took it 350 and be sure I'm not exagerating.

 

that sounds reasonable right?

 

 

No that is actually incorrect. Hole yardages are always measured through the center of the fairway. If you cut the corner on a dogleg, you cannot subtract your distance left from the yardage on the card to determne how far you hit the ball....Remember the Pythagoreum Theorem for calculating the length of the hypotenuse on a triangle.

 

 

dude. . .I guess I should have qualified all that stuff. the hole was straight as an arrow, and the ball was fairly close to a sprinkler head. yeah, the hole was downhill. but I never said that I AVERAGED 350. haha, average is more like 260 with my stupid snap-hook. But I only try to figure out my distance when I know that I really caught a hold of one. you don't have to believe me, I could care less. . .I'm just telling everyone how I measure myself when I want to. know what I'm sayin' yo?

[Milo]

Might not make much difference where you are but most "400 yard holes" are 400 yards from the back of the tee box.

At least they are where I have played.

 

 

 

Are you guys saying all these courses are juiced up like 10 percent? If I play a straight away par 4 400 yards, and hit it to the 100 yard marker, how far did I hit it?

[rkruff]

well, we all know that our longest drives can easily turn into fish tales. golfers have never been known for "perfection" or "honesty" when it comes to actuall "numbers". BUT, as someone who actually does take it well over 300 on a regular basis, I can tell you how I measure. take how long the hole is from the tee and just subtract how much you have left. then, since there's so much estimating involved (unless your ball is sitting on top of a sprinkler head, haha), I always subtract or round down to the nearest tenth. yesturday I had 65 yards left on a hole measuring 419. so, after some math I'm confident that I can say I took it 350 and be sure I'm not exagerating.

 

that sounds reasonable right?

 

 

No that is actually incorrect. Hole yardages are always measured through the center of the fairway. If you cut the corner on a dogleg, you cannot subtract your distance left from the yardage on the card to determne how far you hit the ball....Remember the Pythagoreum Theorem for calculating the length of the hypotenuse on a triangle.

 

 

dude. . .I guess I should have qualified all that stuff. the hole was straight as an arrow, and the ball was fairly close to a sprinkler head. yeah, the hole was downhill. but I never said that I AVERAGED 350. haha, average is more like 260 with my stupid snap-hook. But I only try to figure out my distance when I know that I really caught a hold of one. you don't have to believe me, I could care less. . .I'm just telling everyone how I measure myself when I want to. know what I'm sayin' yo?

 

 

No need to qualify all that stuff.....Look at the last line of your original post. You asked "that sounds reasonable right?" That is what I was responding to. I said nothing about believing you or not. As for caring less....Absolutely impossible for me. As for your use of the English language....Well, that's another subject. Yo.

[herkyjerk]

Just to respond to a couple contant themes throughout.

 

Sky caddie does not track distances continuously or keep stats in any way. It tells you the exact yardage of any single shot, that's it.

Prior to Sky Caddie, I would play a hole that would be 390 from THE TEE BOX I'M PLAYING. Not the tips. I would hit a drive and be near the 130 sprinkler head. Therefore I said I could drive it 260. Sky Caddie would probably size it up at like 245 due to any angles or evevation changes in the hole. The moral of this thread is I don't think most players are as long as they think they are.

[JVi]

I teach people how to survey using GPS at a college. We own a unit that is accurate to less than an inch. It costs $33k discounted from $50k.

Sky Caddie is the type of unit that we call "autonomous". It cannot be more accurate than 5 yards and often 10+ yards. If you want to get accurate measurements at a golf course, bring a tape measure.

[SwingMan]

The Caddie didn't tell me anything that I didn't know -- I'm a middle aged short knocker.

 

It did have me realize that cutting off that dogleg on a 360 hole where I am only 60 out is not a 300 yrd drive.

 

On straight holes - on good days, I was 260-280 with the occasional 290-300 thrown in there (straight and short par 4). I could also be 240 with a not so great hit.

 

No ego -- come to grips with who you are so you can improve.

[bloodredsun]

That it has an accuracy of +/-10 yards would also indicate that there are occasions that it will add on 10 yards just as often as it will subtract them. So one 280 yard drive will be measured at 290 while another 280 yard drive might be measured at 270.

 

I think what everyone is seeing is that there is a general trend towards shorter distances being reported(and back towards reality!) irrespective of specific measurement variations.

 

It's pretty funny when you see the reality of us as non-tour players hitting 'long' drives and it's even funnier when you see some bloke with twigs for arms claiming his SS of 150 means that he's putting the long ball out to 4 bills and then sky caddy says otherwise (cool) .

[JVi]

Further to what I mentioned earlier, we teach our surveying students to pace out distances. It has been shown that with practice, one can easily a have a precision in pacing of 1 part error in 300. In other words, if you hit a 300 yard drive, you should be able to pace out a distance of 299 to 301 yards which is way better than Sky caddie can hope for.

[herkyjerk]

Further to what I mentioned earlier, we teach our surveying students to pace out distances. It has been shown that with practice, one can easily a have a precision in pacing of 1 part error in 300. In other words, if you hit a 300 yard drive, you should be able to pace out a distance of 299 to 301 yards which is way better than Sky caddie can hope for.

 

 

Yeah except for that hole where the first 140 yards is all CARRY over a marsh waste. Have your students pace that off. Obviously you've never golfed in Virginia. It's hilly, there's carry everywhere, and not a straight, flat hole to be found. Distance must come from the sky, and I will take a +/- 3% margin of error anyday. Happy pacing.

[dcmidnight]

Yeah except for that hole where the first 140 yards is all CARRY over a marsh waste. Have your students pace that off. Obviously you've never golfed in Virginia. It's hilly, there's carry everywhere, and not a straight, flat hole to be found. Distance must come from the sky, and I will take a +/- 3% margin of error anyday. Happy pacing.

+1.

 

Personally I found the SkyCaddie to be most helpful in wayward shots off the fairway or on a long dogleg where you might be far away from a yardage marker. And I play an unfortunate number of nicer courses in the area that have no GPS on the carts and no sprinklers marked. So while it may not be accurate to one yard at 300 yards, its good enough for this hack.

[diablojoe]

I already know I don't hit it very far. But I played with a couple of guys a while back who were loud-talking at the first tee about hitting 300y drives all the time. They were making rude put-downs of tour pros who drive "only" 285, using a perjorative that is a common name for a cat.

 

They tee'd off and high-fived each other, yelling "Yeah baby! 295 on that one!" and things like that.

 

Their drives were carrying at most 235-240. They were so delusional that they were complaining that the 150y marker to the green was misplaced. On every hole.

[diablojoe]

I will remind all that GPS's are sometimes off by as much as 15 meters(50 feet) which comes out to about 16.67 yards :tongue:

Not any longer. That was the first-generation. All of them are accurate now. I took a GPS on a run -- 5 miles out and 5 miles back. It clicked over to 10.0 miles on the exact same sidewalk crack where I started.

[diablojoe]

I never even try to measure my drives on doglegs for that reason.

My regular course has a 525 par 5. I'm always hitting my second shot from 200-225. No surprise -- I've learned how to dial in the dogleg by hitting over some trees. I can hit my usual 230 drive and it covers 300y of fairway!

 

On this subject, driving range markers piss me off. I've been to several driving ranges, and I always land the ball at the 250 sign. I've hit one ball on a course in my entire life that carried 250, and that was a lucky over-swing with a howling tailwind.

[dcmidnight]

On this subject, driving range markers piss me off. I've been to several driving ranges, and I always land the ball at the 250 sign. I've hit one ball on a course in my entire life that carried 250, and that was a lucky over-swing with a howling tailwind.

Yeah, as much as it seems like overkill, this is why I ended up with a SC and a Yardage Pro Tour last summer - one for the range and one for the course. Just based on where the signs are, then can be 15-20 yards off depending on where they were measured from, where your stall is, how the range is laid our etc. I guess if the range was laid out in a perfect radius around the centerline it would be fine but I've yet to see a range like that. Works great for me. (Of course I could just go to the range down the street that has gps chips in each ball and tells you how far each one goes, but its a bit of a ripoff)

[05_g35]

I think most people mess up their yardages because of the position of the tees on the tee box. From the tips it is 400 yards but the tees are moved forward 15 yards, and people still use the original yardage from the tips. Skycaddie is wonderful, enough said.

[Omen]

all well and good but how accurate would just doing the math me...

 

ss of 110 and ball speed of 165-168 average.

 

no wind... what kind of carry is that worth?

 

265 - 270 right?

[AcesAZ]

You guys sound like a bunch of sky caddie salesmen. :tongue: It sounds like a good tool and if the carts at my home course didn't have GPS I'd probably look at getting one. Also the GPS on our carts is very accurate, I've measured it with the sprinklers several times. I've seen it off by 2-3 yards at the most.

[mr_divots]

Further to what I mentioned earlier, we teach our surveying students to pace out distances. It has been shown that with practice, one can easily a have a precision in pacing of 1 part error in 300. In other words, if you hit a 300 yard drive, you should be able to pace out a distance of 299 to 301 yards which is way better than Sky caddie can hope for.

Ultimately, I decided that a laser rangefinder was the right choice for me. The Pinseeker 1500 Tournament that I have is rated to +/- 1 yard. It seems to be accurate as far as I can tell.

 

When playing rounds with people that own a SkyCaddie, they will often ask what I am getting for a reading to the pin. Being the SkyCaddie give the front/middle/back yardage of the green, their SkyCaddie yardage of course isn't as accurate as the rangefinder to the pin. But, there has not been an occasion where the SkyCaddie has been grossly off in its measurement. While they may not be precise like surveying equipment, I don't think they have a +/- 10 to 15 yard difference. Like I said, I don't have a Skycaddie, so I don't want to make a big effort to defend the technology, but from what I have seen, they are more than accurate enough for the purposes of golfing.

[diablojoe]

all well and good but how accurate would just doing the math me...

 

ss of 110 and ball speed of 165-168 average.

 

no wind... what kind of carry is that worth?

 

265 - 270 right?

Anywhere from 220 to 310. That's why we play on actual courses instead of computers. ;-)

[thenewbie]

well, we all know that our longest drives can easily turn into fish tales. golfers have never been known for "perfection" or "honesty" when it comes to actuall "numbers". BUT, as someone who actually does take it well over 300 on a regular basis, I can tell you how I measure. take how long the hole is from the tee and just subtract how much you have left. then, since there's so much estimating involved (unless your ball is sitting on top of a sprinkler head, haha), I always subtract or round down to the nearest tenth. yesturday I had 65 yards left on a hole measuring 419. so, after some math I'm confident that I can say I took it 350 and be sure I'm not exagerating.

 

that sounds reasonable right?

 

 

No that is actually incorrect. Hole yardages are always measured through the center of the fairway. If you cut the corner on a dogleg, you cannot subtract your distance left from the yardage on the card to determne how far you hit the ball....Remember the Pythagoreum Theorem for calculating the length of the hypotenuse on a triangle.

 

 

dude. . .I guess I should have qualified all that stuff. the hole was straight as an arrow, and the ball was fairly close to a sprinkler head. yeah, the hole was downhill. but I never said that I AVERAGED 350. haha, average is more like 260 with my stupid snap-hook. But I only try to figure out my distance when I know that I really caught a hold of one. you don't have to believe me, I could care less. . .I'm just telling everyone how I measure myself when I want to. know what I'm sayin' yo?

 

 

No need to qualify all that stuff.....Look at the last line of your original post. You asked "that sounds reasonable right?" That is what I was responding to. I said nothing about believing you or not. As for caring less....Absolutely impossible for me. As for your use of the English language....Well, that's another subject. Yo.

 

haha, yeah, your right. sorry, I wasn't talking specifically to you, I'm just sure that pretty much no one here will actually believe that I hit it that far. like I mentioned, I'm looong, but completely out of control. as for how I speak. . .well, its just an online forum, not a school essay. feel me dog? haha, just kidding. but I promise it was never anything personal. isn't it funny how people say "I could care less" when they mean "I couldn't care less". it used to annoy me. . .

[HEMIPHIL]

Omen.....your numbers sound good & are very similar to mine...SS 110 Ballspeed 163 - 165 end result drives that end up 265 - 270. :D I'll take 265 - 270 in the fairway all day long. Like I said in my earlier post....some people just don't now how far 300 yards is. I imagine you would have to have a SS in the neighbourhood of at least 120+ to start knocking it out in the 300 yard range. Just my 2 cents. :tongue:

[Big Ben]

All I will say is try the Sky Caddie and you will find out your "true" driving distance. The guys that are questioning this are the guys that will be most surprised with how long there drives really are. A 300+ yard drive is HUGE fellas. If I can average 270 off of the tee I will take it all day now that I use this device...

[airball7]

I drive the golf ball a long way with a swing speed of 115-118 MPH and a smash factor of 1.40 to 1.45. Under normal conditions - no significant breeze, slope, or fairway condition that would otherwise affect the roll - my best tee shots will generally approach 290 yards. Having grown up playing 43" persimmon it almost embarrasses me to say I hit it that far, because in those days I'd run into assclowns saying *they* hit it 290 when I was hitting it 260 and blowing it past them.

 

I've played 10 or 15 rounds with two current PGA Tour pros, neither of whom is known for being exceptionally long, and my best tee balls were longer than either of theirs. One time I let one of them know it and he promptly busted out an extra 30 yards, flying me. I came to learn that most of the "tour average" hitters can easily dial up more distance when needed. I can't. Furthermore, their average counts them all - every mis-hit, every drive into a gale, and every one after an inch of rain the night before at 7:20am and 52 degrees. We amateurs tend not only to think we drive it farther then we do when we nail it, we also forget about the heeled shots and 205 yard snap hooks, choosing instead to remember the one we killed three-and-a-quarter with a 15 yard tailwind on a 7 percent downslope on fairways that hadn't seen water in ten days.

 

But I digress. I've seen the SkyCaddie, and it's easy enough to use, but I still can't figure out why someone would prefer it over a laser rangefinder like the Bushnell 1500. The newer generation of rangefinders require less precision than those of a few years ago, and unless your hands really shake it's awfully easy to get an exact measurement. I have a friend with the SkyCaddie and we've found it to be very accurate testing it against the 1500, so I can't speak for the earlier posts that spoke to the potential degree of error. Still, when you're playing into an uphill hole location on a green 42 yards long, what good does knowing the distance to front, middle, and back do? The only advantage the SkyCaddie has is that it's quicker - you can just look at it instead of having to shoot the target - but what good is that if it doesn't supply exact yardage to the hole?

[8thehardway]

The other side of the coin is also amusing. If you think a 250 yard drive on a straight 400 yard hole actually went 300 yards, how do you justify using more than a wedge on your second shot?