Trackman - Driver Readings Don't Align with Reality

[gophers79]

Does anyone else have this happen to them on Trackman?

 

I'm a scratch-ish golfer.  I hit my driver ~275-300 in real life, usually down the right side of the fairway with a draw.

 

It's winter here in MN now, so I've been frequenting my local simulator place to get some swings in.  For wedges and irons, the distances seem to be about a club short, but generally align with where I think I'm hitting the ball from a direction / curve perspective.

 

For my driver, though, the readings I get are consistently not anything close to what I experience in the real world.

 

Trackman almost always reads my typical mid-trajectory push-draw as a low block-fade, starting way right and going further right.  I've experienced this on multiple different Trackman units at different locations, so it's not just the setup of the room or anything like that.

 

Any thoughts / advice?  Do others experience this as well?  It makes it less enjoyable to hit balls at either the Trackman range or play virtual golf when the readings are just so far off.

 

EDIT: I should note that I played a round of virtual golf at an AboutGolf simulator place near my house a few weeks ago and generally thought the results were about what I'd expect from a distance / direction / curve perspective.

Edited November 18, 2020 by gophers79

[Stuart_G]

14 hours ago, gophers79 said:

Does anyone else have this happen to them on Trackman?

 

I'm a scratch-ish golfer.  I hit my driver ~275-300 in real life, usually down the right side of the fairway with a draw.

 

It's winter here in MN now, so I've been frequenting my local simulator place to get some swings in.  For wedges and irons, the distances seem to be about a club short, but generally align with where I think I'm hitting the ball from a direction / curve perspective.

 

For my driver, though, the readings I get are consistently not anything close to what I experience in the real world.

 

Trackman almost always reads my typical mid-trajectory push-draw as a low block-fade, starting way right and going further right.  I've experienced this on multiple different Trackman units at different locations, so it's not just the setup of the room or anything like that.

 

Any thoughts / advice?  Do others experience this as well?  It makes it less enjoyable to hit balls at either the Trackman range or play virtual golf when the readings are just so far off.

 

EDIT: I should note that I played a round of virtual golf at an AboutGolf simulator place near my house a few weeks ago and generally thought the results were about what I'd expect from a distance / direction / curve perspective.

One of the biggest limitations of the radar units (both trackman and flightscope) indoors is calculating spin axis.   They can measure total spin but can not measure the spin axis directly off the ball so it's calculated based on the club data - dynamic loft, face-to-path, etc...   For the most part it's pretty good but the one exception is being able to account for horizontal gear effect that happens on off center impacts for drivers, woods, and hybrids (not an issue for irons).    I know Trackman was working on algorithms to help with that but have no idea what the state of that work is.  And even so, it will never be perfect since it depends on factors that TM will never understand (exact c.g. location and MOI of the head).   

 

So basically if you have tendencies for off center hits, maybe a little bit off center on the toe side in your case, is contributing to your actual outdoor results but is being missed by TM.   A bit of foot powder spray can show you impact location tendencies and it doesn't take being off center very much before the effects on the ball flight will be visible so you cant rely on feel.   And also keep in mind that 'off-center' means relative to the c.g. - not the geometric center of the face.   So impact on the geometric center but with the c.g. shifted to the heel side would see the same 'error' in spin axis as a centered c.g. and slight toe side miss.

 

As a side note, outdoors it's not an issue because they use the ball flight to calculate spin axis.

 

Some other possibilities:   Some people are affected by hitting indoors in a more enclosed space than they are used to or even into a net.   The swing can be effected for those people in numerous different ways.    The general ability to aim and line up to the desired shot can be harder when using a projected image as a reference.   Tee height may be different from what one is used to if only fixed height tees are available.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Stuart_G

[gophers79]

36 minutes ago, Stuart_G said:

One of the biggest limitations of the radar units (both trackman and flightscope) indoors is calculating spin axis.   They can measure total spin but can not measure the spin axis directly off the ball so it's calculated based on the club data - dynamic loft, face-to-path, etc...   For the most part it's pretty good but the one exception is being able to account for horizontal gear effect that happens on off center impacts for drivers, woods, and hybrids (not an issue for irons).    I know Trackman was working on algorithms to help with that but have no idea what the state of that work is.  And even so, it will never be perfect since it depends on factors that TM will never understand (exact c.g. location and MOI of the head).   

 

So basically if you have tendencies for off center hits, maybe a little bit off center on the toe side in your case, is contributing to your actual outdoor results but is being missed by TM.   A bit of foot powder spray can show you impact location tendencies and it doesn't take being off center very much before the effects on the ball flight will be visible so you cant rely on feel.   And also keep in mind that 'off-center' means relative to the c.g. - not the geometric center of the face.   So impact on the geometric center but with the c.g. shifted to the heel side would see the same 'error' in spin axis as a centered c.g. and slight toe side miss.

 

As a side note, outdoors it's not an issue because they use the ball flight to calculate spin axis.

 

Some other possibilities:   Some people are affected by hitting indoors in a more enclosed space than they are used to or even into a net.   The swing can be effected for those people in numerous different ways.    The general ability to aim and line up to the desired shot can be harder when using a projected image as a reference.   Tee height may be different from what one is used to if only fixed height tees are available.

 

Really great knowledge and info, thank you!

 

I think fitting is important and good, but it's hard to trust the data when it's so far removed with what I experience in reality.

 

It sounds like I should trust the radar units outside in the summer for actual data on my game, but not really trust them inside.  Do you have a recommendation on what unit(s) might work better for predicting my ballflight more accurately?

 

EDIT: As mentioned above, I felt like the AboutGolf sim that I went to was more accurate from a ballflight perspective.

Edited November 19, 2020 by gophers79

[Stuart_G]

1 hour ago, gophers79 said:

 

Really great knowledge and info, thank you!

 

I think fitting is important and good, but it's hard to trust the data when it's so far removed with what I experience in reality.

 

It sounds like I should trust the radar units outside in the summer for actual data on my game, but not really trust them inside.  Do you have a recommendation on what unit(s) might work better for predicting my ballflight more accurately?

 

Photometric monitors (like Foresight units) get the spin axis directly from the ball so shot shape will be more reliable.  However, their are some known issues with their ball flight algorithms that make some of the distances less reliable for lower spin driver results.

 

For fitting stick to outdoors on grass if possible especially for irons.  Hitting off mats can mess with the spin for irons even if the LM is accurate.

 

For working on your game or monitoring your swing, it's my opinion that the club data is way more important than the ball data.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Stuart_G