SkyPro - really impressive

[awstephens]

[size=4]Hi,[/size]

[size=4]I have been using Sky Pro seen launch and I am really impressed as our a lot of my fellow golfers. However since the update I have to say I'm quite confused by the Top Of Backswing Parameter - Face Angle. I have a reading of 45* and is states it is very bowed, I also have a reading of 30* which is also very bowed and I notice from the Pro Swing of Bill Haas he has a reading of 60* which is very bowed. I have read the tutorial from Michael Breed that states - [color=#606060]As a rough rule of thumb, 0° is a closed club face, 90° below horizontal is an open club face, and a neutral face is between 45° and 60° below horizontal for most golfers. If that is the case why does my reading of 45* and Bill Haas 60* state very bowed. Hopefully Gord will read this and shed some light on the data.[/color][/size]

[size=4][color=#606060]Regards[/color][/size]

[size=4][color=#606060]Andrew[/color][/size]

[c7015]

I'd be interested , also looking at "game golf"

will have to compare and contrast all these options

[ParHunter]

BHB1, every putter has a bit of loft, I think mine has 4 degree. You need that to get the ball rolling and not skipping. I think Breed probably means that you shouldn't add additional loft.

[BHB1]

[quote name='ParHunter' timestamp='1394136477' post='8813137']
BHB1, every putter has a bit of loft, I think mine has 4 degree. You need that to get the ball rolling and not skipping. I think Breed probably means that you shouldn't add additional loft.
[/quote]

My first dabble with the putter and the SkyPro yesterday evening, I did a normal (for me) putting stroke. Shaft lean was 0 Deg and Loft at Impact was 4 Deg up.

Michael Breed suggests in his book that some degree of forward lean is beneficial to introduce top spin, rather than the backspin that a 4 Deg loft might be expected to introduce. He does not advocate any backspin as far as I understand. So I did try some deliberate forward shaft lean (3 Deg) and that still produced 1 Deg loft at impact.

I didn't try many shots because I did not have tape to fix the SkyPro sensor securely to the Greyhawk putter and secondly, I was using an iPad4 and that is decidedly inconvenient carting it round the practice putting green. I can see a mobile phone would be OK in the pocket and allow you to move around a practice green, though the shots would all be different. (I normally practice with 4 balls over longer putting distances on a practice green).

I suppose I should just find a quiet time and take about 40 balls and try groove mode on distance. Direction usually isn't such a big problem for me and reading the green is at least as important for direction and distance accuracy.

BHB1

[gparke]

Hi guys,

Wow there’s been a lot of posts in the last few days! I’ll do my best to answer all the questions, but I’m in a bit of a rush so if I miss any let me know!

First of all, quite a few of you have mentioned the alerts for Face Angle @ Top. This is my fault: I accidentally put in a negative sign which makes the alerts incorrect. If you look in alert settings they say 30 and 70 _above_ horizontal; they should say 30 and 70 _below_ horizontal. It also gets mixed up on “bowed” and “cupped” for the same reason. I made a change to this code just before submission and thought I tested it… but clearly not well enough. Sorry about that. I’ll have it fixed in the upcoming update.

Second, as DaveMac, _Fred, and others have mentioned, some of the swings speeds get revised to be a little more accurate. I’m surprised they didn’t save in your case DaveMac. I will certainly fix that.

Potatoshooter, interesting to hear about your foam ball. I was a little worried the new impact filtering would affect foam ball impacts, but I did some testing with foam balls and it worked well for all the ones we have here. Please let me know if you keep having problems and I’ll see what you can do. I also laughed at your comment that your putts could not look any more different than Breed’s… you’re not alone in that boat! I think most people naturally open their face as they swing back, but Breed specifically tries to keep the face square to impact throughout the entire stroke.

On a similar note, some people have mentioned the original Natalie Gulbis swing is now invalid. I also noticed that and did some digging… turns out that one was a practice swing. The new one in the app is not a practice swing, and it does her a bit more justice (the practice swing had a hugely closed face angle at impact, which is probably because she wasn’t hitting a ball).

We’ve also replaced a few of the videos on our website that were having problems. Hopefully they will run a little smoother now.

Morini, thanks for posting your validation data. I found your quoted stats on the standard deviation of Face Angle @ Impact quite interesting - I hadn’t heard those before. To putt in another datapoint, we did some of our testing on a putting guide: basically a “robot” which clamps tightly to the putter and rotates about one axis. Its standard deviation in Face Angle @ Impact must have been .02°. All of its putts measured less than 0.05° open or closed. Maybe this isn’t surprising since it is a robot, but it is cool to see the precision in our gyros (which is why we feel comfortable displaying that parameter down to 0.1° in the app).

DaveMac, if you continue to have problems calibrating please private message me and I can give you a call or help you in more detail.

One last thing: extra thanks to everyone for all the comments and support. Hearing you guys are enjoying SkyPro is the ultimate motivation for us, and your feedback makes a big difference

Gord

[carrera]

[quote name='gparke' timestamp='1394165827' post='8816829']

First of all, quite a few of you have mentioned the alerts for Face Angle @ Top. This is my fault: I accidentally put in a negative sign which makes the alerts incorrect. If you look in alert settings they say 30 and 70 _above_ horizontal; they should say 30 and 70 _below_ horizontal. It also gets mixed up on “bowed” and “cupped” for the same reason. I made a change to this code just before submission and thought I tested it… but clearly not well enough. Sorry about that. I’ll have it fixed in the upcoming update.

[/quote]

Thanks...I was trying every face angle in the book, and they were all bowed. Glad I can ignore it!

[Peter_b]

Wow Gord you packed a lot in there, well done, it’s a great app now. Looking forward to test it, season will soon begin in Europe.

[TravAz]

One note, my app crashes about every other time I calibrate a club. Iphone 5 with the latest ios. It gets to the select-a-club screen and freezes for 15-20 seconds then poof.

Also, wondering how big of an impact lie angle has on the calculations. Finally bothered to look at the standard driver, and it had a lie angle of 50. The mfg of my driver claims 61*. Big difference, will it impact the data?

[Bcharris49]

Any body having issues seeing their old swings? None of my old swings are there at all. They still exist in the clubsg account fortunately.

Gord, would love to see an ott parameter. Maybe a difference between club face location at the half way down stage. Showing how much under the back swing plane the down swing is.

[BHB1]

[quote name='Bcharris49' timestamp='1394200431' post='8818527']
Any body having issues seeing their old swings? None of my old swings are there at all. They still exist in the clubsg account fortunately.

[/quote]

Using an iPad4, all the swings are visible (600 or so).

The Natalie Gulbis swing (if you downloaded it manually before the app upgrade) and the 5-6 demo swings from the SkyPro Team have been made invalid to protect the innocent, so can be deleted.

The other issue is that the speed of the swings may change because of the new filtering algorithm on club head speed. It initially shows old speed and then changes to a 'corrected' speed. This at present does not appear to change the speed correction permanently, however.

Hopefully others can suggest what your problem may be.

EDIT: Just an after thought. I take it you are not in the Putting Mode? The putting mode seems to be a parallel programme and will not show normal wood/iron swings.

BHB1

[slowcelica]

I used the putting portion of the app for a good bit last night and used the groove feature, I didn't think i would use it much but I could see using this more than I thought. It would be really cool if there was a groove feature for putting distance, groove hitting the ball 7 ft, or whatever.

Is there any videos out there explaining how to use the new focus feature?

[ParHunter]

Has anyone tried to pair the SkyPro with two different devices? Is it a hassle to switch between them? Do you have to pair again each time you switch?

[ParHunter]

[quote name='slowcelica' timestamp='1394217885' post='8820595']
I used the putting portion of the app for a good bit last night and used the groove feature, I didn't think i would use it much but I could see using this more than I thought. It would be really cool if there was a groove feature for putting distance, groove hitting the ball 7 ft, or whatever.

Is there any videos out there explaining how to use the new focus feature?
[/quote]

For that the app would need to know the stimp of the green. But I agree it would be great if you could enter the stimp of the green or even better you enter the distance for a few putts and it calculates the stimp automatically. And with that information you could groove the distances. At the moment the closest you have is the putt length at transition but for that your swing speed needs to be constant to give you a good correlation to the putt distance.

[silliwilli]

Would actually be pretty cool if it could figure the stimp out for you

[Morini]

Gord: Sorry, one mistake on my part, the putting data comes from Karlsen, not Nielsen. Here is a link to Jon Karlsen's thesis, which contains his research on everything from putter weight to green reading error. [url="http://johngrahamgolf.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Karlsen-2010.pdf"]http://johngrahamgolf.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Karlsen-2010.pdf[/url]

Thanks for letting us know the error rate of robot putter.

Slowcelica/Parhunter/silliwilli:
With regards to using it to groove a given distance, and a stimpmeter you can with a few caveats.

I don't really think there is any point to groove an exact distance because there are too many unknowns, such as exact distance, stimp, and slope. What I recommend doing is to groove some reference putter head speeds. For example, 100 inches/second. Assuming clean contact, the distance rolled will be quite constant. You will also notice that the backswing distance will be very similar for putts of the same putter head speed. Once you have mastered the reference speeds (for example every 15 inches/second), you will have no trouble interpolating. I just say to myself, give me 93 inches per second, I can get very close without thinking about much mechanically, just a grooved feel. When the weather is good you are obviously better off getting the feel for real putts on real greens. It would be a very bad idea to measure the distance to the hole, and try to putt that far based on previously grooved distances.

As for stimp meter, I already validated the proof of concept. There is a bit of math involved. Since I already know the relationship between the putter head speed and ball speed, I can determine the stimp of the carpet in my house. I was able to verify this with my puttometer device (essentially a photogate) that also can do stimp calculations with a high degree of accuracy. On an actual putting green, it is nearly impossible to find a perfectly flat area, so you have to do some math. You need to find a straight putt, and putt one in each direction and measure the "stimp" for the downhill and uphill putts. The formula for flat green stimp is then: uphill stimp x downhill stimp x2 /(uphill stimp + downhill stimp). If there is interest, I can share a spreadsheet that does the calculations, but there will be some assumptions about putterhead mass and quality of contact. In other words, it will be calibrated to my exact putter.

[Morini]

With regards to opening the face, Karlsen's study showed that 69 of 71 elite golfers (including Euro tour pros) significantly opened the face during the backstroke. The average was 0.6 degrees. The reality is that elite golfers don't do the Pelz SBST thing, even if they think they do. Alo noteworthy, that on average, elite players aimed one degree left, but compensated with a slightly open face.

Here is a link to Steve Bann's take on putting. The putt is perfectly on plane, the path is zero. The putter opens and then closes naturally. There are a million theories on putting, but this makes sense to me. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyFC4A1jx5s"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyFC4A1jx5s[/url]

[ParHunter]

[quote name='Morini' timestamp='1394239578' post='8822717']

As for stimp meter, I already validated the proof of concept. There is a bit of math involved. Since I already know the relationship between the putter head speed and ball speed, I can determine the stimp of the carpet in my house. I was able to verify this with my puttometer device (essentially a photogate) that also can do stimp calculations with a high degree of accuracy. On an actual putting green, it is nearly impossible to find a perfectly flat area, so you have to do some math. You need to find a straight putt, and putt one in each direction and measure the "stimp" for the downhill and uphill putts. The formula for flat green stimp is then: uphill stimp x downhill stimp x2 /(uphill stimp + downhill stimp). If there is interest, I can share a spreadsheet that does the calculations, but there will be some assumptions about putterhead mass and quality of contact. In other words, it will be calibrated to my exact putter.
[/quote]
Hi Morini,

I would be interested in your spreadsheet. What is the typical ratio between ball speed and clubhead speed for a putter (I guess to be precise you would need weight of the club head, loft etc but I guess a rough estimate will be sufficient for most cases)?

[goatbarn]

I don't see a point in having a distance groove if there are no ball measurements...

Quality of contact is going to greatly effect the distance a ball would roll. And skypro can't measure that, because it doesn't measure the ball.

[AB2SS]

Hi all,

I've been using SkyPro for several practice sessions now, and have a couple of questions for some of you more seasoned users. SkyPro shows me with an inside takeaway on all shots. It ranges between -4* and -14*. I've been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to remedy this. After reading this entire thread, I feel I have a good understanding of how the measurement is taken ( angle between hands and club head as it relates to target line). I've concentrated on one piece takeaway and keeping the angle between arms and shaft unchanged as long as possible, all to no avail so far. Any similar experiences with fixes?

Secondly, my return angle is always inside of my takeaway angle, usually 4* to 6* inside of takeaway value. In addition, on the swing mode screen, my dark blue sweep (return angle), is always inside my light blue (takeaway angle) starting at the very top during my transition. Does this absolutely absolve me from an OTT move? In other words, can there be a case made that with these "numbers" it is still possible for one to be coming over the top?

The reason I ask, I started lessons with a very fine teaching pro last summer and OTT was his diagnosis. I am no longer working with him, but we exclusively worked on this for several months. I'm wondering if in a concentrated effort to fix this, I may have taken it too far the other direction. If my new "numbers" above support this theory, I can assure you being under plane presents just as many frustrating problems as OTT. For me, inconsistency is the reason I've started working with SkyPro. Like most of you, when I "catch it" it is very sweet but it doesn't happen enough for my liking.

One caveat, the only number I see that I've seen in the documented material explaining the parameters that may correlate with an OTT move, is that my shaft angle at impact is averaging 7* ABOVE shaft angle at address.

One last thing, I find it amazing that no matter how many changes one tries to implement in a new swing, the returned values are usually in the same ballpark as the original swing values. I've had friends take swings with it and have seen numbers that are vastly different than mine so I know it's possible, but trying to morph into something else is sure harder than it sounds.

Thanks!

[potatoshooter]

[quote name='gparke' timestamp='1394165827' post='8816829']
Potatoshooter, interesting to hear about your foam ball. I was a little worried the new impact filtering would affect foam ball impacts, but I did some testing with foam balls and it worked well for all the ones we have here. Please let me know if you keep having problems and I’ll see what you can do. I also laughed at your comment that your putts could not look any more different than Breed’s… you’re not alone in that boat! I think most people naturally open their face as they swing back, but Breed specifically tries to keep the face square to impact throughout the entire stroke.
Gord
[/quote]

Hi Gord, the early version of the app didn't read the foam balls either but it started to work fine after one of the early updates. Maybe you can include a toggle between real ball mode vs practice ball mode to adjust the sensitivity to the impact?

I've using these types which a admittedly quite soft and spongy but it makes an audible impact against the wall so it gives pretty good feedback.
http://www.amazon.com/PrideSports-Practice-Balls-Count-Yellow/dp/B00466W9X0

And yes, I've abandoned all further attempts to mimic Breed's putting face angles- I don't know how you can do that without lots of hand manipulation.

[TravAz]

[quote name='AB2SS' timestamp='1394459841' post='8839017']
Hi all,

I've been using SkyPro for several practice sessions now, and have a couple of questions for some of you more seasoned users. SkyPro shows me with an inside takeaway on all shots. It ranges between -4* and -14*. I've been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to remedy this. After reading this entire thread, I feel I have a good understanding of how the measurement is taken ( angle between hands and club head as it relates to target line). I've concentrated on one piece takeaway and keeping the angle between arms and shaft unchanged as long as possible, all to no avail so far. Any similar experiences with fixes?

Secondly, my return angle is always inside of my takeaway angle, usually 4* to 6* inside of takeaway value. In addition, on the swing mode screen, my dark blue sweep (return angle), is always inside my light blue (takeaway angle) starting at the very top during my transition. Does this absolutely absolve me from an OTT move? In other words, can there be a case made that with these "numbers" it is still possible for one to be coming over the top?

The reason I ask, I started lessons with a very fine teaching pro last summer and OTT was his diagnosis. I am no longer working with him, but we exclusively worked on this for several months. I'm wondering if in a concentrated effort to fix this, I may have taken it too far the other direction. If my new "numbers" above support this theory, I can assure you being under plane presents just as many frustrating problems as OTT. For me, inconsistency is the reason I've started working with SkyPro. Like most of you, when I "catch it" it is very sweet but it doesn't happen enough for my liking.

One caveat, the only number I see that I've seen in the documented material explaining the parameters that may correlate with an OTT move, is that my shaft angle at impact is averaging 7* ABOVE shaft angle at address.

One last thing, I find it amazing that no matter how many changes one tries to implement in a new swing, the returned values are usually in the same ballpark as the original swing values. I've had friends take swings with it and have seen numbers that are vastly different than mine so I know it's possible, but trying to morph into something else is sure harder than it sounds.

Thanks!
[/quote]

I wouldn't worry too much about OTT. Trackman and d-plane have pretty much proven that optimal with an iron is a slightly out to in path - do a search here for more on that. It sounds like your inside-inside so maybe you have worked ott out of your game.

I was (am?) in the same boat. Knew I had a very inside takeaway, and tried unsuccessfully to fix it myself. I was pretty frustrated, to the point that I didn't really believe the skypro numbers. Then I took a lesson and got one look at myself on video and almost puked.

My old motion was real inside, back and through. Result was a shallow flip which resulted in a very high draw with my irons when well struck, but pretty inconsistent contact, tending towards catching it heavy.

[attachment=2111485:Old_Plane.PNG][attachment=2111487:OldSwing.PNG]

My coach did a few things:

- Coach has me taller at address with less knee flex and weight more centered over the arches of the foot - I was back on my heels a bit.

- lots of Mirror work on the takeaway. Visualization of the clubhead and then the butt of the club tracing the target line back into infinity.

- For me, I feel way less "connected", and I feel like I have to lift and set the club more with my hands rather than the drag it back in one piece with the shoulders feel.

- The meat of the move for me is to get the right arm/hand into the "Waiter's Tray" position at the top (my first job as a bus-boy is finally paying off). I also feel like I really need to drop the left shoulder while trying to get my weight onto my right side. It feels so wrong doing it, but the positions I am getting the club into don't lie!

These are just the thoughts/feels that are working for me, and my swing is under reconstuction, so I don't know what the outcome is going to be yet. Here is what the new swing looks like in skypro
[attachment=2111489:New_Plane.PNG][attachment=2111491:NewSwing.PNG]

[slowcelica]

I'm pretty proud of this swing.

[url="http://golfskypro.herokuapp.com/swings_archives/3141"]http://golfskypro.herokuapp.com/swings_archives/3141[/url]

This is what happens when you do nick prices early wrist hinge drill with sky pro, lol.

[ParHunter]

Regarding putting distance, I do think it makes sense to have a groove mode there. Yes there will be variations depending on how well you hit the putt but if you have a stroke that is repeatable (and you need that to be any good at lag putting) then it does make sense. Otherwise practicing lag putting wouldn't make any sense. The distance a ball rolls given the same club head speed and green speed might be different per player but the app could learn that relationship for the given user.


The ball speed is directly proportional to the club head speed according to this study: [url="http://www.isb.ac.th/hs/jop/vol3iss2/Papers/1Putting.pdf"]http://www.isb.ac.th/hs/jop/vol3iss2/Papers/1Putting.pdf[/url]
They found a ratio of 1:2.03 (for a specific putter/player).
Lets say we simplify this to 1:2 and assume it is around that in most cases. A ball leaving a stimp meter has the velocity of 6ft/s or 72 in/sec. That means in order to reproduce this you would roughly need a club head speed of 36 in/s.

[abman]

Hi all, just wanted to share some thoughts with other SP owners and enthusiasts.

First off congratulations to the SP team for releasing the new version! It looks great and is pretty stable. The putting mode is awesome. I just put it in focus mode with Face Angle @ Impact, Path Direction @ Impact, and Rise Angle @ Impact and try to zero out the first two numbers and have a slight Rise Angle. I have learned more about my putting stroke in the last couple of days than I have over the last 5 years. Real actionable feedback and I haven't even gotten to the whole other dimensions of speed, tempo, length. Ditto with my 14 year old son.

[size=4]Alignment. Agree 100% with TravAz of the "elephant in the room" being alignment. I've done some experiments with purposefully misaligning my club at address and of course my swing looks completely different and alerts pop-up all over the place. You can really see this in putter mode. In swing mode if you’re shaping your shots the face at address is not necessarily pointing at the target so without alignment SP could in theory tell you “face to path” but could not tell you if you’re inside out or outside in. You would have to couple a face to path number with visually seeing if the ball is fading or drawing but then if you miss hit the you could also be having gear effect. So alignment seems to be a prerequisite for analyzing any purposefully shaped shots. There’s some interesting ideas on the forum (BHB1, Morini) for doing this and I think Gord & his team are working on it. Personally, I want alignment with impact numbers before video as I already have lots of video of my swing but have no idea what my impact numbers are.[/size]

[size=4]Shaft Lean @ Impact. I had a real interesting session at the range with my driver playing around with a higher launch less spin ball flight. With my usual setup I hit with a Shaft Lean of -5*. I tried teeing the ball up higher and moving the ball forward in my stance to try and get a positive shaft lean. After experimenting with different setup combinations and swing thoughts I was able to go from a shaft lean of -5* to a +1* and did see a correlation between Shaft Lean and ball flight. The -5* started lower and then started to rise whereas the +1* started higher and kept going in an arc. I was pretty happy with my experiments. Then my friend came along (8 handicap) and we tried the same thing on him. I took a couple of his reference swings as a starting point and he was like me about a -5*. Then I changed his ball position and height then he started swinging. He was still around -5* and just couldn’t get it above that even though he felt like he was swinging up on the ball. He couldn’t believe the numbers. Then he tried experimenting with a different thing and his numbers jumped up to -2*, then 0*, then +1*. His ball flight also changed and had that high launch low spin arc. Afterward he said he had to feel like he’s keeping his weight back and that’s what he changed. It was amazing to see how in about twenty swings he completely changed his ball flight just by looking at the Shaft Lean number. This self-coached fast improvement has also been studied on the Radar Chronicles [/size][url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otuyrBqKQeg"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otuyrBqKQeg[/url][size=4]. Well shaft lean @ impact is all we really have for now but this session is how I could envision using SP with face angle, path, and AoA. It would then be indispensable for all of my range sessions.[/size]

[size=4]Market consolidation. The above point being said I think the SP guys are smart in not releasing numbers unless they are confident in them. There are so many competing products out there now that there has to be a consolidation coming. And ultimately I think the flashy feature rich but inaccurate products will fall by the wayside and the quality ones which give the most consistent accurate feedback will survive. Full disclosure, I only own a SP so I’m rooting for them but the fact that Ping chose them is a really good sign that they have a quality product.[/size]

[Morini]

[quote][color=#282828]Alignment. Agree 100% with TravAz of the "elephant in the room" being alignment. I've done some experiments with purposefully misaligning my club at address and of course my swing looks completely different and alerts pop-up all over the place. You can really see this in putter mode[/color][/quote]

In the case of the putter, there is a fairly simple solution. I have a 14 by 4 foot Birdie Ball putting matt. I backed up to 11 feet away and tried a dozen or so putts for a reference point. Sunk about 25%, not great given that there is no break or slope to read. I then lined up the hole with a laser level and taped an old plastic card (ie. credit card, hotell room key etc) down perfectly aligned to the hole. Next I place a ball near the back of the card, centered. Finally, I placed the putter flush against the back edge of the card and aligned my body to my putter. Now I can be certain that the putter was dead on. In fact, I sunk around 75% of my putts this way. Next I attached the Skypro, putted about 20 and noted whether they went in, or left and right. It turns out that my stroke wasn't bad as bad as i thought, at least in relative terms, I believe I averaged .6 degree face rotation, and 1 degree path error. Most of the time, the Skypro data matched what the putt did (83% face, 17% path, ignoring point of impact). Then I removed the credit card, and tried random putts with Skypro attached. To my surprise, my stroke was almost as good as when using the card for alignment, but the results were not with many missed putts. Conclusion is that my aim sucks, that is what I need to work on. I missed a 5 foot putt by a whole cup, with a face angle of zero degrees. I have some serious aiming issues. I will try intermediate target, and/or a line on the ball, to see if that works better. Karlsen's research shows that for elite players, the largest source of error is the read (1.62 degrees), followed by the aim (0.92 degrees), followed by green inconsistencies (0.8 degrees), and the stroke dead last (0.54 degrees). Because of these errors are independent and normally distributed, the total error is less than the sum of the parts, 2.10 degrees.

I will try a similar method to align my full swing shots, the problem is that whatever I use can't interfere with the swing, and would be destroyed when I chunk it. I am thinking of a small slit in my hitting mat. I could just paint a line, but would prefer something mechanical.

[shortstop20]

[quote name='AB2SS' timestamp='1394459841' post='8839017']
One caveat, the only number I see that I've seen in the documented material explaining the parameters that may correlate with an OTT move, is that my shaft angle at impact is averaging 7* ABOVE shaft angle at address.

One last thing, I find it amazing that no matter how many changes one tries to implement in a new swing, the returned values are usually in the same ballpark as the original swing values. I've had friends take swings with it and have seen numbers that are vastly different than mine so I know it's possible, but trying to morph into something else is sure harder than it sounds.

Thanks!
[/quote]

Shaft angle at impact being above the shaft angle at address doesn't necessarily mean you are OTT. In fact, people who draw the golf ball tend to have higher hands at impact(like you) than they did at address.

Check out Zach Johnson's swing for instance.

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bJMJeH6hN4[/media]

Making swing changes is hard, no doubt about it! One thing I have found helpful is to exaggerate the feeling you are trying to attain. If you're trying to keep the clubhead outside your hands then make backswings where it feels WAY outside your hands. Do that for a while, monitor the changes and as you get closer to where you want to be you can lessen the amount of exaggeration needed to get into the correct positions.

[ParHunter]

[quote name='AB2SS' timestamp='1394459841' post='8839017']

One last thing, I find it amazing that no matter how many changes one tries to implement in a new swing, the returned values are usually in the same ballpark as the original swing values. I've had friends take swings with it and have seen numbers that are vastly different than mine so I know it's possible, but trying to morph into something else is sure harder than it sounds.
[/quote]

Yep, once you've grooved a wrong swing over the years it is very very hard to change it. I have a strange thing going on in my backswing where I go from slightly laid off to well across the line while the backswing length doesn't change much during that 'move'.
I've been trying for a few weeks now to change it and at first no matter what I tried I would always get the same move. Only through trial and error and often stop/start swings (stop at the top and then swing down) did I manage to (hopefully) figure out what was wrong (not a flying elbow as one could think but a strange last second clockwise roll with my right shoulder).

But without the SkyPro I wouldn't be able to work on it as I wouldn't get any feedback on my swings!


[quote name='abman' timestamp='1394491364' post='8842699']

Market consolidation. The above point being said I think the SP guys are smart in not releasing numbers unless they are confident in them. There are so many competing products out there now that there has to be a consolidation coming. And ultimately I think the flashy feature rich but inaccurate products will fall by the wayside and the quality ones which give the most consistent accurate feedback will survive. Full disclosure, I only own a SP so I’m rooting for them but the fact that Ping chose them is a really good sign that they have a quality product.
[/quote]
I agree. I rather take less data that is reliable then values for everything I can't trust. I own a SwingByte as well, it has some nice features but I didn't trust the numbers so I stopped using it.

[silliwilli]

Pretty sure shaft plane at impact will always be above shaft plane at address due to centrifugal force.

[AB2SS]

Uh oh.......

Look familiar? 244 lifetime swings. What's the procedure?

[Morini]

[size=4][sup]I think the Skypro check point info is dead on in regards to shaft plane at impact versus address:[/sup]



[quote]
[b] What should Shaft Angle @ Impact be?[/b]

[color=#606060]It is often instructional to compare the shaft angle at impact to the shaft angle at address. Most golfers will find that their shaft angle at impact is slightly steeper, especially with woods. However, the impact angle is much steeper, 8° or more, it may be the sign of an over-the-top swing. If in doubt, strive to get your shaft angle at impact within a few degrees of the shaft angle at address.[/color]
[/quote].

[color=#606060]With regards to OTT, my son had a pretty bad case. It is common in kids because the clubhead is relatively heavy, and they tend to swing sledge hammer style, swing it back low, and drop it back steep. He just turned 9. Two years ago, his OTT was visible to the naked eye. He dialed it down a bit as he gained strength, so that his swing looked great until slowed down on video. On the Skypro it looks crazy, up mostly on plane in the backswing, then a violent rerouting to the outside, then down very steep.[/color]

[color=#606060]He still hit it fairly well, but was prone to inconsistency, so I decided it was time to get rid of it. I expected it to be a year long process with lots of frustration, but kids are amazing. With some input from an instructor, we got rid of it pretty well overnight. The skypro was (and is) invaluable in this process.[/color]

[color=#606060]The reason for the OTT was basically tension in the arms and wrists, and also the ingrained tendency to start the swing with the upper body. The solution was 5 drills;[/color]

[color=#606060]1. Slow motion drills with alignment rod placed in abdomen, grooving the swing plane by tracing the ball line with imaginary laser pointer in each tip of rod.[/color]
[color=#606060]2. Intentionally letting the club lay off by letting it fall backwards while relaxing the arms/wrists just before downswing[/color]
[color=#606060]3. Encouraging start of downswing with lower body by me physically pushing on sons upper back/shoulder to hold it back, while he drives the hips forwards[/color]
[color=#606060]4. Pump drill[/color]
[color=#606060]5. Resting an alignment stick on the right shoulder, picknick style, completing a backturn, leave the rod on the shoulder, relax arms and wrists, and rotate the hips then core through. The rod will fling right off, which is the feel we're after.[/color]

[color=#606060]Kids are amazing in how quickly they can adapt. These 5 drills really did the trick. It is by no means a perfect swing, but the OTT is gone, and it looks mostly like a one plane swing. Will attach a before after screen cap so you can all see the dramatic changes in comparison. Thanks Skypro! No more guessing, no more blurry video in poor light, no more tripods. Instant usable feedback. [/color]

[color=#606060]I will now turn the Skypro "microscope" on myself. If I learned three things from helping my son, it is to:[/color]

[color=#606060]1. relax the arms and wrists,[/color]
[color=#606060]2. Stay connected. The arms lift up in a golf swing as the core turns, they don't go back. This was a big aha moment for me[/color]
[color=#606060]3. In terms of lower body, staying connected to the ground is critical. I overturned my hips, didn't brace properly on the back or downswing.[/color][/size]