Posts Tagged ‘Trackman’

Angle of Attack

October 11th, 2009
I was on the lesson tee today working with a young beginner and like most he was trying to lift the ball in the air. I talked to him about how we should strike the ground after the ball and how that it is accomplished. We tried a couple different things but nothing seemed to get through. I couldn’t get him to picture a steeper angle of attack.

So, I came up with a new visulization on the fly and here’s how it goes. I asked him if he had ever skipped stones before. He’s pretty young but he said, “Sure, at our cottage.” I said great. So, I set out a towel on the ground and we backed away about 30 feel or so. I asked him to throw a ball like he was skipping a stone and try to fly the ball and land it on the towel. He gave it a nice and low sidearm throw but never really came close. I asked him if he could see how low the ball was and how shallow the angle to the target was. He said sure.

Then I told him to move up until he was six feet away. Make the same side arm throw and see how you do now. Obviously, he hit the towel everytime. Then I asked him if the ball angle of attack into the towel had changed. He said, “Yea, it’s more up and down instead of across now.”

Perfect. That’s what we need the club head to do. Your angle of attack was too similar to that far side arm throw. Within 2 balls, he was striking the ball then the turf and he had a bunch more speed with it. So I asked him how it felt different. He told me that he felt like he was trying to hit the ball so it would go deep into the ground.

Perfect, great picture. I really liked this picture. It made it very obvious why we want the clubhead to come in with a bent right wrist vs. a straight right wrist.

I hope this picture helps everyone.

Trackman vs Flightscope

April 27th, 2009
In recent blogs, I have mentioned the importance I put on the data that Trackman measures. I have a demo with Flightscope on Saturday, May 16th. Both machines record the same information and it comes down to accuracy and ease of use.

I was initially disappointed when I had my Trackman demo because the machine had a difficult time picking up short/mid iron data off grass. I have learned recently that this data can be gathered more consistently with a good set-up and consistent ball striking location.

More details about my Flightscope demo will come….

Ok, so here are my results from the Flightscope Kudo. I’m sorry to say for the Flightscope’s sake that Trackman is way more accurate. I used the same players in both demo’s knowing there angle of attack and other variables and Flightscope was way off. Not only was it way off but it said up angle of attack when anyone could see a down angle of attack.

Summary:

The two machines seemed similar in terms of ball tracking. Similar data with carry distance and spin rates. The weird part was the the flightscope data didn’t match the ball flight. There were instances when the angle of attack and launch angle of the ball didn’t match. This discrepancy is why Flightscope Kudo can not be a teaching tool and isn’t that great of a fitting tool.

The trackman is significantly more expensive but you get what you pay for. What you are paying for is accuracy. The newer versions will include video of the swing at the same time with graphics showing face and path to better help explain ball flight.

Trackman is the hands down better device.