A new crop of launch monitors at affordable prices delivers surprisingly good accuracy, valuable data.
The word “about” is used far too often by weekend golfers. Ask nearly all of them how far they hit their driver in the air and you will get an answer along the lines of, “My driver, about 240 yards.” Ask about another club and you will hear, “My 6-iron goes about 160 yards.”
As the pros you see on TV how far they hit each club in their bag and you get a totally different answer. “Driver carry is 297 in the air.”
Players on the PGA Tour know that because nearly all of them use a launch monitor on a regular basis, and units like a TrackMan 4 or a ForeSight GC Quad, which can cost well over $12,000, deliver accurate information about how far shots go, how much spin they have and what the player’s club was doing as it made contact. Insights like that can help players improve, make smarter decisions and play better golf.
Thankfully for club players, a new crop of launch monitors at more-affordable prices are coming to the market. They deliver surprisingly good accuracy and many also collect valuable ball and club data, as you can see in this video.
TULSA, Okla. — A steady drizzle and overcast skies had players and caddies at Southern Hills Country Club swapping sunscreen for jackets and hoodies before the start of the third round of the 2022 PGA Championship. Earlier in the week, temperatures hovered in the high 80s, but as a front worked through the area overnight, the air turned chilly and damp.
Southern Hills’ undulating fairways and tricky greens present a challenge, but with the change in weather, a new challenge is going to test the golfers who want to hoist the Wannamaker trophy on Sunday evening. How will the cooler air, the wind and the damp conditions change how shots fly and react?
Over the years, there have been several calculations that have been passed down to caddies and golfers to compensate for temperature changes and wind. According to Titleist, a ball hit at sea level on a 70-degree day will fly 3 percent shorter on a 50-degree day because cold air is denser. Another is that for every mile hour of wind a player hits into, the “playing” distance increases by 1 percent, so if the hole is 100-yard away and the wind is into the play at 10 mph, the shot will play like 110 yards.
But with the total purse in the neighborhood of $12 million this week and the winner taking home about $2 million, players are taking nothing to chance.
“That’s what this is for,” said Austin Kaiser, Xander Schauffele’s caddie as he tapped his foot against an $11,000 Foresight GC Quad launch monitor resting next to Schauffele’s golf bag.
Xander Schauffele warming up Saturday at Southern Hills Country Club. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Before every round as he is warming up, Schauffele hits balls with the GC Quad on the range. The device uses four high-speed cameras to reveal information about Schauffele’s club and the ball, including ball speed, carry distance, total distance, spin rate and launch angle. Hitting the same clubs every day, Schauffele and Kaiser can use the GC Quad to see the difference temperature and wind conditions are having before every round.
Rickie Fowler’s caddie, Joe Skovron, says that he and Fowler also use a GC Quad as a part of Fowler’s warm-up routine, and they will observe the differences between numbers from day to day. However, that doesn’t mean they are not doing math on the course.
“The wind today is coming from a different direction,” Skovron said, referring to the shift from a South wind to a North wind at Southern Hills. “So we’ll have to factor that in too, but it also comes down to feel.”
Tommy Fleetwood Saturday at Southern Hills. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
And then there’s Ian Finnis, Tommy Fleetwood’s caddie.
“We’ll just play English numbers today,” he said Saturday morning with a laugh, referring to the nasty weather that golfers commonly play in at British Opens. “Usually when we are in the United States, we play American numbers, but today we’ll play English numbers!”
But by the time Fleetwood completed his putting warm-up and crossed a bridge to the range, Finnis had a $21,000 TrackMan 4 launch monitor set up in the area where Fleetwood would be warming up.
Fun is fun, but with the money that is on the line at Southern Hills, the value of modern launch monitors can’t be ignored.
Serious about your game? Check out this highly-accurate device that won’t completely break the bank.
Launch monitors have become a critical part of club fitting, and for elite golfers and teaching professionals, they can be a great tool to help monitor progress and provide information that you can’t see with your eyes.
The most sophisticated machines cost $15,000 to $20,000, putting them well out of reach for recreational golfers, but over the last few years, some units have been released with weekend players in mind. Typically costing $500 or less, they provide basic numbers and information but lack the technology to provide deep analytics and feedback. Now, with the release of its first launch monitor, Full Swing is trying to create a new space within the market and give golfers a highly-accurate device at a price that will not completely break the bank.
At $3,999 plus a $99 per year subscription charge, the Full Swing Kit is not cheap. It is designed for aspiring college golfers and tour pros, teaching professionals who cannot afford a $20,000 machine and serious recreational players.
Full Swing has been designing and selling indoor golf simulators for years, and pros like Tiger Woods, Jon Rahm, Jason Day and Brandt Snedker have them in their houses. The goal with the Full Swing Kit was to bring the accuracy and data the simulator captures to a portable unit.
The Full Swing Kit is designed to be positioned 10 feet behind you on flat ground as you hit balls. Setting up the device is simply using a free smartphone app. After you indicate to the system which club you are hitting, radar follows each shot from beginning to end before a color, front-facing screen provides details about the shot. The numbers are large and easy to read from 10 feet away, and you can customize which of 16 stats you want to see on the screen, selecting from things like ball speed, launch angle, spin rate and carry distance. All the data is available for view on your smartphone or tablet, including sophisticated data like face angle, attack angle and spin axis.
Full Swing Kit shot data. (Full Swing)
As you practice, each club is assigned a distinct color, so it is easy to see patterns and overlaps when you look at the data on distance and dispersion charts. All the data is stored in the cloud, and information from each session is added to your cumulative averages.
In addition to capturing swing and club data, a 4K color camera captures video of each swing that you can view in the app and easily share.
Right now, the Full Swing Kit is only usable outside, but the company says that software updates planned for the first quarter of 2022 will allow golfers to use it inside when hitting into nets.
