CGQuad reported numbers vs TGC 2019

[Magilla]

Just looking now at your Nov 26 request for updates on the TGC 2019 gives 55% of the GCQuad curve angle from the same ball data. There is no new info on this I am aware of - it is a permanent defect. It is just sad that so many people invest their time creating courses for TGC when the angular dispersion is rubbish (at least from GCQuad input, though I suspect also from other Launch Monitors as well). Too much desire to flatter the user. The other day I played Kapalua Plantation on TGC (home of the Sentry Tournament just won by Rahm), which has wide fairways anyway. With only 55% of my actual dispersion I hit almost every fairway. Since TGC putting is disastrous (we have no idea what the Stimp reading is), the outing was pretty boring. If they want meaningful play, I'm afraid GCQuad users will have to pay for FSX courses, of which there are many coming out these days - though above my price range.
I cursed the non-refundable TGC 2019 purchase and wished I could have evaluated it first.
Magilla

[Wizard of Coz]

I just skimmed through this. You made a statement that it depended on what club you chose to hit on the range to determine the distance. Like 8 iron chose driver and it went 200 yards. That's not true. Club has no impact on it unless you have messed with the settings in the interface.

[Magilla]

To the Wiz of Coz:
No messing with settings in the interface (it is not even possible for a GCQuad user as ALL interface settings are ignored). That 200 yard 8-Iron that TGC 2019 thought was a Driver is an artifact of the TGC ball flight model. To see more artifacts much worse than that, just try hitting different clubs from just off the green (whether they match the TGC club setting or not - see my figure).

The figure shows on the x-axis the ball speed in MPH measured by the GCQuad and passed to TGC 2019. The vertical axis is the total distance TGC 2019 assigns the shot (Carry plus Bounce plus Roll). The different colors correspond to different club choices within TGC 2019: whether the club is called Pitching Wedge (PW), Putter or 8-Iron within TGC (first item in each legend line). The 2^nd listing in each legend row shows what club I actually hit: 8-Iron or Putter. For the record, the 8-Irons launched at 11.5-14.7 degrees with an average of about 48 RPM of backspin per MPH of Ball Speed (i.e. few hundred RPM – pretty negligible). This type of shot in real life runs about 95% of the distance of a putt with the same ball speed.
The putter hits Launched at 0 degrees under 10 MPH of Ball Speed, with rising Launch angle thereafter to a max of 5.2 degrees at 27 MPH. All the putter hits had zero backspin or side spin, except the 27 MPH one which had 8 RPM of BackSpin and -27 RPM of SideSpin passed from GCQuad to TGC 2019.

Basically, the whole problem here is that it matters enormously what club TGC thinks I hit from the fringe. In the real world all these hits in the figure would lie on the same line, with a few % loss of distance for the 8-Iron hits. In the TGC world there is up to a factor of 8 (800%) difference in Total Distance at the same ball Speed (e.g. 12 MPH Ball Speed: if TGC thinks I hit a PW, it calculates 10 feet of distance for my actual putter hit; if it thinks I hit a putter it calculates 75 feet of distance; if it thinks I hit 8-iron 40 feet).

While we get smooth curves for the green data (TGC set at “Putter”; hit Putter) and for the Light Blue data (TGC set at 8-Iron; hit 8-Iron) the curves cross each other (impossible in real life) and are way too far apart to be realistic. On the other hand the wild and woolly results for TGC set at 8-Iron or PW when I actually hit a putter are not even monotonic (smoothly rising), but are erratic and full of artifacts. More Ball Speed might mean much less distance, for example - from a PUTTER HIT!

So, the obvious conclusion is that for TGC 2019, the club choice makes a huge difference around the greens – as well as that 200 yard 8-iron TGC thought was a Driver. In short, the ball flight model in TGC is so unreliable as to make the “game” silly for serious GCQuad users (and I suspect, for other launch monitors as well).

Methodology: TGC 2019 in game, Playing Kapalua Plantation Course, First Hole; Ball is 6” off the green on the front fringe, 55 feet from the hole and downhill 1 foot (or 6” depending on which of 2 numbers you believe when choosing a putter). Putt also breaks left to right. Shooting multiple times with multiple clubs from the same spot using GCQuad, which passes Ball Speed, BackSpin, Side Spin, Launch Angle and Side Angle (lateral launch angle) to TGC 2019. Graph compares TGC 2019 total distance with the GCQuad Ball Speed it started its calculations with.

[Wizard of Coz]

You can go to the range and hit your stock 150 club and It absolutely doesn't matter what club is selected in game. Never seen it and have spent many hours on that range. I've played it with skytrak, gc2 and quad.

The only way you can change result for that is gsx settings.

[MongoOnlyPawn]

Interesting data. Thank you for taking the time to do that.