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Trackman 4 vs GC Quad comparison (part 1)

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  • Trackman 4 vs GC Quad comparison (part 1)

    With a help from a friend who just got his GC Quad today, I was able to do a head-to-head comparison between GC Quad and Trackman 4 in many aspects.
    Since I sprained my wrists, I couldn't do a full-pledged comparison, so that's why I call this a part 1.... Will do more comparison once my wrists come back...We are excited to do both indoor as well as outdoor whether they're drivers, putting, and etc (I was gonna do a putting too but I ran out of time..)

    Setup:
    1) 16ft length (7ft Trackman 4 to the ball, 9ft ball to the screen), height is enough more than 10ft
    2) Trackman 4 was calibrated using 15-18ft option in the menu with auto-leveling detection
    3) GC Quad was also auto-calibrated but no dots were attached so no club data was present at this time
    4) Ball was a Snell brand ball. Trackman 4 was labeled as Limited Distance Hard, and GC Quad was labeled as Range ball.
    5) Both used their proprietary range software (TPS and FSX).
    6) Sand Wedge was used for this test, from shot 1-6 was a 1/4 swing and final shot 7 was a half swing.
    7) Attached data was based on Foresight's data, and some data were omitted because Trackman didn't have those metrics.

    Conclusion:
    1) Overall data-wise, they were EXTREMELY close, I mean it's safe to say they were negligible.
    2) I noticed both devices measured some metrics that other did not have, which I thought was valuable to their respect. I personally liked GC Quad's Face Impact feature where they had more data about a club while Trackman 4 had different parameters such as Low Point and Hangtime. This is something that could probably be implemented via software upgrade so I'm not too worried about that. There's plenty of data already for both devices.
    3) On my iPad, I noticed strengths and weaknesses on both apps. Trackman's iPad app had more customization capability, was visually more appealing and straight-forward. On the other hand with FSX Live, whatever sessions/shots you take are automatically uploaded to the cloud which is very handy. With Trackman's app, the biggest flaw now is that iOS and PC data are not transferrable/compatible with each other, other than PDF export feature. I can nitpick here and there more about tablet app features about FSX too (i.e. iPad going to sleep and then starts not calculating data even if the Foresight app was open) but overall I would say Trackman app is a lot more user-friendly while TPS has tons of potential for future implementations. Both are not completely polished in my opinion however.

    I would say Trackman is now in a maturity stage where they would just need to introduce some new features here and there. Obviously I am really looking forward to seeing the putting feature being upgraded (which was the reason why I bought this), as well as new TGC implementation.

    For GC Quad, this is the newest macho in town and it's extremely hard to obtain (2 months back-ordered). While this is only tied to new FSX program, I think in a few years this will follow long-reigned GC2's footsteps with potential new software upgrades and having no upgrade fees compared to Trackman is a huge money saver (Trackman will charge you to pay up to the latest software if you were to trade-in for the next gen model! insane!). It is also extremely portable with less distance requirement and has detailed club statistics (goodbye Dr.Scholls).

    I am willing to do a comparison between these versus Skytrak, ES16 and X3 but don't have demos yet. I hope I can test those out too!

    Stay tuned for part 2...
    Last edited by LEO MODE; 05-19-2017, 06:51 AM.

  • #2
    Awesome post!! I've been hoping for this comparison. I'm very interested to see a short chipping and putting comparison. I'm considering the TM4 indoors for practice and sim play and a concern of mine is how it handles shorter putts.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by jmark View Post
      Awesome post!! I've been hoping for this comparison. I'm very interested to see a short chipping and putting comparison. I'm considering the TM4 indoors for practice and sim play and a concern of mine is how it handles shorter putts.
      I did my chipping there above so that's something you can refer to (well not like 10 yds though). I think it'll be hard to track those really short chipping accurately for a radar. But I'll keep that in mind for my next test.

      For putting, for Trackman 4 the minimum requirement for putting is 6ft as per Trackman rep. So you should just Gimme option it for 6ft or less. I don't know about GC Quad.

      Comment


      • jmark
        jmark commented
        Editing a comment
        Do you find putting to be accurate outside of 6 feet?

      • LEO MODE
        LEO MODE commented
        Editing a comment
        Before this test, I did test 8ft and 10ft putting. Because I didn't do them too diligently like above's GC Quad vs TM4, I wouldn't be able to say with confidence. The best thing to measure this would be the actual putt, then measure it with a tape measure. But overall I think it was pretty accurate in my memory. In my next putting, I will take my tape measure and do that to make sure.

        I really love the putting on TM4 though. With next update they will implement a club data parameters. It'll be awesome!

      • jmark
        jmark commented
        Editing a comment
        Thanks for all the information! Much appreciated.

    • #4
      A question. Were metallic stickers used on the golf balls to aid TM4 spin measurements?
      Last edited by jmark; 05-19-2017, 07:02 AM.

      Comment


      • #5
        Originally posted by jmark View Post
        A question. We're metallic stickers used on the golf balls to aid TM4 spin measurements?
        Yes they will. So instead of 'calculating' if you had the stickers on it will 'measure' it. So if you're in an indoor setting where your depth is not long enough to meet the recommended setting, having a sticker on a ball would help measuring the spin data. In TM's software any numbers calculated are displayed in italics.

        Comment


        • #6
          Thanks LEO for doing this comparison with my new toy (Quad) and your new toy (TM4). Today I took my GCQuad up to NewCastle driving range and it worked great outdoors. I had two shots out of 100 where it downgraded to a 1 dot reading for club data but other than that it seemed to work flawless. I will get lots of value from showing where the impact on the club face is because my level of consistency there is very poor. I didn't bring my iPad so just used the Quad screen for data shot by shot and it worked well.

          No regrets so far but I do see the Trackman software as more mature. I love the E6 KP events and there is nothing like that happening on FSX. If Foresight gets smart they will adopt a similar licensing model to that of SkyTrak and everyone wins except maybe my bank account.

          Hopefully I can convince Leo into doing some testing with me on a real practice green instead of hitting towards a screen. So far I have done zero putting with the Quad.

          Comment


          • #7
            Originally posted by legendsfan View Post
            Thanks LEO for doing this comparison with my new toy (Quad) and your new toy (TM4). Today I took my GCQuad up to NewCastle driving range and it worked great outdoors. I had two shots out of 100 where it downgraded to a 1 dot reading for club data but other than that it seemed to work flawless. I will get lots of value from showing where the impact on the club face is because my level of consistency there is very poor. I didn't bring my iPad so just used the Quad screen for data shot by shot and it worked well.

            No regrets so far but I do see the Trackman software as more mature. I love the E6 KP events and there is nothing like that happening on FSX. If Foresight gets smart they will adopt a similar licensing model to that of SkyTrak and everyone wins except maybe my bank account.

            Hopefully I can convince Leo into doing some testing with me on a real practice green instead of hitting towards a screen. So far I have done zero putting with the Quad.
            Oh you were here! Yeah now that our weather up here is getting better it's definitely time to do an outdoor test.

            Comment


            • #8
              Thanks so much for the info! I've scoured the internet looking for this! Can't wait for part 2!

              Comment


              • Golfmonster2
                Golfmonster2 commented
                Editing a comment
                Hey, I am looking at a GC Quad. I note they are selling for $US18K with the FSX software. To buy where I live (outside the US) the package is going to cost about 5K more (regardless of the relevant taxes)! They are saying the units (?software) will only work in the country of purchase, which seems a bit restrictive given a proportion of their market would be touring pros? Can anyone shed some light on this? Many thanks!

            • #9
              Hey, I am looking at a GC Quad. I note they are selling for $US18K with the FSX software. To buy where I live (outside the US) the package is going to cost about 5K more (regardless of the relevant taxes)! They are saying the units (?software) will only work in the country of purchase, which seems a bit restrictive given a proportion of their market would be touring pros? Can anyone shed some light on this? Many thanks!

              Comment


              • #10
                I just noticed that back then I didn't actually compare Spin Axis. So I did again by pulling out the old data. And below is the difference:

                Shot 1: 2.5 degree
                Shot 2: 10.8 degree
                Shot 3: 12 degree
                Shot 4: 2.2 degree
                Shot 5: 1.8 degree
                Shot 6: Trackman didn't output Spin Axis
                Shot 7: 6.4 degree

                Avg difference was about 6 degree which should be about 5 yds difference for a wedge, as high as 12 degrees difference (for a driver, 6 degree difference should be about 10yds or more). Just like GC2, the only difference we see is Spin Axis. At this moment, I really couldn't find the data difference between GC2 vs GC Quad.

                Comment


                • #11
                  Leo are you saying that the Quad is draw biased as well or just now showing results from your GC2 testing?

                  Comment


                  • #12
                    I can’t say GC Quad is draw biased because i didnt test it outdoor. But what i am seeing is that (based on my other testing too) gc quad data is just as same as what gc2 outputs. Therefore it is highly likely that it is the same as gc2 outdoor as well. Data wise, GC2 and GC Quad are pretty much the same, no data improvement as I see it.
                    Last edited by LEO MODE; 05-30-2018, 02:15 AM.

                    Comment


                    • #13
                      That is interesting to say the least as Inwould have expected them to use better cameras that capture better images and that they take more data samples, which would hopefully result in better data. I would also hope that the clarity of each image with the quad would be better as well and thus help enable better spin measurements etc. (I remember someone posting a picture of a high speed image of a golf ball using a high speed camera a number of years ago and the image was very blurry, thus with modern tech I would hope the ability to capture more clear pics with cheaper and cheaper lenses more likely). It is this later point with the GC Hawk which leads me to question how accurate it can be and wonder if they would need the ball to be specially marked similar to what AboutGolf and HD Golf require in order to be able to measure spin accurately.
                      Last edited by Dax; 05-30-2018, 02:44 AM.

                      Comment


                      • LEO MODE
                        LEO MODE commented
                        Editing a comment
                        What I think is the ultimate limitation on a camera as well as radar to each of its own.

                        What I do see though, if the camera can properly measure spin axis correctly, there is no way radar will be better indoor.
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