Carry Distance Outdoor vs Indoor

[mikeneron]

Hi everyone. I've had my golf sim up and running all this year so early in the season I was fine tuning all my carry yardages. I was using the Mevo Plus and recently got a ProTee VX overhead monitor. I've done testing between the 2 units and my carry yardages between them is practically identical. However when golfing in real life, I've noticed that I was overshooting a lot of greens. So I took the Mevo Plus out to the driving range to test and the differences in carry yardages were 10-15 yards difference depending on the club. So I've had to adjust by using a full club less on shots on the real course. I guess this is better than it being the other way around.

I don't think it's indoor swing syndrome as my club and ball speeds are within 1 mph of each other and smash factor is the same between indoors and outdoors. I think what may be a factor is the turf as I've noticed the vertical launch angle is different between indoor and outdoor. The turf I am using in my sim is actually putting turf (NP50). I am planning on eventually cutting out a strip and putting in some EZ Tee Hybrid and see if that makes a difference with the carry numbers. I have included a screenshot of the chart below. The differences highlighted in orange are the ones where there are concerns.

Just wondering if any of you have noticed these same differences?

[gobble]

Well that certainly is interesting. I'm curious, when you were outdoors, was the ball landing at the distance the Mevo said you hit it?

Were you hitting outdoors at the range on grass or a mat? Would they let you take a mat home for a day and try it inside?

[mikeneron]

Well that certainly is interesting. I'm curious, when you were outdoors, was the ball landing at the distance the Mevo said you hit it?

Were you hitting outdoors at the range on grass or a mat? Would they let you take a mat home for a day and try it inside?

I was hitting off grass at the range. I should have used a rangefinder on a few flags to get a better idea of how far the balls were flying in relation but I was just looking at the FS Golf app after each shot to see the carry yardage and ball flight to confirm it matched what I was hitting and it did. I will have to do some more experimentation from the range and try a different spot next time to get a better grasp on this.

[mjgolf123]

Look at your spin characteristics and overall heights. You are hitting low spinning, high launching shots outdoors. This will always equal more distance. My guess is you are picking the ball or hitting flyers off the real grass, which is easy to do. It might be a little indoor swing syndrome as well, low trajectory high spinning shots can be a result of an abbreviated follow through.

[MongoOnlyPawn]

I agree with mjgolf123, the spin is a big factor. I'm not a club builder but I think the higher on the face the impact point is, the lower the spin? So maybe your hitting mat doesn't compress as much as "real ground"? Outdoors you catch it a groove or 2 higher (because the club is a smidge lower?) and it launches higher with less spin?

[Ronsc1985]

The reason for your differences is obvious. The difference in all the samples is the same i.e. much higher launch angle and less spin. Either the grass you are hitting off is too high or the range balls you are using are the usual hard as a rock, non uniform quality type which are materially different from those used in your simulation work. In short you are hitting what amounts to fliers on the range.

[3 Putt]

Wind assisted? Different balls? Temperature differences? Elevation? Just food for thought.