New optishot purchase

[sb944]

Hi all, have already read a lot of info from this forum, so thought I'd join up. I've just purchased an Optishot from ebay, coming all the way to Sydney Australia, was shipped fast enough, but stuck in our airport right now. I'm coming off a 2nd hibernation, playing as a teenager down to about a 10 handicap before choosing another sport more seriously, then a failed attempt to revive my passion for it 5 years ago, mainly failing due to time to play/practice. Now at 42, I'm back. I've been watching the sport intently for the last few years after getting a cable subscription, but time to play just seems like a fantasy world to me. However, killing an hour in the evening after work is much more realistic, so now that I've moved into our new house, I have the space and a vision to make this happen. Would dearly love this in our front living room, could more easily justify a projector then as it would double as a movie projector, but the height is not quite there, at 2.7m (almost 9 feet). The garage will be fine, but won't be getting a projector, so just a net, a mat and my laptop. Started already without optishot, hitting balls into the net this last week, really happy with it so far, so just need to add the optishot. Would love the skytrak, but it's hard to get one to Sydney, and just way too much of an investment this early, and... it's a lot of money anyway.

My plan is to use the optishot for what good it is (and I'm hoping it's really good), and have a backup plan of a local indoor simulator place, somewhere I can verify the numbers of the optishot occasionally. Will report back once I have everything setup.

[sb944]

Scoped out the first option for local simulators today. Was looking at the cheapest option first, and will likely give them the first crack at it. It's a funny situation, I thought these things would be expensive and sought after by the average hacker, but $10 ($AU) for 30 minutes, $15 for 60, and in that time you can hit the range if you want, or play a round on various courses. They didn't have it ready to use, as apparently the area gets used for storage when they have functions there, but he said next week they'll definitely have it setup. He couldn't tell me the technology, but said it cost around $20K, so I'm guessing it's as accurate as I'll need, and they also provide clubs so I don't have to drag my own there (I'll be on a bike), but they were also open to me keeping a couple of my clubs there too, which was nice. So that is my verification tool tied up. I imagine they'll be OK with me taking the optishot there one day too.

I was itching for a hit though, so went to a real range. Remembering this is one week after having my first real swing of a club in maybe 7 years, it was a little rusty. I may have made every shot likely, let me see: topped it, big slice, hackers slice, shank, that one where the ball seems to start going up then dives into the ground, and even some of the decent shots were going low, high, fat, etc. But after getting warm, I took a small break, took some more time over each shot, relaxed my swing a bit, and boom. Still had some crazy shots in there, but had some long runs of just crushing my 30+ year old blade 2 iron, no better feeling. Driver is a fancy new (OK, 10 years old) big Taylormade thing, and that was varying between a straight and a medium slice, but very consistantly going nice and long, so easy to hit new technology stuff. I actually hit some really bad shots after nailing some 2 iron/driver shots coming back to 7 irons and wedges, so I have to work on going from big to small clubs, which obviously happens a lot in golf. I'm hoping playing some courses on optishot will give good practice for that. Overall, I didn't get a tonne of usable data from this session, but still have some real life results to compare against the optishot.

Anyway, optishot must be getting close now, tracking says it's at a post office, which either means it's still to be delivered, or they want me to pick it up rather than them delivering, not sure why. At very worst I should have it by the weekend, but I'm hoping I can somehow get down there earlier than that and start using it this week.

[sb944]

Well it arrived, and so far, am loving it. I am really angry at those that compare it to wii golf/ps3 TW, it is about 10000% beter than these.

My key points so far:
* Even though I don't have consistent numbers and shapes to compare against yet, nothing that happened in the sim was an absolute shock to what it felt like. When I saw a decent slice in the simulation, I admitted it was probably a rushed shot which results in a slice for me. When I held back and got the tempo right the ball went straighter and clubhead speed faster. For me so far, this feels like a pretty good training tool as well as game
* Taylormade titanium upsets optishot's soul as much as it does mine, registering 0 swings from my 10 attempts. But guess who likes 80's Macgregor Tourney persimmon as much as I do? Optishot. Yep, after the rediculous non-reads of the titanium, I realised this may be an iron only sim for me. But while playing a course I tried out my old persimmon driver and got perfect results, no misreads, no wild numbers, shape completely believable. I think without a driver, the setup would have felt a little weak overall, but the fact I get to use my wooden driver somewhat delighted me.
* Chipping and putting sucks a lot, but then it does in real life too. I'm unsure whether there are problems in this area (as I literally haven't done either in 7 years), but I at least can realise trying to simulate this by telling you yardage/feet is a real weak point compared to playing a real course and eyeing the distance. Bad lies are also made easy here too, but putting/chipping feels way worse an issue than that, and I'm not sure a more expensive sim would help that either.

It's not hard to tell I love this thing already. I have a long way to go, but am thrilled with what has arrived today.

[BadEddieKit]

Welcome to the Sim world sb! I have only played on an optishot a few times, but was fun everytime! You might have to reign in the club speeds, as the system generally calculates on the high side. But its great, nothing like wii golf, the ability to swing your real clubs is priceless! BTW, Buying some reflective tape might help your titanium's to register as well.

[wbond]

You can tape the bottom of the driver with black matte tape, then put a strip of 1/2" wide white duct tape parallel to the face. This worked pretty well for me when i had the optishot.

[sb944]

Thanks guys, I will try to get the driver going sometime next week.

I've worked out a pretty decent plan. On the optishot I plan to work on specific swing drills, play some rounds, etc. I will then do similar thing to the Trackman Combine (60 shots at a flag from 10 distances) once every two week. On that day, it's no technique thoughts, just warm up, and play the combine as if it's a round of golf. For this I'll need to add my own yards to any misreads from topped shots or just complete misreads. On the off week, I'll head to a professional simulator, and all I'm doing there is warmup, and basically another combine.

I'm very excited about this, because my current practice is a little unstructured and unmapped, so it will be good to have a real goal score to try to beat each week and see progression.

The other thing is to keep optishot honest. I need a way to tweak my clubs numbers, and at the moment this seems like a good way. From this I hope to be able to add in some offsets/distance % changes correctly, so I can trust a little more what optishot is telling me.

This weekend I'll hit a real range with grass too, which will be the first time hitting off grass for many years. Will also be interested if optishot is close to this experience in terms of direction and numbers.

[sb944]

Had a really crap session with opti. Had a frustrating swing going, but rather than just let it work itself out, started hitting rushed shots which made it worse. Not only did I hit the plastic hard a few times, I also gave myself a swing feel/fear of hitting the plastic. I also hurt my left arm (lefty). The next night was marginally better, but wasn't pleased to see a lot of slices, thinking something is going on with the sensors.

Had a great day at the real grass range. Complete opposite of the frustrating session, after a warmup I treated every shot like a shot on a course, and found some nice rythm. Turns out opti wasn't so wrong, I'm slicing pretty much everything I hit solid, so I look up to see the ball going left and continuing further away from the target. Still some sweet contact though, really enjoyed myself.

Came back to opti last night, but I had this idea to put some carpet underlay under the mat to lessen the plasticy feel. This seems to work really well, though I was hitting it pretty well, so not getting much chance to get the hard plastic feedback. I worked hard to get the slice back to a fade so had a 9 hole hit at Riviera. Would have been a really nice round had I any clue from under 50y. I was inside 50y in regulation probably every hole, often greenside and a couple of greens, but was averaging 4 shots from there, with most holes 3 putting, and once hitting 5 shots from the same bunker. But I really enjoyed playing the round, so will likely take some time to work out the chipping and putting to make it more fun.

[Chuck]

For some reason it always says unapproved after I hit post. Have I been banded or someting?

[Chuck]

Congratulations. I love my optishot set up but I was also pretty rough on my first one (as a beginner golfer, I beat the stuffings out of it until i hit it too hard with an iron).

[sb944]

Yes, have beat it already a few times, already a tear forming on the cheap mat too. Carpet underlay is working well though, much less clunky when I hit it awful. I still fear hitting the hole for the first sensor, especially long irons, and funnily enough chips. Doing this way less after working out some swing ideas. The real fear right now though is accuracy. As many have said, on average this thing gets pretty close. But while range play is OK for average, I've played a couple of rounds in the last couple of days and now that I'm getting a feel for my shots, there are definitely ones I disagree with, and the occasional real wild result, like a 300y 2i.

So did two things today, went to a trugolf simulator near work. They had a special from Groupon, so effectively getting 30 minute sessions for under $10 ($au), so I snapped that up. I had to borrow clubs, so had a driver, hybrid and 7i. 30 minutes was about the right amount of time, as long as you are OK with rushing a little. Unfortunately, having this combination makes a combine impossible, and it's also a long way from clubs I have at home, as my 7i is 30y, no hybrid, and my titanium doesn't register on opti yet. I was thrilled with my recent swing changes, and saw some awesome distance, though I've since read trugolf lies on the high side. Was seeing 260m drives regularly, with some over 270m. Then I tried to beat that and got nowhere near, so that was my realistic limit. I felt trugolf was an awful lot straighter than opti, but it's again hard to compare given I'm using such different clubs. I also felt an inconsistency in some irons shots with 2 really nice feeling straight 7i shots ending up 15m different in length?

Other was a round on opti tonight (9 holes at least). I really enjoyed it, had my full bag on hand for once, and used my persimmon driver. I really crushed the driver tonight, just like I was hitting during the day, but results were certainly odd. Flush strikes with wind would sometimes only go 240y, even though the simulator said pretty straight, and then a couple of drives just didn't seem possible, like a massive hook on a shot that felt perfect to me. Irons let me down a bit, but again, when I'm getting drives in the fairway, I'm now often 120-140y out, so distance control is big, and I'm not really sure I'm trusting opti for these distances. Putting and chipping... better not to mention these. I'm not saying opti gets it wrong, I just find it really hard sit there and look at a computer monitor to judge a putt/chip. And the results of that were terrible. I shot 50, which doesn't sound impressive, especially as I hit 3 GIR. But I had many 3 putts, and even a couple of 3 chips before a 2/3 putt.

There is a little bit of "leave your brain at the door" with opti, because I feel like I'm starting to over analyse every shot, and trust is starting to fade quickly. It's not like the unit is changing, but I am, as I become more cynical of which of my shots really are failing, and which ones might be getting slight misreads. If you don't think like that, the sensors, software and everything works really well, and it's a hell of a lot better than hitting into a net without the feedback.

[Chuck]

I really recommend the tick type mats (the one's that will 'hold a tee') and top cover for opti. It will protect the sensors from wild hits and helps with the wedge shots. The infrared sensors on Optishot are pretty low resolution and tend to react to odd reflections from the irons. I sacrificed an old set of clubs and painted them. You can get better more realistic signals if the clubs are painted flat white for irons, wedges and putter, and on drivers I did flat black with just leading 1" painted flat white. There are also some night time reflective paints that could go over the white areas that could really help. Be sure to calibrate. Unfortunately it will never help a 350yd topped ball.

[sb944]

Or I could get a skytrak, is not so much that opti has treated me bad, I just see more features courses and conjoint behind it. The coast hurt a bit, but got a nice bonus and have literally put every bonus for the last decade into my gamut and house so I think I can justify spending bug in myself this time.

had a fantastic round on opti though, 84 at Warwick hills, yellow trees. I provably didn't deserve it, spent a lot of time in the rough, but drives were solid irons were ok, and chips were surprisingly good to get a few important saves. Putting started awful like every other day then I ditched the ball. This made a massive difference to both accuracy and distance control, so in not sure if the ball is confusing opti, or if I'm just worse when the pouring stroke has a ball in its path. I'm thrilled to have that score, though a little worried it may take me a while to bear that score.

had a great little session last night. I'm still slicing so just wanted to work on getting more fine in downswing, where I also tend to rush. Was going ok, then tried something with my hip. I had been crouching a little at the top like the pros, but trued moving my hips at the target not at the ball if that makes sense. Crushed it. Tried this did another 20 minutes and was far more consistently getting perfect contact. I still have a slice even with this new move, so heaps to work on still, but felt like a good move forward. It's an area of the swing that has always been a mystery, so it's good being able to tinker without other eyeballs on you.

all things go well I may have skytrak today, so opti might not be in use much now, but still have to see if I can get skytrak working quickly, not everyone has great results one big positive for opti has been the ability to just plug and play every day without effort, I hope that doesn't change.

[Chuck]

You know, when you compare optishot software to TGC and others, it does seem a bit dated. However the course replications of opti are very good. In a 4k mode, the opti looks better than the TGC visually with one caveat; the HUD on opti is so 90's. Can the HUD be disabled?

So anyway, I managed to sprain my left wrist, so I'm stuck practice putting on my optishot. I just finished installing an 10'wx7'h impact screen and a ceiling mounted Optoma GT1080Darbee projector in my low ceiling garage. To be honest, I'm very impressed at how well the opti simulates the greens. Because the Optoma GT1080 is a short throw, and my opti is almost directly underneath the projector, it's almost a 1:1 view of the green. So the view from 10ft looks like 10ft seen from the optishot tee. As soon as I get over this sprain, I can't wait to play a game.

[sb944]

What happened to your wrist? What poor timing.

Even though I got the skytrak, I didn't end up going the whole screen and projector, it felt like one too many things to choose. I'm glad the opti looks so good on the projector though, and agree the 90's HUD doesn't really ruin the feel of the course, would be even better with a nice projector and impact screen.

[Chuck]

It really was poor timing. The projector arrived the day after this wrist sprain. I just did a clumsy move put my hand out to stop a fall and over extended it. It's going to take a couple of weeks to get over it. I'm right handed and the sprain is on my left wrist which makes the golf swing wrist cock a painful experience. It's day 5 and I can now pick up things like a club. It was loads of fun setting up the projector with 1 hand but you get creative and it went up pretty easily. Good luck with the skytrack. I'd like to hear how that turns out for you. Maybe next year I'll be looking for something like that.