To be real or not to be real?

[Maverick]

Set Optishot for real life distances or not?

[MrHogan]

And lets see how many of us fall into the long hittter band .....

For some perspective heres the average mens driving length according to yahoo.
Club Men short-medium-long
Driver 200-230-260
3-wood 180-215-235
5-wood 170-195-210

I'm sure we will see that Optishot owners happen to be longer hitters than average!
I still think its fairer for everyone to reduce their woods to 85%.

Or we need to ask everyone what their real driving distances are & maybe emphasising what an average means too! It has to factor in all the bad tee shots! I think we will all be able to spot the bullshitters out there especially with video evidence of their swings.

So for me, i'd say
D 240
3 220
5 205
of course i do hit these clubs longer but including the mishits these numbers would be the average, I do hit 300yd drives on ocassion but we have to put the ego to one side and accept the numbers will be lower than we'd like, so id encourage everyone to err on the lower side than the higher.

Contrast these numbers with optishot
D 285 x0.85 = 242
3 250 x0.90 = 225
5 230 x0.90 = 207
However factoring 85% and 90% the numbers work pretty close.
I dont know why DD dont factor ths lack of ball spin into their algorithms, perhaps it suits their target market but until they do i suggest we should all use an agreed % (like we do today 100%).

[MatalaWedge]

Made a video about the driver speeds. It's basically optishot vs swing sense. Calibrated everything (clubs, grip and device) before starting as per golf sense manual. It should actually be pretty darn accurate when it's done right. Everyone can draw their own conclusions. Pretty pissed off that I got muted though. I had quite a lot to say. The action starts at about 6:30min. Mostly just tryied to get the rig up and running at the beginning. I'll make a new video with a larger sample size if it's needed. http://www.twitch.tv/aurincoynen_live/b/605678388

Made another one. Got muted again, but recorded it this time on to my hard drive. I'll put a youtube link up shortly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTx54vXIjIU

Sorry to say that in the video it's pretty hard to see what the opti reading were.

[JohnMeyer]

are those carry distances or totals.

As I said before I just looked up my driver trackman data from someone elses testing and found it to reflect pretty much own experience of the club, From a driver fitting I had I know my Driver swing speed to be between 102 and 107 ish. I normally hit my driver on a good clean hit around 265 total. Obviously there are some that are more, some that are less depending on contact, wind, elevation and shot shape etc. From this persons testing hope that backs up my real life experience, and to be fair with my setup on optishot, which is no lighting other than reflected from the projection screen, in a room with no windows my swing speed reading on Optishot at 100% is pretty much spot on 99% of the time.

Where the major errors come in with Optishot is, as Hogan says, the lack of spin effect on distances. You can see below how increased spin can effect distances numbers. Also if Optishot is using stock numbers for clubspeed to ball speed and then ball speed x smash factor, plus a fixed spin value then distances fro set speeds will always be somewhat inaacurate.







Think most people play golf IRL as well as on this Sim, so know what they usually hit. From the scores posted most people also must have pretty solid recreatable and consistent swings, so ie and average swing. So I think if people are just setting the system so it reflects true life then thats ll that needs to be done. If people choose not to do that then eventually handicap should get them anyway

The way the handicapping is done will lead to low low scores as its initially base don own ability and then adjusted to make lowest handicapper play off scratch so everyone else gets shots they would normally not have. For the Warwick Hills tournament Vega should be playing golf a -6 H/C, so adjusted to 0 as no negative H/C If I was due to play off say 8, I would have been playing of 14 for this tournament

Therefore if everyone played to handicap, all players par rounds should be -6, giving a par for the tournament score of -18, hence why the scores look so much lower than they should be

I personally believe despite its limitations, if setup properly the optishot gives a pretty accurate version of my golf swing, but just makes me better than I am buy giving my better alignment and far more consistent ball striking than I can achieve IRL

I dont personally like having fixed numbers as think it goes against trying to make swing as real as possible, and as I say if people wanna hit long when they really cant then I dont really have any issue with it, as if it makes them score better than they should then handicap should get them eventually.

[MrHogan]

I have no issue with club speeds generated. I have issue with how far the ball goes.

[MrHogan]

So, so far we have 2 out of 2 who hit in excess of the 'long hitters' averages. Just as I suspected DD really do attract the biggest hitters.

[JohnMeyer]

I make the the PGA tour average 290, and my 265, bearing in mind I am a fairly strong athletic 30 year old is the same as 48 year old Chris Dimarco, who has an average swing speed of 106.33, not hugely dissimilar to my swing speed. Yes I agree perhaps I am being a little bit generous on the distances but these are total distances not carry distances. Youll see his carry distance is 260, whereas Im saying my total is 265.

All I can say is to be honest I have no need to lie to you. I hit it as far as I hit it, dozens have seen me do IRL, and I am confident I could back it up on a course if I had to. Im far from claiming I blast it 300 yards every time, but I have, with the wind behind me and an elevated tee box hit it 300 yards.

As you say averaging is a hard one to call, as Optishot will never let us hit a bad one, so every shot we take it pretty much an average one, unless we give our swing some extra beans as we hit it, with the obvious dispersion risk that brings.

[MrHogan]

So why are you not on tour? I quoted the average distances of the average golfer - thats us not tour pro averages. Anyone who has seen a tour pro hit the ball up close in real life will testify to how hard they hit it.
I knew everyone would quote on the longer side which is why i asked that they err on the shorter side. We have to question why we as a group are so much bigger hitters than the other simulators on here. Asking people to self police wont work as we've already established ppl have different interpretations of average. This is why i see an across the board percentage limit as it affects all of us the same. Im not sure why this faces opposition as its clearly the fairest way.

[Maxxx]

Great input guys ! Our Optishots are giving us more distance than our swing speeds should have. I think we should focus more on the distance % tweaking like you boys suggested. I'm in favour of using the power of physics to fix this problem until DD does. ✌

[MatalaWedge]

I hope I'm misinterpreting your tone Hogan, but if I'm not then I agree to make whatever video with what ever specs you like.

I kinda disagree with the speeds/distance. My problem is the swingspeeds. They are around 7-9% off. They then result in too long distances.

I also have a problem with this continuous comparison to the PGA tour. It's not a long driving competition. It's a golf competition. They are the best all round players and I'm sure all of them can add a little extra to any drive if needed. Some of the guys there hit it rather long (say bubba for example) some don't hit that far... (say matt kutchar for example) . Hitting it long will not get you a scoring average in the 60s. Both of those guys do have...

Another side note. Most of the guys taking part in long driving comps here in Finland are ex national tour members who never really made it. Thay play off between scratch and 4 and they all hit it a LOT further than the guys on the PGA tour. Most of them have trouble braking 80 on most days out on the course.

To say that because someone is not on the pga tour he can't be hitting it as far as they do is not very solid logic imho.

[JohnMeyer]

Im not on tour as the accuracy of my irons and my short game are no where near good enough be consistent hitting greens in 2 shots and then getting close enough to have makeable 1 putts. That to me is the difference between a pro and an amateur. I do believe though that nearly any golfer who is half decent has a driving game that gives them a chance to hit a GIR and a vast majority of holes, if there irons and or short game are good enough

Like I say I am no way against trying to get peoples distances down and agree fully that were nearly all hitting longer than we should be. A cap to 85/90 and drives down to 240 for me wouldnt really make that much difference but my aim has always been to try and make it as close my own real life game as possible. I currently leave swing speed setting at 100 and distance is tweaked down to 92 i think, or 93. This give me totals ranging from 250 - 275 depending on fairway speed

For my swing speed with my club as proven on that trackman data early I should be getting carries 240 to 250, which i think im getting. Ill try knocking it down to 85% later and see what the distances show up at.

I am far from anti this, my outlook is just making it as real as possible for me personally, Ive got no issues with how anyone else sets it as like I say any advantage they have over me should eventually be cancelled out by handicap.

If any of the protee guys have any stats on there drive distances compared to swing speeds like you say I think thats a great guide for us to make the changes to our settings

[MrHogan]

Aurincoynen I can see your a big hitter just from your crazy wide stance, what im saying is we cant all be. Given the averages i posted previously lets see who in our group posts that they fall into the short range. No one will. So the internet averages must either be wrong, we have an exceptional group of players who bought optishot or optishot distances are complete bs. Im only trying to find a fair and easy way to address this flaw.
I only mentioned video swings for those who opposed the % cap and wanted their own settings. I still dont understand why ppl would oppose a % limit, maybe this can be explained to me.

[MatalaWedge]

Most of us here are single handicappers. That makes us far from the average. The average handicap at our club is 17,1 for men. I think it's only natural that we will be hitting it longer than the "average amateur". Optishot is then adding as per the extra 8% swing speed.

[Maxxx]

http://members.swingmangolf.com/swin...for-distances/ good Idea about asking the protee boys for some clubhead speed vs. Distance . Here's a little clip about this topic.

cheers

[MrHogan]

Most of us here are single handicappers. That makes us far from the average. The average handicap at our club is 17,1 for men. I think it's only natural that we will be hitting it longer than the "average amateur". Optishot is then adding as per the extra 8% swing speed.

I'm single figure too hcp7.
So would you agree to 92% ?

[MatalaWedge]

I'll do whatever the rules tell me to do. I know this thread is for swingspeeds but I'm still going to say this couse it's mostly about the realism. I'm making a ridiculous % of my putts from inside 15 ft on this sim. That is pretty darn far from real life. It's also the reason I shot 64 yesterday. Not 3 putting and draining anything within sight of the flag will do that to anyone. With fast and semifast greens this changes somewhat and the scores become more realistic.

I'm just trying to say that if we start fixing the realism flaws then we are on a VERY long road. It's a game and that is how we should treat it.

This said I'm perfectly ok with saying that everyone has to limit the distance for the woods to say 88%. Everyone will be hitting it shorter and we'll all be clubbing a few clubs longer for approach shots. It will still be a game though... the bunkers will be a lottery and we will still have ridicuous misreads... and yes... someone will be going round in 22 putts and questions will be asked and the pga tour averages will be posted...