Distance is way short

[wjf67]

just installed skytrak. Tried my normal ball (titliestnTruSoft) and 2 types of rubber balls (almost
golf, callaway hx) and all come up short by 25 - 30 yards (for 8 iron). The longer the club, the greater the shortfall. On range, I get the expected distance.

id this a calibration issue, or something else?

[PT1911]

I hit about 100 balls on my used unit yesterday in the sun and I’m it seems like the fiberbuilt flight deck heavily penalizes anything but a good strike. Which I don’t mind! When it’s perfect my yardages are a little farther than normal but when I miss a little it’s about 20 yards short.

For irons, I agree. But hitting off the tee and not touching the turf, my driver shouldn’t be 50 yards short.

[PT1911]

I would love to hear if anyone has any ideas to get correct driver speeds. It’s getting super frustrating being consistently 50 yards short of real golf outdoors.

[Morini]

I am sure you have read most threads about that. Does it read the other clubs correctly? What is ball speed on 7 iron versus driver.

[PT1911]

Morini, Yes I have read a lot on here about the distance issues. I assumed the new software update 3.4.1 was supposed to take care of the issues.

Here is 5 shot data (Avg.) from my Driver, 6 iron, and PW. Driver was hit off a tee and the irons were hit straight off the mat.

Club_________Ball Speed________Club Speed______Total Yards
Driver__________143 mph __________97 mph__________247 yds (40 yards short of real world)
6 Iron___________119 mph__________84 mph__________185 yds (yardage is right on real world but club speed seems low)
PW_____________95 mph___________83 mph__________130 yds (12 yards short of real world)

What are your thoughts on the data posted above?

[JustKeepSwinging]

You could make adjustments to humidity and altitude to reflect where you are used to playing. I don't know if it will close your entire gap but it was a tweak I made on mine that got my numbers closer to what I was used to.

[PT1911]

Thanks for the suggestion. Do the changes carry over to say something like E6?

[JustKeepSwinging]

I'm not positive. I only had the minimum that skytrak came with for a month (range, putting and chipping) and made the changes during that time period, then got TGC 2019 after I had already made the changes. So I am not sure if it would have changed my distances in TGC or not. There are both very similar at this point.

[s0707]

Morini, Yes I have read a lot on here about the distance issues. I assumed the new software update 3.4.1 was supposed to take care of the issues.

Here is 5 shot data (Avg.) from my Driver, 6 iron, and PW. Driver was hit off a tee and the irons were hit straight off the mat.

Club_________Ball Speed________Club Speed______Total Yards
Driver__________143 mph __________97 mph__________247 yds (40 yards short of real world)
6 Iron___________119 mph__________84 mph__________185 yds (yardage is right on real world but club speed seems low)
PW_____________95 mph___________83 mph__________130 yds (12 yards short of real world)

What are your thoughts on the data posted above?

Have you checked the ball-flight simulator from Flightscope: https://flightscope.com/products/trajectory-optimizer/

I plugged in the 143 mph ball speed with different launch angles and couldn't come up with more than 258 yds total.

Another thing to check is if by any chance you're hitting the ball off-center. Indoor swing has all kind of psychological things that make you swing more restricted, flatter, etc. I know it applies to me. With impact tape I realized I'm hitting towards the heel 95% of the times...

[PT1911]

Have you checked the ball-flight simulator from Flightscope: https://flightscope.com/products/trajectory-optimizer/

I plugged in the 143 mph ball speed with different launch angles and couldn't come up with more than 258 yds total.

Another thing to check is if by any chance you're hitting the ball off-center. Indoor swing has all kind of psychological things that make you swing more restricted, flatter, etc. I know it applies to me. With impact tape I realized I'm hitting towards the heel 95% of the times...

The problem is, I don’t hit my driver with 143 mph ball speed. A month or so ago on a GCQuad I was 160-165 range consistently. Which lines up with what I see out side in the real world.

It’s getting frustrating, I played 18 on E6 this morning. My 54* wedge I was getting 85 mph swing speed and it would only register my driver swing speed the whole round in the mid to upper 90’s.

[Morini]

Thanks for the data, this gives us something to work with.

• Club data is calculated, ignore it.
• Don't worry about total yards, that is so dependent on conditions. Focus on carry.
• Shots off mats launch higher, and with less spin that real fairway.

Typically, driver ball speed is 30 percent faster than 6 iron. In your case, that would be 155 mph. You report even faster than that with the Quad. Basically your 6 and PW are right between LPGA and PGA tour averages. However, driver is getting LPGA speeds.

There really are only three possibilities:

1. Subconsciously slower with your driver than you think.
2. You are making poor contact with the driver.
3. Your ST misreads your driver.

First of all, have you updated to the new ST software? It did fix the problem that read ball speeds above 150+ MPH low on ST range. This may help, but cannot explain all of your discrepancy. As far as I know, it is not been implemented on E6 yet. You can switch between ST range and E6 to see if there is a difference. Other than that issue, I don't think I have ever heard to a single ST that read only driver wrong. 1 and 2 are most likely. I think you would feel poor contact, and it would show up in shot shape.

As s0707 suggests, I think indoor swing syndrome is a real possibility. If I look back, I can probably find at least a dozen people who were very frustrated with their driver distance, and were convinced that they were not affected by it. A month or so later, they sheepishly agree that it was the problem after all. Google it. Ron at Gunghogolf even did a write up about it. It is more likely the smaller your space, and the less experience you have swinging indoors. If that is what it is, it will mostly likely go away in a month or so. If that is a long time to wait, your sim may have a boost option. If not, you can crank up the elevation, but that affects other clubs too.

[Morini]

And if you do have access to Trackman or similar, you could bring ST and hit side by side. Somebody else did a while ago, and surprisingly, the ST was significantly short. The first I have come across. I don't know if ST and Quad can be used at the same time. Not easily anyways.

[jhaynes4211]

So interesting to see others issues, I set up my Skytrak last September I have the Carls enclosure and the Martin Hall mat it is awesome. The range thing on Skytrak is for sure definitely see about a 5 to 10% difference in distance, TGC not as bad, more of an issue around 100 yards in and around greens is what I've found. I have 12 foot ceilings and lots of space so full swings only took me a few minutes to allow me to just play as normal. Overall I'm happy with system, I also have played Golfzon's version at work and it isn't any better in my opinion at significantly more cost. I may go to the GC quad at some point down the road but Skytrak has done it's job pretty well at the price point.

[Morini]

I just got TGC2019 running. I agree that it is best on full shots. It was really hard to choose a sim. TGC won out purely because the number of well made courses available. Some of the courses I play are available, and that will NEVER happen with E6.

The TGC franchise is at it's heart a video game. There are clearly real physics involved. This works very well for ball flight model. I do think they took some shortcuts with the physics once the ball hits the ground. It just doesn't feel right.

Making this worse are two other factors:

• ST does not read chips or short pitches well. This combined with the wonky physics makes off green shots inside 30 yards guess work, and not realistic at all.
• ST does read 30+ yard shots well, I tested this myself outdoors. However, hitting off mat significantly increases launch angle and reduce spin. This makes shots between 30 and 100 do not behave like real shots. This is not as bad as chipping, but frustrating for those who know their yardages and spin. Especially since TGC rollout physics have some issues.

I already use auto-putt. If there was auto-chip I'd turn that on as well.

With recent unforeseen pick up in demand, Protee must have significant increase in revenue on TGC2019. I fully understand the high price given the amount of work needed for a small market. I truly hope that they can use some of these funds to "fork" TGC the video game from TGC the simulator. That takes the cooperation of HB studios, but money can be a very convincing argument. At the very least some bug fixes, and sim features, such as the ability to drop a ball anywhere for practice. Those are easy to implement. Some are harder and more expensive. Better physics for example. I would also love the ability to "normalize" pitches (and full swings) to convert mat spin and launch to fairway so you can hit the same shots as in real golf.

One can only hope.