What solved many of my issues

[halekala]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wanted to share few things since I purchased and used SkyTrak.

My problem was that I was not getting good read whenever I used longer clubs, aka woods, hybrid, 4 irons. Even mid irons were also 10-15 yards shorter. I tried many things - Get good quality balls those I read about on this forum, make my background black, wear non-white clothes, improve lighting, make sure the unit is level or 1/4" higher, get a fiberbuilt mat plus marking the ball with a line.

Finally, after trying combination of many things above and getting a bit exhausted, I bought a mat that was recommended to me by GolfTec center. I purchased this mat from Jim, it's 6'x5' in size and cost me $ 325 including S&H. I am not plugging in advertisement here. But, this mat solved ALL my misreads. It does not matter what kind of ball I hit, marked or non-marked with lines, how much light I have, what background I have, what clothes I am wearing, I get great reads all the time. I am attributing this to the mat.

Furthermore, I say it's the mat b/c I took my unit to GolfTec twice to test and wow, the SkyTrak was dead on accurate. Now GolfTec setup is vastly different than mine only in terms of lighting, they have great lighting with fluorescent tubes. But few experienced folks here attested that light has NO bearing on SkyTrak reading and I don't doubt their opinion. I removed all the other junk I had in my room - black background, extra lighting, black floor, etc; seriously, I am very happy with this mat. I have been using this mat with SkyTrak since August, I use it 3/4 times a week and I am quite relieved that this solved a lot of issues I was facing.

If you want to contact Jim, he gave me permission to post it here - Jim@ExecutiveGreens.com. Again, this may not apply to everyone's situation but nonetheless I wanted to share and I hope it helps.

[butette]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wanted to share few things since I purchased and used SkyTrak.

My problem was that I was not getting good read whenever I used longer clubs, aka woods, hybrid, 4 irons. Even mid irons were also 10-15 yards shorter. I tried many things - Get good quality balls those I read about on this forum, make my background black, wear non-white clothes, improve lighting, make sure the unit is level or 1/4" higher, get a fiberbuilt mat plus marking the ball with a line.

Finally, after trying combination of many things above and getting a bit exhausted, I bought a mat that was recommended to me by GolfTec center. I purchased this mat from Jim, it's 6'x5' in size and cost me $ 325 including S&H. I am not plugging in advertisement here. But, this mat solved ALL my misreads. It does not matter what kind of ball I hit, marked or non-marked with lines, how much light I have, what background I have, what clothes I am wearing, I get great reads all the time. I am attributing this to the mat.

Furthermore, I say it's the mat b/c I took my unit to GolfTec twice to test and wow, the SkyTrak was dead on accurate. Now GolfTec setup is vastly different than mine only in terms of lighting, they have great lighting with fluorescent tubes. But few experienced folks here attested that light has NO bearing on SkyTrak reading and I don't doubt their opinion. I removed all the other junk I had in my room - black background, extra lighting, black floor, etc; seriously, I am very happy with this mat. I have been using this mat with SkyTrak since August, I use it 3/4 times a week and I am quite relieved that this solved a lot of issues I was facing.

If you want to contact Jim, he gave me permission to post it here - Jim@ExecutiveGreens.com. Again, this may not apply to everyone's situation but nonetheless I wanted to share and I hope it helps.

Does Golftec use Fiberbuilt mat? I pretty sure they do.

[pcascio]

"t does not matter what kind of ball I hit, marked or non-marked with lines, how much light I have, what background I have, what clothes I am wearing, I get great reads all the time. I am attributing this to the mat."

Call me a skeptic, but this doesn't seem to make sense to me. Why would a mat make such a difference to Skytrak's cameras, and all of those other factors, which could have an impact on all kinds of photography, seem to not matter? Can you explain the reasoning behind your conclusion? Thanks. I'm not being snarky, I just can't find the logic.

[Clevited]

skytrak should read very reliably unless you have something causing it to miss a shot. Generally balls that launch high out of its field of view, mats that get struck and move the skytrak (even just a little sudden jolt) will cause no reads. A really grabby golf mat combined with slightly fat strikes can cause the above things but also make skytrak appear to be inaccurate do to distance lost from those bad strikes.

I think he is just excited to finally have a set up where the skytrak is working as intended and he is seeing shots as he expects.

[Lombo]

I got my skytrak back in April and it has worked rather well with the exception of hitting my 16 deg hybrid, 5 wood, and 3 wood without a tee. To get around this, I actually use the cap of a plastic water bottle as a tee and it works well, but off the deck I can't get a 3 wood to read much above 175-180 carry or so. I also can only get about 50% of my putts to read on JNPG. I am convinced it is my mat - no other problem clubs reading accurately - just the longer woods from the deck. I borrowed a friends mat that he uses in a garage that he got used from a local driving range (don't know the name but it is generic driving range quality and tried it with my skytrak in my garage setup at my place and it read the clubs much better than mine except for the 3 wood - still had problems with that club but I could get the yardage up to just about 205 yards carry (should be about 225-230 IRL I am waiting for a mat that I purchased to arrive on 12/12 from rawhide. It's a used mat I saw that someone had mentioned on this forum in the mat section and for $200 shipped I decided to give it a try. It has 1/2 inch of "turf" and are supposed to be able to put a real tee in the mat, so I hope this solves my issue. BY the way, right now I just use a rubber tee that I cut to a desired tee height and place on top of my mat for driving the ball - no issues there. Plus when the tee flies forward after contact, I get a real good idea of swing path - something that believe it or not is quite useful. Once I receive the new mat, I'll post my results if there is any interest, but I just wanted to chime in and say that the poster's claim that the mat is affecting some shots has validity. I think the mat needs to have a little "give" on the turf section, rather than being hard as a rock like mine currently to read those lower launched hybrids/woods off the deck. My skytrak sits exactly level with my mat height and is separate from the hitting mat so there is no vibration of the skytrak when the ball is struck.

[trumb1mj]

"t does not matter what kind of ball I hit, marked or non-marked with lines, how much light I have, what background I have, what clothes I am wearing, I get great reads all the time. I am attributing this to the mat."

Call me a skeptic, but this doesn't seem to make sense to me. Why would a mat make such a difference to Skytrak's cameras, and all of those other factors, which could have an impact on all kinds of photography, seem to not matter? Can you explain the reasoning behind your conclusion? Thanks. I'm not being snarky, I just can't find the logic.

Certain mats (like my CCE) severely punish ball speed when you catch the ball heavy. That said, CCE has made my ball striking so much better on the course.

[jrz]

I agree pcascio, but it has destroyed my elbow at the same time...

[trumb1mj]

I built a wooden base for mine (it also is built at the slope of my driveway to level out the surface) that takes away much of the shock. Since then, I have no had elbow issues. Might be something worth exploring.

[L0GJ4M]

I was using a Large area rug to hit off of that mimicked Natural grass, and my shots seemed to be read inconsistent and 1 out of 20 putts would read. I ordered a Fiberbuilt mat, but haven't been able to test it out, I sincerely hope what you say is true about it being the mat, and I will test it out.

[Dan King]

Does Golftec use Fiberbuilt mat? I pretty sure they do.

If it's a Fiberbuilt, he got a great price for a 6'x5'. The 5'x4' is just shy of $500.

[halekala]

The GolfTec I go to here in Detroit does not use Fiberbuilt. My instructor told me to contact the person they buy directly from. Because I got great result using Skytrak in GolfTec I asked my instructor if I could buy their mat. He then passed me the information of their supplier. The issue with FB mat is the hitting area IMHO. That's a good real feel area but I think Simulators have issue picking it up since you really can't put the simulator on that hitting area. However, I even tried putting SkyTrak directly on the mat and hit from the mat but did not get great result.

[halekala]

"t does not matter what kind of ball I hit, marked or non-marked with lines, how much light I have, what background I have, what clothes I am wearing, I get great reads all the time. I am attributing this to the mat."

Call me a skeptic, but this doesn't seem to make sense to me. Why would a mat make such a difference to Skytrak's cameras, and all of those other factors, which could have an impact on all kinds of photography, seem to not matter? Can you explain the reasoning behind your conclusion? Thanks. I'm not being snarky, I just can't find the logic.

When I started to get not so good results I first thought it was my lighting. But someone here debunked that quite sternly that light has very little effect. I believe him b/c he has way more experience than I do. Then I got great results at GolfTec using my SkyTrak. GolfTec balls are all heavily used, not in great shape. So when I got similar mat like GolfTec and then started hitting all kinds of balls, everything picked up quite nicely. So now I have variety of balls, like 100 of them, mostly good brands, Titelist, Callaway, Srixon, Taylormade, Kirkland, w/o any extra lines, I just point the logo towards the camera and no matter what shot I hit, 30-60 yrd pitch, 10-30 yrd chip to using my 3 Wood, there are hardly any miss. The only thing I changed is the mat. I paid a lot of money for FB but somehow that did not pan out for me. Again, I'm just sharing my experience and seriously the damn mat made such a big difference that I am kind of shocked. I haven't tried putting yet! BTW, I shot 75 the other day on a part 70 course. I got to give kudos to SkyTrak b/c I had a 67% GIR due to my wedge practice the previous week

Also, every time there is an upgrade of the software logging back into ST is a bit of a pain. It would not log in at all. I had to reset my password. I had to do this both times I upgraded the software, kind of annoying. Anyway, I hope that's not common!

[Clevited]

I believe you that the mat can make a huge difference. I get a lot of no reads because I hit off a loose piece of mat that really grabs the club and goes flying during each hit. Its also a very soft mat so any slightly fat hit makes the ball go too high for ST to read. The mat moving also sometimes bumps the ST, and it also probably obscures the pictures ST takes at times. A good solid mat that doesn't move and doesn't deform much can go a long ways towards reducing no reads I am sure.

[tonybrown32]

The GolfTec I go to here in Detroit does not use Fiberbuilt. My instructor told me to contact the person they buy directly from. Because I got great result using Skytrak in GolfTec I asked my instructor if I could buy their mat. He then passed me the information of their supplier. The issue with FB mat is the hitting area IMHO. That's a good real feel area but I think Simulators have issue picking it up since you really can't put the simulator on that hitting area. However, I even tried putting SkyTrak directly on the mat and hit from the mat but did not get great result.

I have a Fiberbuilt. I'm in a garage, lights off, projector on, single shop light above my mat... can't recall my last missed shot.

One thing I did notice shortly after I got my Fiberbuilt though, is that I put a rubber driving range tee in the forward holes of my hitting strip... then i was hitting iron shots off the middle of the hitting strip, but didn't remove the tee.. I had a TON of missed shots and odd reads due to leaving the rubber tee in the matt when hitting iron shots off the turf...

Once I pulled out the rubber tee... all was right with the world.. no more misreads since.

[shellman19]

tonybrown32 Do you now have to pull out and put in the rubber tee with each tee shot or did you just move the rubber tee to a different location on the fiberbuilt hitting strip?

[shellman19]

I have a Fiberbuilt. I'm in a garage, lights off, projector on, single shop light above my mat... can't recall my last missed shot.

One thing I did notice shortly after I got my Fiberbuilt though, is that I put a rubber driving range tee in the forward holes of my hitting strip... then i was hitting iron shots off the middle of the hitting strip, but didn't remove the tee.. I had a TON of missed shots and odd reads due to leaving the rubber tee in the matt when hitting iron shots off the turf...

Once I pulled out the rubber tee... all was right with the world.. no more misreads since.

tonybrown32
Do you now have to pull out and put in the rubber tee with each tee shot or did you just move the rubber tee to a different location on the fiberbuilt hitting strip?

[tonybrown32]

tonybrown32
Do you now have to pull out and put in the rubber tee with each tee shot or did you just move the rubber tee to a different location on the fiberbuilt hitting strip?

Yeah, if I am playing a sim course (rarely, only if I have a free trial) then I would use the rubber tee placed through the pre drilled holes in the hitting strip for my drive then take it out and move the Skytrak back a few inches for iron shots, then repeat each hole. Kind of a PITA but I can't get tomahawk tees to work well on the Fiberbuilt surface, they keep falling over... if I could that would be ideal. I hear BirTees work too, but haven't tried them yet.

Usually I just practice on the SkyTrak range, so leave the 3.25 inch rubber tee in the forward holes when hitting drivers, take it out and move the SkyTrack back to middle of the strip for irons. I hit irons 90% of the time.

You did give me an idea though that I haven't tried, which is to see if I cut down a rubber tee and place it on top of the hitting strip, if that would work better than the tomahawk tees.. will have to try that.

[Alphaseekr]

I use the regular rubber range mat tees on top of the mat rather than using the mat holes. They work great for sim golfing.

[maine skytrak]

Same here, I used a sharpie and colored them black...works like a charm.

[Alex Gorodetsky]

Does any of that black sharpie end up transferring to the ball and then impact screen? Just curious because someone posted on Amazon that this happens with the black rubber tees.

[Alphaseekr]

I use the basic white rubber tees. Extremely rare to have driver misreads.