After 2 years of some stops and starts and "back to the drawing board" moments and "I need to save up some more money for this and that" moments, I finally completed (99% anyway) my garage build and hit my first shots on a Skytrak in there. A few observations from a newb along with some questions....
1.) The Skytrak customer experience is less than impressive. I tried ordering through their website and I got an error message saying it was unable to process my order (but no explanation why). So I tried the live online chat and that person (or bot) basically just told me I needed to call. So I called and got a recorded message saying all agents were busy and to try again later and hung up on me. So I emailed them and never heard anything back.
So needless to say, they didn't get my business, despite my many attempts. I ended up just ordering one through Rain or Shine and completed the process in about 2 minutes. Ordered it on Sunday and it arrived on Thursday with free shipping. Same sale price as the Skytrak website and was actually a little bit cheaper due to a difference in the state sales tax.
Now I'm having more issues with Skytrak. After receiving it, I decided to spring for the $200 play and improve plan so I can play WGT while I save up enough money to get TGC and a gaming computer. I purchased the play and improve plan through the website and got the same error message about not being able to process my order. However, the money was taken out of my bank account. And the play and improve plan is not activated on my Skytrak. And now I'm getting the run-around from them about this. What a hot mess.
2.) Despite the terrible customer experience, the Skytrak itself is awesome. It was relatively easy to set up right out of the box and I've found it to be quite accurate except for one club (which I'll explain below). I've had three sessions with it and I'm very impressed. It's a life changer.
3.) The one club that is way off is 3-wood off the deck. That's usually a 220-225 carry for me in real life but I can barely get it to carry over 190 on the Skytrak. I'm hitting off the Fiberbuilt Flight Deck, which is a little weird (very bristly like a broom) but easy on the joints. Irons and wedges seem to come off of it fine but the 3-wood just feels weird coming off of there and it doesn't go anywhere. Never feels like a solid strike; always feels fat. Anyone else use the Flight Deck and find that fairway woods are a little odd? I plan to upgrade to a regular Fiberbuilt (probably just the strip of squares) so the Flight Deck is only a temporary solution.
4.) Most of the time, the red laser is a very sharply defined dot. But sometimes (maybe 1 out of 5), it shows up as a blurry patch of 2-3 blotches sort of melted together. It doesn't seem to affect the read of the shot, so I figure it's not an issue. But does anyone else get this sometimes?
5.) For my second session, I decided to block out some light in my room to make the image on my screen pop a little more. But the Skytrak seemed to have a hard time reading the shot like this. I hit about a dozen balls and only 3 registered. So I let the light back in and it started reading every shot just fine. That's the only time I've had a misread so far. I don't recall seeing much about light and I see a lot of photos here of setups that look pretty dark. Is there such a thing as too dark where the cameras have a hard time picking up the ball?
6.) Is there any harm in just leaving the Skytrak plugged in all the time?
7.) I haven't hit many drivers yet because I don't have a good tee to use. The Flight Deck comes with a tee but it fits underneath the deck and sticks through the hole. That's great, but sort of a pain in the butt when hitting irons off the deck because the tee is then in your way. I've used the tee on top of the deck but it sits up really high and I feel like I'm striking the tee before the ball. I know many people use those Bir-tees. I might give that a try. Anyone try the brush tees with their Skytrak? I'd love to just be able to stick a regular tee in it just like real golf, but it doesn't hold.
8.) In case anyone doesn't know, you can play a little bit of WGT with just the basic Skytrak membership. Everything else in WGT will say "Unlock with Skytrak" but there is a 9-hole "best of par 4's" that they let you play. So it's just 9 par 4 holes from various courses. I've played it 4-5 times now. The chipping and putting is difficult to say the least, but it's fun hitting full shots out on a course as opposed to just the driving range. This might be common knowledge, but just in case anyone wanted a change of pace from the driving range. WGT is a free download (but iOS only)
9.) I ordered the "copycat" metal case from ebay for $75 instead of the "real" thing. It's supposed to be delivered today, so my Skytrak hasn't been exactly level with my hitting surface yet. I propped it up on some stuff and got it pretty close, but hopefully being able to use the screws to level it will help dial in the accuracy even more.
10.) I have a bag of used Titleist NXT Tours that I acquired a while back. They all have random corporate logos on them. I read that you should place your ball with the logo facing the Skytrak to get a better read. I think these corporate logos really help because they are bigger and brighter than just the "Titleist" wording. I'm going to experiment with balls though and figure I should probably spring for some new balls to use.
That's enough rambling for now. Thanks to everyone here for sharing your knowledge. A lot of smart and creative and helpful people here. I'm not the most handy person in the world so I don't think I could have done this without this website.
1.) The Skytrak customer experience is less than impressive. I tried ordering through their website and I got an error message saying it was unable to process my order (but no explanation why). So I tried the live online chat and that person (or bot) basically just told me I needed to call. So I called and got a recorded message saying all agents were busy and to try again later and hung up on me. So I emailed them and never heard anything back.
So needless to say, they didn't get my business, despite my many attempts. I ended up just ordering one through Rain or Shine and completed the process in about 2 minutes. Ordered it on Sunday and it arrived on Thursday with free shipping. Same sale price as the Skytrak website and was actually a little bit cheaper due to a difference in the state sales tax.
Now I'm having more issues with Skytrak. After receiving it, I decided to spring for the $200 play and improve plan so I can play WGT while I save up enough money to get TGC and a gaming computer. I purchased the play and improve plan through the website and got the same error message about not being able to process my order. However, the money was taken out of my bank account. And the play and improve plan is not activated on my Skytrak. And now I'm getting the run-around from them about this. What a hot mess.
2.) Despite the terrible customer experience, the Skytrak itself is awesome. It was relatively easy to set up right out of the box and I've found it to be quite accurate except for one club (which I'll explain below). I've had three sessions with it and I'm very impressed. It's a life changer.
3.) The one club that is way off is 3-wood off the deck. That's usually a 220-225 carry for me in real life but I can barely get it to carry over 190 on the Skytrak. I'm hitting off the Fiberbuilt Flight Deck, which is a little weird (very bristly like a broom) but easy on the joints. Irons and wedges seem to come off of it fine but the 3-wood just feels weird coming off of there and it doesn't go anywhere. Never feels like a solid strike; always feels fat. Anyone else use the Flight Deck and find that fairway woods are a little odd? I plan to upgrade to a regular Fiberbuilt (probably just the strip of squares) so the Flight Deck is only a temporary solution.
4.) Most of the time, the red laser is a very sharply defined dot. But sometimes (maybe 1 out of 5), it shows up as a blurry patch of 2-3 blotches sort of melted together. It doesn't seem to affect the read of the shot, so I figure it's not an issue. But does anyone else get this sometimes?
5.) For my second session, I decided to block out some light in my room to make the image on my screen pop a little more. But the Skytrak seemed to have a hard time reading the shot like this. I hit about a dozen balls and only 3 registered. So I let the light back in and it started reading every shot just fine. That's the only time I've had a misread so far. I don't recall seeing much about light and I see a lot of photos here of setups that look pretty dark. Is there such a thing as too dark where the cameras have a hard time picking up the ball?
6.) Is there any harm in just leaving the Skytrak plugged in all the time?
7.) I haven't hit many drivers yet because I don't have a good tee to use. The Flight Deck comes with a tee but it fits underneath the deck and sticks through the hole. That's great, but sort of a pain in the butt when hitting irons off the deck because the tee is then in your way. I've used the tee on top of the deck but it sits up really high and I feel like I'm striking the tee before the ball. I know many people use those Bir-tees. I might give that a try. Anyone try the brush tees with their Skytrak? I'd love to just be able to stick a regular tee in it just like real golf, but it doesn't hold.
8.) In case anyone doesn't know, you can play a little bit of WGT with just the basic Skytrak membership. Everything else in WGT will say "Unlock with Skytrak" but there is a 9-hole "best of par 4's" that they let you play. So it's just 9 par 4 holes from various courses. I've played it 4-5 times now. The chipping and putting is difficult to say the least, but it's fun hitting full shots out on a course as opposed to just the driving range. This might be common knowledge, but just in case anyone wanted a change of pace from the driving range. WGT is a free download (but iOS only)
9.) I ordered the "copycat" metal case from ebay for $75 instead of the "real" thing. It's supposed to be delivered today, so my Skytrak hasn't been exactly level with my hitting surface yet. I propped it up on some stuff and got it pretty close, but hopefully being able to use the screws to level it will help dial in the accuracy even more.
10.) I have a bag of used Titleist NXT Tours that I acquired a while back. They all have random corporate logos on them. I read that you should place your ball with the logo facing the Skytrak to get a better read. I think these corporate logos really help because they are bigger and brighter than just the "Titleist" wording. I'm going to experiment with balls though and figure I should probably spring for some new balls to use.
That's enough rambling for now. Thanks to everyone here for sharing your knowledge. A lot of smart and creative and helpful people here. I'm not the most handy person in the world so I don't think I could have done this without this website.
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