Skytrak Data

[ryanoneill1]

I was wondering based on the spin axis/side spin and side angle can you tell face and path?

[Bubba22]

No. Look a even a straight shot. http://trackmangolf.com/media/f47482...ewsletter4.pdf
Ball data alone will not give you club and path data.

[Wev]

Impossible to calculate unless it's directly measured, especially without knowing where the impact was on the face and the lie angle etc, there's literally a billion different outcomes. But if your lie is correct, and you're hitting it in the middle it's fairly easy to estimate what your face and path are. Ie if you middle it and the ball starts central then goes slightly right there's a fair chance your face is zero and path is slightly left of target.

If your face is straight and path is straight but you heel it (without a shank), the ball is going to start a little left and then slice right. People often confuse this with thinking they're coming over the top, or a path left of target, when it can purely just be down to impact position.

If you do a lot of reading up on the new ball flight laws, gear effect and know your impact position you can almost learn how to figure out what your club face was doing on impact and how it got there. Mark Crossfield talks about it a lot in his videos, it really helps to know what is going on.

[Zeroes]

I was wondering based on the spin axis/side spin and side angle can you tell face and path?

where your ball takes off is your club face , If it was right of your intended target line , the face was open and vice versa. If your ball than draws, your path is closed to in relation to club face , if it fades the path was open in relation to club face.
Just speaking for myself , wasting years playing the frustrating game of " look for perfect golf swing " i almost gave up golf.
Now i just play "golf" which is get ball to target and to help do that you need to understand ball flight law.
Only golf vid you need to watch

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnq6TiXw7wU

[Wev]

where your ball takes off is your club face , If it was right of your intended target line , the face was open and vice versa. If your ball than draws, your path is closed to in relation to club face , if it fades the path was open in relation to club face.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnq6TiXw7wU

Incorrect, well, you're 50% there. Face could be good but if the lie is upright the loft can be pointing left, so the ball will launch left, even though the club looks straight/ perpendicular to the target line. Your path and face can be zero but if you heel it the ball can also start left and spin right (with a long club). There's a lot more to it than what you're saying.

Also I think the actual launch is best off thinking where the loft of the club is pointing. Face/ loft direction controls about 80% of the launch direction, path the other 20% (but this is only true for a centre strike).

[davray666]

This is going to be a loooong and interesting discussion.
Technically if you alter the lie you also change the face direction. So the face influence in Zeroes statement is still valid.
The ball will go left because the face vector is pointing left even if the root cause is that you are leaning the shaft back at impact vs. address + shaft flex.
So you either fix gravity to follow your lie angle or fix your clubs to be aligned with gravity:-)
In this example we obviously assume that face to path is 0 degrees and that there is no gear effect.

[apljb]

Ooh, yeah, this one could run and run

Going back to the OPs question the short answer is "no" as others have said.

A longer answer might be, *if* you're willing to live with some assumptions, you can probably draw some reasonable conclusions, as long as you're willing to realize that you'll be generally right, but won't ever be precisely right - for that, you're going to need TM.

Assuming you're aligned right and strike it flush...

The HLA will indicate where the club face angle was in relation to target line, and to what magnitude, and will always start between the actual face angle and the target line (about 80% ish as others said).

The spin axis will indicate in which direction path diverged from the face angle; the ball curves away from the path towards the face angle.

Depending on what club you're hitting, the spin axis will indicate the magnitude of the difference between face and path - a driver will give roughly (be nice guys ) 4x the difference, a mid iron about 2x.

So, a well struck shot wit a 6l that starts right by 2* and has a path that is 2* further to the right (i.e 4*) will show about 8* of spin axis and should give a pretty on target shot - a push draw.

Where it gets of some use is indicating where impact issues might lie.

A ball hit with a driver that starts left and hooks quickly (a smother hook) will probably show 30* degrees of spin axis - that suggests about a 15* difference between face and path. That could be a massively in out swing with a slightly closed face or a slightly in out swing with a massively closed face. The latter is probably more likely, especially if you only hit smother hooks with a driver...

Alternatively, a ball that starts slightly right (2-4*,say) must have a face open to the target at impact, if it then curves right, it must have a path that is going left of the face. If the spin axis is high, and the ball is curving wildly, it's more likely a large cut across the ball in terms of path, if it's a slight block fade shot, spin axis is low, then the path may be straight or even in - out slightly, but just by less than the face angle - that might require a better release.

Perfect data, no. Usable data to make sensible assumptions about what to work on, yes - I think so.

[Wev]

This is going to be a loooong and interesting discussion.
Technically if you alter the lie you also change the face direction. So the face influence in Zeroes statement is still valid.
The ball will go left because the face vector is pointing left even if the root cause is that you are leaning the shaft back at impact vs. address + shaft flex.
So you either fix gravity to follow your lie angle or fix your clubs to be aligned with gravity:-)
In this example we obviously assume that face to path is 0 degrees and that there is no gear effect.

Yeah the thing is people don't realise it as it's almost impossible to see, unless you have one of those club magnet direction things (I wan't one of those). People look at their club at address and think their face angle is zero because the bottom groove of the club is perpendicular to target. If the toe of the club is slightly raised (as it should be), you are effectively lining up left. People normally push out their hands which levels this up for the dynamic position. People try to correct face angle when it's perfect, the lie is just wrong. I was hitting my PW 3 degrees left all the time and thought it was face problems (all other clubs were ok), did a lie test and I had bent it upright. So I was trying to correct for poor face angle when really it would have been perfect if the lie was correct.

Yeah the reason I mentioned gear effect and lie was basically the reason why you cant just work back from the side angle and fully assume that's where the club face, the line on the bottom of the club or the actual loft are pointing. Combined with only about 80% of this coming from the loft/ face angle, the rest being path,.

[Zeroes]

Incorrect, well, you're 50% there. Face could be good but if the lie is upright the loft can be pointing left, so the ball will launch left, even though the club looks straight/ perpendicular to the target line. Your path and face can be zero but if you heel it the ball can also start left and spin right (with a long club). There's a lot more to it than what you're saying.

Also I think the actual launch is best off thinking where the loft of the club is pointing. Face/ loft direction controls about 80% of the launch direction, path the other 20% (but this is only true for a centre strike).

That falls under club fitting