19HI-New Home Simulator-How Much Improvement?

[JKolya]

On 11/17/2015, 4:09:06, No Mulligans said:

This is what I do (see image). That is a bread bag clip behind the club.  Most of the time that I'm practicing from a mat, I'm using something behind the club like this to indicate if I hit fat.  It seems to have worked as I have seen a significant decrease in the number of shots I hit fat on the course.

Yeah, I would do the same thing with twigs or what not. I did not like it though when I couldn't make a true neck swing because of the object in the way. Minor problem. I'm general the drill cause more problems for me as I thought too much about not hitting the object a d became armsy. I ended up just using video and signaling the camera when I hit it fat so that when reviewing my swings I would know. Eventually I worked it out. 

[Rainmaker]

I would say that you can improve a ton just using a simulator IF you're biggest problem is your swing.  I haven't played actual golf in a couple of years but I've taken a few lessons and practiced a lot, usually videotaping myself, in my garage with just a mat and a net.  I did manage a few range sessions here and there but 80% of my time has been spent just hitting into a net.  

Last time I played:

I was driving the ball about 180 yards with a big slice (but was improving)

My short irons were ok, long irons a mess

I actually didn't have any fairway woods.  I have since bought a 4w.

My biggest misses were fat shots and slices

I shot 97, my best score ever.

Next time I play (hopefully next week):

I'm driving the ball about 250 - no more slice.  My short irons are better - I'm getting a much higher and more consistent trajectory.  My long irons are ok.  I now have a 4w, I hit it about 200 yards.  It's a really reliable club for me.  

My biggest misses are thin shots and tops . . . .and pulls if I lose concentration and swing without really aiming at anything.

I play easy, fairly short courses.  I'm thinking that I'm *capable* of shooting in the mid 80's.  We'll see.  

 

[Lihu]

8 hours ago, Rainmaker said:

I would say that you can improve a ton just using a simulator IF you're biggest problem is your swing.  I haven't played actual golf in a couple of years but I've taken a few lessons and practiced a lot, usually videotaping myself, in my garage with just a mat and a net.  I did manage a few range sessions here and there but 80% of my time has been spent just hitting into a net.  

Last time I played:

I was driving the ball about 180 yards with a big slice (but was improving)

My short irons were ok, long irons a mess

I actually didn't have any fairway woods.  I have since bought a 4w.

My biggest misses were fat shots and slices

I shot 97, my best score ever.

Next time I play (hopefully next week):

I'm driving the ball about 250 - no more slice.  My short irons are better - I'm getting a much higher and more consistent trajectory.  My long irons are ok.  I now have a 4w, I hit it about 200 yards.  It's a really reliable club for me.  

My biggest misses are thin shots and tops . . . .and pulls if I lose concentration and swing without really aiming at anything.

I play easy, fairly short courses.  I'm thinking that I'm *capable* of shooting in the mid 80's.  We'll see.  

 

It sounds llike the full swing is your biggest problem.

It's most people's biggest problem.

[Rainmaker]

2 hours ago, Lihu said:

It sounds llike the full swing is your biggest problem.

It's most people's biggest problem.

Oh yeah, for sure.  I haven't even gotten to the point where I can start to think about how to play golf.  I think that will come into play if I ever intend to break 80.  I think you can shoot the occasional 80 just having a good swing - not really having any advanced knowledge of how to play the game.  

[Lihu]

38 minutes ago, Rainmaker said:

Oh yeah, for sure.  I haven't even gotten to the point where I can start to think about how to play golf.  I think that will come into play if I ever intend to break 80.  I think you can shoot the occasional 80 just having a good swing - not really having any advanced knowledge of how to play the game.  

I'm not really sure this is 100% true, as it seems like at a minimum you need to know where your shots end up as well. Ball striking seems pretty critical to shooting sub-85 scores. Not on every single shot, but you need to have a chance to get on the green in 3 shots. From my somewhat limited experience, you need to be pretty dialed in to shoot an 80 (72.9/131 type course). Looking at my "stats" for the couple times I managed to do this, I needed to shoot about 15 or more near greens and more than 6 GIR. If you have a much better short game than me, I suppose you can get by with a bit less?

You probably gain more advanced knowledge of the game just by playing by the rules as you end up making shots from pretty difficult situations to attempt to get that near green or limit the errors to bogey.

[Rainmaker]

You're probably right.  It's kind of a moot point because, as you say, as soon as you step on to the course you start seeing/learning things you can't on a sim.  

But let's pretend there's a Tiger Wood's in a bubble somewhere and he can only play on a simulator.  And let's say he has occasional access to a large, indoor range as well.  He's got all the talent, but he can't play outside.  He can hit all the shots, but he's never hit off of pine straw or out from under a real tree, etc. Then, one day, he miraculously gets to play a single round outside - at his favorite simulator course . .let's say it's Pebble Beach.  What does he shoot?       

 

[Lihu]

4 minutes ago, Rainmaker said:

You're probably right.  It's kind of a moot point because, as you say, as soon as you step on to the course you start seeing/learning things you can't on a sim.  

But let's pretend there's a Tiger Wood's in a bubble somewhere and he can only play on a simulator.  And let's say he has occasional access to a large, indoor range as well.  He's got all the talent, but he can't play outside.  He can hit all the shots, but he's never hit off of pine straw or out from under a real tree, etc. Then, one day, he miraculously gets to play a single round outside - at his favorite simulator course . .let's say it's Pebble Beach.  What does he shoot?       

Good question.

I bet at least a few strokes worse than on the sim. It might take quite a few rounds to adjust to the actual course. Sims, mats, grass ranges all have nearly perfect lies, while on the course you don't always have that. So, it probably depends upon the course. We have a course in my home town that is extremely difficult for a 200 yard driver, but relatively easy if you drive 240+ yards. For the 200 yard hitter it might be a good 4-5 strokes harder because he's hitting off terrible lies, while the 240+ yard hitter is hitting off essentially a flat grass range and from 40 yards closer in. Once you can hit past a lot of the bad stuff the game gets easier.

If this Tiger Wood's shoots at any of the courses setup to make a 250 yard hitter miserable (let's assume he's hitting 300 yards and straight), then I don't think the sim and actual course would be that much different.

However, most people don't hit straight, so they end up hitting trees, behind trees and inside tree roots more times than they like. This simple type of situation is probably close to 4 strokes per round. If there's OB potential, that just adds more strokes.

[MattM]

I'm looking at your numbers on this sim (don't know much about skytrack) but the thing that stands out MASSIVELY is that your 9 iron ss is going over 100 MPH?  Clearly, that is not accurate.  I would say that you need to get that dialed in better to have more confidence in it.

[Abu3baid]

9 minutes ago, MattM said:

I'm looking at your numbers on this sim (don't know much about skytrack) but the thing that stands out MASSIVELY is that your 9 iron ss is going over 100 MPH?  Clearly, that is not accurate.  I would say that you need to get that dialed in better to have more confidence in it.

I don't see it.. I see ball speed around 100 and ss average of 93 I think..  Take another look.

[MattM]

2 minutes ago, Abu3baid said:

I don't see it.. I see ball speed around 100 and ss average of 93 I think..  Take another look.

Header is 9 Iron.  2nd column shows club speed.  Number 2 is 106.  Also, how is the average 9iron club speed faster than the average 6iron? 

[Lihu]

35 minutes ago, Abu3baid said:

I don't see it.. I see ball speed around 100 and ss average of 93 I think..  Take another look.

SS 93 with 9i is faster than most PGA pros. His 118 yard carry distances look reasonable for a 9i.

Skytrack is obviously interpreting the SS incorrectly.

 

26 minutes ago, MattM said:

 

Header is 9 Iron.  2nd column shows club speed.  Number 2 is 106.  Also, how is the average 9iron club speed faster than the average 6iron? 

Ball speed looks like 98 and club speed is 93, 93 is not correct. The carry distances are about 118 yards, and those are probably what the OP thinks are about right?

I think the ball speed looks reasonable?

Look down the 90mph SS column:

[Abu3baid]

20 minutes ago, MattM said:

 

Header is 9 Iron.  2nd column shows club speed.  Number 2 is 106.  Also, how is the average 9iron club speed faster than the average 6iron? 

Good question, I have no idea.. To be fair only 1 9 iron was over 100, but I looked at the other clubs and this does look off like you mentioned.

[Lihu]

3 minutes ago, Abu3baid said:

Good question, I have no idea.. To be fair only 1 9 iron was over 100, but I looked at the other clubs and this does look off like you mentioned.

 

Skytrack is probably calculating the club head speed, while "measuring" the ball speed. There is a possibility that the calculations are off because of some data taking error. Maybe image blur or something?

[NeedAJoker]

On 12/8/2015 at 10:03 AM, Lihu said:

 

Skytrack is probably calculating the club head speed, while "measuring" the ball speed. There is a possibility that the calculations are off because of some data taking error. Maybe image blur or something?

Absolutely this is correct.  SkyTrak uses high speed photo to measure ball speed, spin, all that stuff, then calculates the assumed club speed to achieve those results.  I absolutely disregard that stat, and am not even sure why they include it. SkyTrak accuracy is pretty close, within a couple % difference of FlightScope, TrackMan, etc, but it cannot measure any club head data including swing path, AoA...it just knows where the ball is heading.  

On the specific 9iron shot that is referenced above, it is probably hard to see in the shot dispersion picture, but that was a HUGE miss hit that was a snipe hook that never got more than 20 feet off the ground.  If you see, on shot #2, and shot #5, the launch angle was only 9 degrees, so they were low burner misses. The reason it ended up only being 1 yard off target was because I started it 7 degrees to the right and it somehow hooked back to dead straight(I AM Bubba Watson!). If I were trying to really get the averages on my shots, I would likely have deleted those misses as they skew everything, but the point of this was 10 consecutive shots to set a baseline for tests I can repeat as I hopefully get more consistent.

 

On another note, I had a great lesson last week that I feel like helped on a lot of things.  On Sunday night I hit 10 consecutive 9irons and it was like a dream come true.  In fairness, this is always how I feel after a lesson, so I hope it sticks. I just got home from a business trip and I am absolutely itching to get out in the garage and give it a go.  I drove 1k miles in the past 3 days listening to Sirius PGA Radio the whole trip and daydreaming about a flat/bowed left wrist at transition, so let's see if it is really going to "crack the code" the way my brain is hoping.

I am working from home today, soooo....

Kevin

[NeedAJoker]

Short of winning the lottery, I am not sure anything could make me as happy as I am right now!! I literally can't really believe how incredibly different my swing is from 9 days ago when I posted the baseline stats.  I am not going to discuss the swing change here, and will keep it in MySwing thread, but it all just makes so much sense now.

I warmed up for about 50 shots at least with 8 iron and 9i, working on my priority piece, and I think when I post the stats here for 10 consecutive 9iron shots, you guys likely won't believe its the same golfer.  I am not exactly going to be standing in line to register for Q school, but in my short time of taking golf serious, this is the best I have done.

In regards to chat above about the stats looking weird, I think these ones look quite a bit more correct.  As I mentioned in one of the first few OP's in this thread, I always have felt like I am "hitting" the ball versus "swinging" the club, and with the way my wrist was breaking down, it makes sense why my contact was so crappy and I had to swing out of my shoes to get a 9i 120 yards.  Take a look at the club speed(calculated, not measured) and how much lower it is now, yet the carry distance is 15 yards further.  Contact is a different world, as I have seen written a million times but never been able to replicate, is the fact I feel like I am swinging at about 80% of what I was last week.

I apologize for the gushy over excitement and sounding like a school girl, but after so many hours spent trying so hard this year, it feels good to see real measurable results.

Certainly far from perfect, but great for me at this point:

Kevin

[Lihu]

Nice! If you can do this through the entire bag, I can see you easily getting to a 10 or less.

[NeedAJoker]

1 hour ago, Lihu said:

Nice! If you can do this through the entire bag, I can see you easily getting to a 10 or less.

After these shots I pulled out my driver to see if the magic carried over...it did not. After I wrap up work tonight I am going to get in another practice session and work through the bag, as well as try to play 18 simulator holes and see what I can do when I am not hitting the same club back to back as we all know that can change a lot.  I won't bore people with all the charts and graphs, but I will certainly keep people updated on my progress.

Also, we are going to get to test out how this translates to the real world quicker than I thought, as I just booked a trip to Vegas the end of the month, and have tee times at TPC Summmerlin on the 27th, and Paiute-Wolf Course on the 28th.  From what I can tell these courses both look stupid hard for someone of my skill level, but the two "scratches"  I am playing with are pretty jacked about it.  I don't really have any score expectations as my putting, sand, driving and chipping game isn't all of a sudden going to be good, but I am very excited to see how my approach shots hold up.

Kevin

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, NeedAJoker said:

After these shots I pulled out my driver to see if the magic carried over...it did not. After I wrap up work tonight I am going to get in another practice session and work through the bag, as well as try to play 18 simulator holes and see what I can do when I am not hitting the same club back to back as we all know that can change a lot.  I won't bore people with all the charts and graphs, but I will certainly keep people updated on my progress.

Also, we are going to get to test out how this translates to the real world quicker than I thought, as I just booked a trip to Vegas the end of the month, and have tee times at TPC Summmerlin on the 27th, and Paiute-Wolf Course on the 28th.  From what I can tell these courses both look stupid hard for someone of my skill level, but the two "scratches"  I am playing with are pretty jacked about it.  I don't really have any score expectations as my putting, sand, driving and chipping game isn't all of a sudden going to be good, but I am very excited to see how my approach shots hold up.

Kevin

 

It's frustrating, but at least you have a nice starting point with the 9i.

Wolf on the 28th? Nice. . .