How accurate are simulators really?

How accurate are these swing simulators you find at Dick's and Golf superstores and local places? For one, most tell you ball speed, not swing speed. Sure you can divide by 1.5 and find ROUGHLY your swing speed, but that'd be assuming a near perfect smash factor of 1.5 (I certainly don't hit it perfect frequently).

More than this though, how accurate are the slice and hook simulations? If you hit one and it hooks on the screen will it have most likely hooked out on a real course?

This final question is probably most important, and the easiest to answer for anybody that's hit on some of these and is a consistent golfer on real courses.

How accurate are the distance readings? If you hit 25 balls with a club and the average was 182, how close have some of you found that to be to your actual real course distance?

I ask because I literally just came from Dick's and got a new 18 degree hybrid 3 iron, and the results were ridiculous. I went looking for a 2i, but the ones they had were all top of the line and I'm not dropping $199 on one club right now, so I found a lower lofted 3 hybrid for cheap.

Anyways, either that thing is grossly overestimating, or I've been grossly UNDERestimating my real distance with my current 3 on the course. I rarely hit my 3i now, but when I do it's usually because I got in trouble off the tee on a par 5 or something and I'm just trying to throw something far, so I don't really know my distance but I always estimated it was around 235-240. At dick's it was averaging 260 with a long of 272 and ball speed of 165, quite a difference.

So, do you guys trust the distance those things throw out, or not so much?

(it is one of the fancier ones with a screen and simulated courses and all that btw, not just hitting into a net)

Yea that's what I was leaning towards. I will say however that with my driver it was fairly accurate, certainly not overestimating. I was expecting a full 10-15+ yards to be magically appearing with my old trusty driver, but it didn't happen. Seems like an obvious way to sell more clubs is to convince people their shots are going further everytime, but I didn't really see it with that one club, with a higher lofted club though who knows. The test with the driver did show me though that it performs just as well as the brand new '09 $300 models though :) (this driver test was several months ago).

TN94Z I see you play a lot of Nike, do you have experience with the Nike One Tour (4-piece) and Tour D (3-piece).. they've got a decent deal on those around town and I bought a dozen of each, just wondering if you had any experience and what your thoughts were?

I tested 3-woods and gap wedges this summer at a couple places. Discount Golf (a small shop) was a bit short if anything. The ones at Golf Town were bang on - I went for the ones with the most consistent yardage and the straightest ball flight. When I tried them on the course they were very close to the Golf Town simulator results - than goodness.

The only thing they are good for is doing side by side comparisons between clubs. The distances reported are bogus.

The shop I go to said their swing analysis machines are set conservatively. (Ball actually goes about 5% farther than machine says)

A major factor for these machines would be how well they work compared to others:
* Quality and sensitivity: What is the precision and accuracy of the given machine and software?
* Calibration: Do these machines get reset every couple of months to make sure they're within design tolerances (operating as they should)? Do they have a preventive/corrective maintenance schedule?

Do we have any 6-Sigma black belts (quality guys) who can comment on the quality and calibration of these machines?

I hit a G15 on a simulator at a Golf Galaxy on vacation. I was hitting in dress shoes, so I wasn't exactly laying down all my power. I hit one drive of 315 and multiple 295-305 drives. My driving average is around 270, so take that as you will.

I don't trust the simulators.

ha idk. sometimes i trust them. sometimes i dont. but i go into a simulator and hit a titleist ap2 6 iron 200 yards. And im hitting it good but there is no way 200 yards good. On the course my 6 irons going 185 max.