Golf Launchpad Simulator

[Shanks-a-lot]

Whenever the others that have ordered this receive theirs and get to play with it a little I would love to hear what you think. The reviews I've seen online seem to be a love it or hate type deal, but who knows if those are golfers. I'm thinking about putting this on the Christmas list. Your input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[glebert]

I just hit my first roadblock with mine. It seems that the Tiger Woods game is REALLY hardware intensive. I was planning on using my wife's old laptop, but it is just not up to the task. I'm going to try the driving range software on it just to play around until I can throw together a better system.

greg

[glebert]

I finally got it to work, put it on my wife's new laptop. It's cool that there is actually a course local to me in TW06 (Pumpkin Ridge). I got 15 holes in before the laptop battery died. I was at +17 from the back tees, which is way too good for me. Afterward I looked at my profile and I had set the difficulty to "novice" which is way too forgiving. Tomorrow I will try it with "expert."

[rebby]

Has anybody tried LPDR yet? I'm really curious what type of stats that it shows you. I bought this mainly for LPDR so that I can learn more about my swing and gain some consistancy.

[kfowler]

I've read "Intermediate" is the setting you want. I hear Expert is way too hard.

I'm going to take mine to the range over the holiday and see how the ball flights and distances compare.

[flopdarock]

this seems like a fun toy when the weather is too crappy to actually go out an play or hit the range... but i hardly think its worthy of actually replacing being out in the real world... with that said... and the way the weather is here alot of the time... i want one

[schapman]

How durable does the simulator pad seem? I imagine it would have to be built pretty tough to withstand people swinging metal poles at it all day and was wondering how stable/secure it stays.

[glebert]

How durable does the simulator pad seem? I imagine it would have to be built pretty tough to withstand people swinging metal poles at it all day and was wondering how stable/secure it stays.

I think it would depend on your swing type. The base itself reminds me of the mats that a local driving range uses, about 1 1/4" of rubber and then 1/4" thick astroturf. If you are a digger it would probably wear the astroturf much quicker. As far as the unit moving around mine hasn't moved at all.

Some things I've learned: The height of the unit makes all shots feel like "ball above the feet" shots, which I hate, so I built myself a platform of 2x4s to stand on to get myself to the same height. Expert level on TW is too hard, mostly because the putting will drive you insane. Turn on gimmes for sure. There is a way to "power boost" your clubs, but I can't figure out how to do it. My 3w only goes 180 yards, which makes getting to a 185 yard par3 with water in front a real challenge. I think I am going to move to the red tees until I figure out how to get more power. Wiffle balls don't stand up to 100mph SS. The ones I bought are really thin, totally crush when I use my 3w on them. I guess I will have to use the nerf balls.

[obsessedgolfer]

How accurate is the drivieng range and how do the distances work on the TW game is it done by swing speed.

[flopdarock]

you could also try almostgolf balls... they are pretty good for wear an tear

[glebert]

How accurate is the drivieng range and how do the distances work on the TW game is it done by swing speed.

I don't know that the distances in TW are actually done by SS. Basically the Launchpad is controlling the game in place of a mouse, so there is some sort of power scale that it registers on, but not necessarily equal to your actual SS. My best drive in TW so far is 230 yards, which for me is a good 5w.

I couldn't get the LPDR to download last night, but my wireless connection was flaky.

[kfowler]

Mine should be here tomorrow. The LPDR is what I'm most interested in. I believe from their website there's a way you can calibrate your shots in TW to get an accurate reflection of your distance.

[glebert]

Mine should be here tomorrow. The LPDR is what I'm most interested in. I believe from their website there's a way you can calibrate your shots in TW to get an accurate reflection of your distance.

I played last night as Natalie Gulbis (the only female included in my TW) and her distances are really close to mine. The intermediate setting I think is still too forgiving, I shot +3 from the back tees at Witch Hollow. I'll try expert again, but I wish I could just skip the putting.

I tried the LPDR and the SS seems about right, and somehow the LA also seems right (which really surprised me). My AoA with Driver is -3 deg, and somehow the sensors seemed to pick that up (my LA was ~7.5 deg with a virtual 10.5 deg driver). Hopefully someone else can comment on how well the LA compares to their actual. The distances seemed very close for me. I am a little skeptical on the face angle measurement. It seems to me to pick up variations in path more than the actual face angle. Also it seems like there is some limited precision on the angles it can pick up, mostly my angle was exactly 0 or +11 deg with almost nothing in between. The amount of slice from an 11 deg open face is huge, though, so this lack of precision may really be limiting. One other thing that I was able to do was experiment with a theory of mine that with large headed drivers the air resistance of the head can actually slow down your SS. With a 400cc driver my SS maxed out at 110, with an average of about 104. With a large face 190cc 3w at 43.5" my SS maxed out at 114 with an average of of about 106 and with a very shallow 3w at 44.5" I maxed out at 117 with an average of about 109. The experiment is not rigorous in that the shafts were all different, but I found it very interesting.

[glebert]

FYI, I was looking on Electric Spin's website and the "classic" launchpad only has basic swing analysis, whereas the new "Tour" model has "advanced" swing analysis, which may have better capture of club path and face angle. For those of you who are looking at one of these but haven't bought it yet, it may make more sense to pay $199 for the new model than getting the older model off Ebay.

[kfowler]

I've been wandering what the difference between the two is.

[glebert]

I've been wandering what the difference between the two is.

I thought it was just the remote control, but it looks like the Tour may have some more capabilities. The fact that it has upgradeable firmware implies that it is much smarter than the classic.

[tonyy]

The "Tour" is also compatible with the PS3, as the "Classic" cannot. I couldn't really justify paying $300 for something to keep me busy for the off season. The Classic gets it done for me though.

[rockin johny]

What kind of ceiling height do you need to swing the clubs full out?