Prove Your Drives- GPS

[muttbag]

What a horrible round to provide data from.  My driver was all over the place, and so were the rest of my clubs for that matter.  I slowed my swing down and tried to simply connect and get one down the middle of the fairway after several sprays.  I understand that's the whole idea, but only one of these felt halfway decent.  I only had 2 - 3 drives that were straight enough to be accurately measured.  The good, the bad, and the ugly:

Most accurate drive of the day for me.  Only 232 yards with a toned down swing, but center fairway.

This was a line-drive pull to the left.  But it was a straight line, so I measured it.  239 yards.

I'm going to attempt another 9 holes tomorrow, depending on how my site visits go.  As much as I want to turn this into a golfing trip, it's business as usual.  Will also try to capture a couple of good ones from the tournament on Saturday.  I'd like to see what my GPS registers on a ball I consider well-struck.  I also plan on doing this for iron shots eventually to assist in gauging true distance.

[Lihu]

I can get an idea of your battery life from your images. :-)

[smellysell]

I'm probably just blind, but I don't see where it says the yardages for your drives on there?

I forgot to track any of my many 350+ drives today, I'll try to remember tomorrow.

[muttbag]

Nah, you're not missing it.  I couldn't figure out how to use the feature that actually tracks your shot distances for you, I just upgraded to the Premium version today and didn't have time to navigate it before I got to the course.  I had to use screenshots from the tee markers vs. the landing spot of the ball.  I'll have it figured out by tomorrow.

[Lihu]

Originally Posted by smellysell

I forgot to track any of my many 350+ drives today, I'll try to remember tomorrow.

I noticed you did not include a unit of measure in the 350+ ).

[smellysell]

Originally Posted by Lihu

I noticed you did not include a unit of measure in the 350+ ).

Feet, clearly

[muttbag]

Originally Posted by Lihu

I noticed you did not include a unit of measure in the 350+ ).

I would laugh, but I literally drove a ball 350 feet today.  Golf kicked my ass and stole my lunch money.

[Lihu]

Originally Posted by muttbag

Nah, you're not missing it.  I couldn't figure out how to use the feature that actually tracks your shot distances for you, I just upgraded to the Premium version today and didn't have time to navigate it before I got to the course.  I had to use screenshots from the tee markers vs. the landing spot of the ball.  I'll have it figured out by tomorrow.

Put some simple instructions for the rest of us who don't like reading instruction manuals or the convoluted help screens on these smart phones.

[muttbag]

Originally Posted by Lihu

Put some simple instructions for the rest of us who don't like reading instruction manuals or the convoluted help screens on these smart phones.

Hmmm.  After watching this, I think my simple instructions may come off as convoluted.  But this seems to explain it quite simply with an easy visual:

I don't see myself taking the time to do this on every shot unless play is slow.  But it would be cool to have a visual after the round if you could keep up with it without slowing play for the people behind you.

[Lihu]

Originally Posted by muttbag

I don't see myself taking the time to do this on every shot unless play is slow.  But it would be cool to have a visual after the round if you could keep up with it without slowing play for the people behind you.

Thanks for posting the instruction video. It looks pretty easy, actually. I will probably do this tomorrow afternoon. Kind of nice that the locking screen part saves battery life.

BTW, it does not look like it will take much time.

[muttbag]

Much better round today.  I was a little timid on the driver the first few holes because I was so wild with it yesterday.  I took some slower than average swings and was able to keep it straight on a couple.  Then I settled in and began taking chances by bringing my swing speed back up to what it normally is.  On the drives where I properly involved my hips, the results were excellent.  Others, I allowed my arms to get too far ahead of my hips and pulled the drive off the tee.  I also had a chance to really dig in and work with my irons using the distance measurements, I'm getting a better idea of my actual distances now.

Here's a good mix of today's tee shots.  The distances are on the bottom right of the screen in the circle/bubble that says "D1".

Nice and easy even though it was a par 5 and I don't have a long fairway club.  Right down the middle.

I settled in and got aggressive with this one.  I pulled it, but it was a straight pull.  Got caught up in some rough.

This was a slight fade.  My confidence was coming back and I was swinging through the ball without trying to kill it.

I decided to play aggressive on this one and cut the dogleg. I knew it was crushed from the instant I hit it. This one felt amazing.

I attempted to cut the dogleg again, but I went too far left.  I thought I was over the tree but heard it hit a couple of leaves on the way over, then it caught rough.  Oddly enough, I knew it was struck well but this one did not feel crushed.

[muttbag]

Sorry guys. I need to find a way to make my screenshots smaller if I'm going to continue to post them.  They are annoyingly big.

[smellysell]

Sissy!

[Infamous 273]

Hit driver twice today: Hit this one close to flush, a little high off the face. This was a off center, caught it off the toe pretty well.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by muttbag

Since there seems to be a running dispute on perceived driver distance vs. real driver distance, I'd like to propose an idea.  Using a GPS-enabled golf app of your choice and your phone's screenshot capability, start documenting your drives on STRAIGHT fairway runs.  I do not believe this will work on any type of dogleg fairway, because you can cut corners and skew the results since the yardage is based on the fairway route, not actual straight-line distance from tee to green.

* Stand on the tee box from the spot where you hit your drive with your GPS-enabled golf app displaying your distance to the center of the green and take a screenshot on your phone.

* Before hitting your 2nd shot, take another screenshot showing your remaining distance to the hole.

* Post both screenshots.

If I'm not thinking this through, someone correct me.  I'm sure there is a slight fudge factor involved and the distance will be give or take a few yards, but if you're in the middle of the fairway, I don't see this being that far off.  I'm doing this regardless.

Wont happen with me.  I don't own a smartphone, and my Garmin doesn't do screenshots.  Besides, I don't really care.  I know that many real life distances don't match the card for the course, and for those which do match, the way the course is measured is rarely the route that a golfer plays.  I posted THIS as a demonstration of that in another thread.

Originally Posted by CR McDivot

The best accuracy you can expect to attain with any GPS receiver without a correction method applied is within 15 meters (2D RMS) for the horizontal measurement. Vertical accuracy is within 25 meters. This is typically true for any commercial GPS receiver from any vendor.

http://www.spatial-ed.com/gps/gps-basics/135-differential-correction-methods.html

You are trying to confuse the issue with misleading information.  In fact of actual use, most of the time my Garmin is within 2 yards of a laser measurement.  Even the most conservative projections put them in a worst case at +/-5 yards.

Vertical accuracy doesn't matter in golf, because such a feature isn't allowed.  This isn't pilot training, it's golf.

[MissouriHack]

Its a great Idea, but this thread is going to be troll city in a week. Its already got a head start!lol, I hope it works out.

cheers

[smellysell]

A little better.

[sneddies]

Easy app that measures the distance between two spots. I use often when I feel the drive is worth measuring! Don't know if there's a yard version, but conversion is easy.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gpstapemeasure