Arccos shot tracking review

[BeemerK12S]

17 minutes ago, IanW said:

As @iacas said, the Arccos is not a swing analysis tool, but a pseudo shot statistic tool. It lets you track where your shots landed and what club was used to get it there.

With regards to the Arccos and danger that it will get damaged, I do not personally believe that to be the case. The butt mounted device seems very robust. I am not concerned at all with damaging it with typical use in my bag.

Thanks Ian

[dzclarkcpa]

@IanW Thanks for the updates. Been traveling (dang work) and not playing much, but love that you are staying on the boys at AG. I am a little disappointed that we have not seen much improvement in the product lately. Maybe you have been working them to much with the bugs!

 

Keep up the good fight.

Edited July 18, 2016 by dzclarkcpa

[Grinde6]

I have played about 40 rounds with the Arccos system now and have not had any of the issues you have been putting in here.  Yes, it misses a putt here and there, but are you putting everything out or are you taking the foot gimme?  This will make a difference.  I usually check the app every couple of holes to make sure it aligns with what I have for a score, if not I go back to the hole where it messed up and make the necessary changes.  It has been a game changer for my game as now I am able to look back and see where I need to make improvement.  Did you do the update that takes about 5 minutes?  You open the app, and push the button of the club it asks for and it updates the firmware or whatever in the plug. 

[IanW]

17 hours ago, dzclarkcpa said:

@IanW Thanks for the updates. Been traveling (dang work) and not playing much, but love that you are staying on the boys at AG. I am a little disappointed that we have not seen much improvement in the product lately. Maybe you have been working them to much with the bugs!

 

Keep up the good fight.

I haven't spoken to them in a couple weeks. I have had some random problems and they assured me they are reworking the Android app. I will be getting a beta version when it is ready (no eta). 

 

16 hours ago, Grinde6 said:

I have played about 40 rounds with the Arccos system now and have not had any of the issues you have been putting in here.  Yes, it misses a putt here and there, but are you putting everything out or are you taking the foot gimme?  This will make a difference.  I usually check the app every couple of holes to make sure it aligns with what I have for a score, if not I go back to the hole where it messed up and make the necessary changes.  It has been a game changer for my game as now I am able to look back and see where I need to make improvement.  Did you do the update that takes about 5 minutes?  You open the app, and push the button of the club it asks for and it updates the firmware or whatever in the plug. 

I putt everything out. I am fully up to date on both firmware and software.

I actually don't have much of an issue with the tweaking of things after I have played a hole. I usually do it en route to the next tee box. Takes me 10 seconds max. The biggest issue seems to simply be that the GPS is off by a few yards.

So although I would still love to edit AFTER my round on a big monitor, I have found a work-around that is only slightly annoying.

Last nights men's night round went very smoothly. It let me know that I have some work to do with the driver though :) I am hoping they eventually do some strokes gained magic rather than the somewhat arbitrary 'handicap' stuff. Or, if they at least had good explanations for it

[natureboy]

4 hours ago, IanW said:

Last nights men's night round went very smoothly. It let me know that I have some work to do with the driver though :) I am hoping they eventually do some strokes gained magic rather than the somewhat arbitrary 'handicap' stuff. Or, if they at least had good explanations for it

Provided they have the right stats for conversion, the strokes gained and HCP are essentially interchangeable as a certain number of shots gained or lost relative to a pro or scratch baseline is going to be typical or average for certain HCP levels.

I think a cool feature for both Arccos and Game Golf would be to allow the user to set the display to either strokes gained or HCP equivalent performance.

I'm not sure that you have an issue with driver so much as irons as this was an executive course. Did you really pull driver on many of these holes as a 4 index? That first box might be better labeled as 'Tee Shots' rather than 'Driving'.

[dzclarkcpa]

Do you know how they calculate driving handicap? I to wonder if you were hitting irons off the tee, is it measuring distance maybe?

[IanW]

1 minute ago, natureboy said:

Provided they have the right stats for conversion, the strokes gained and HCP are essentially interchangeable as a certain number of shots gained or lost relative to a pro or scratch baseline is going to be typical or average for certain HCP levels.

I think a cool feature for both Arccos and Game Golf would be to allow the user to set the display to either strokes gained or HCP equivalent performance.

I'm not sure that you have an issue with driver so much as irons as this was an executive course. Did you really pull driver on many of these holes as a 4 index? That first box might be better labeled as 'Tee Shots' rather than 'Driving'.

I see what you are saying about the strokes gained vs hcp. Makes sense. I now agree with you :)

Believe it or not, I hit more drivers on this course than I did at a 6700 yard course that I used to play on. I would hit 2 drivers on the front nine and 4 on the back nine. The rest were 4w or hybrids off tees.

If this is better off in a round analysis thread or myswing thread, please let me know and I can start that thread. Or move it, either way :)

Here are the non-par 3 tee shots I hit last night:

• hole 1: 236 yard drop kicked driver
• hole 3: 179 yard snap hook into the woods that bounced back onto the fairway
• hole 4: 201 yard 4w into the fairway
• hole 7: 235 yard hybrid (possibly my best actual golf shot of the year) through the fairway into the trees
• hole 9: 250 yard driver right of the fairway

Front nine I hit 1 FIR. I birdied that hole. I got into trouble twice off the tee. Once I scrambled for par. The second I made bogey.

• Hole 11: 181 3hybrid into the woods (off a big tree)
• Hole 12: 229 driver into a lateral hazard
• Hole 14: 275 driver into a lateral hazard

Looking at my iron shots though, I stuffed a bunch close to save par after hazards. I actually made 2 pars on my two lateral hazard holes.

My putter was on fire. Dropped lots of 12 footers. If it was easier to scroll through and see the proximity to the pin I would give you numbers, but it is a bit of a pain :( In fact, I can't seem to see it at all on the web UI, only on the phone app. Perhaps I will add that to my list of complaints :) :(

Looking closer, I was 6/10 for greens hit on par 3s. So not great there in reality :( Lots to work on :)

14 minutes ago, dzclarkcpa said:

Do you know how they calculate driving handicap? I to wonder if you were hitting irons off the tee, is it measuring distance maybe?

I have no idea. I would love to know though! Perhaps this is part of the magic sauce? 

That said, I only hit irons off the par 3 tees. The par 4s are all driver, 4w, or hybrid.

[IanW]

I logged into the web ui and it shows the following for an explanation of 'driving handicap':

 

Your driving handicap is reflective of your performance off the tee on par 4s
and par 5s. it takes into account both distance and accuracy, on a per-shot
basis.

Penalties from driving and recovery shots associated with drives are also
accretive to your driving handicap; for example, if you hit your drive into
trouble (e.g. where you cannot take a direct approach to the green) and must hit
a recovery shot to get back into position, Arccos will penalize your driving
handicap instead of your approach handicap.
 

[natureboy]

37 minutes ago, IanW said:

Believe it or not, I hit more drivers on this course than I did at a 6700 yard course that I used to play on. I would hit 2 drivers on the front nine and 4 on the back nine. The rest were 4w or hybrids off tees.

Here are the non-par 3 tee shots I hit last night:

• hole 1: 236 yard drop kicked driver
• hole 3: 179 yard snap hook into the woods that bounced back onto the fairway
• hole 4: 201 yard 4w into the fairway
• hole 7: 235 yard hybrid (possibly my best actual golf shot of the year) through the fairway into the trees
• hole 9: 250 yard driver right of the fairway

Front nine I hit 1 FIR. I birdied that hole. I got into trouble twice off the tee. Once I scrambled for par. The second I made bogey.

• Hole 11: 181 3hybrid into the woods (off a big tree)
• Hole 12: 229 driver into a lateral hazard
• Hole 14: 275 driver into a lateral hazard

I believe it, but I don't think driver was a good play for scoring on this course - though possibly a good practice challenge. It has 25-30 yard fairways, some sharp doglegs, and enough trees / brush to make an errant drive costly.

I can't reconcile your 'hole 14' with the Blue/White route on that course. Neither of those have a 5th hole length where hitting a full out driver makes sense. The Red 9 driver makes sense on the 5th / 14th hole.

Edited July 19, 2016 by natureboy

[IanW]

2 minutes ago, natureboy said:

I believe it, but I don't think driver was a good play for scoring on this course. It has 25-30 yard fairways and enough trees / brush to make an errant drive costly.

I can't reconcile your 'hole 14' with the Blue/White route on that course. Neither of those have a 5th hole length where hitting a full out driver makes sense. The Red 9 driver makes sense on the 5th hole / 14th hole.

Oops. My error. Hole 14 should be hole 15.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have to hit driver. I can hit 5 iron off every tee if I want to. In fact, I used the strategy of 4iron, hybrid, 4wood off every tee at the start of the year. My scores were worse. Probably because my wedge play was very poor. My general strategy is to make as many birdies as possible. This is easier if I have 40 yards into greens :) Perhaps I will try to sneak out late on Thursday and play a quick 27 by myself only hitting 4w off the tee and see how I manage.

I should probably also order Lowest Score Wins. It will likely give me some strategy tips :)

[natureboy]

6 minutes ago, IanW said:

Oops. My error. Hole 14 should be hole 15.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have to hit driver. I can hit 5 iron off every tee if I want to. In fact, I used the strategy of 4iron, hybrid, 4wood off every tee at the start of the year. My scores were worse. Probably because my wedge play was very poor. My general strategy is to make as many birdies as possible. This is easier if I have 40 yards into greens :) Perhaps I will try to sneak out late on Thursday and play a quick 27 by myself only hitting 4w off the tee and see how I manage.

If you can hit your hybrid over 200 consistently (which is somewhat implied by your ability to hit it 235 once without cart path or sprinkler head assist), I think you would score most consistently using that as your long tee club.

If you have a great day with driver, you can probably go really low, but as your plus 30+ HCP tee day shows, the errant recovery shots can be very costly.

Edited July 19, 2016 by natureboy

[IanW]

Just now, natureboy said:

If you can hit your hybrid over 200 consistently (which is somewhat implied by your ability to hit it 235 once without cart path or sprinkler head asssist). I think you would score most consistently using that as your long tee club.

If you have a great day with driver, you can probably go really low, but as your plus 30 HCP tee day shows, the errant recovery shots can be very costly.

agree 100%

I can hit the hybrid about 220ish I think.

[Grinde6]

3 minutes ago, natureboy said:

If you can hit your hybrid over 200 consistently (which is somewhat implied by your ability to hit it 235 once without cart path or sprinkler head assist), I think you would score most consistently using that as your long tee club.

If you have a great day with driver, you can probably go really low, but as your plus 30+ HCP tee day shows, the errant recovery shots can be very costly.

The driving stat is the combination of distance and fairways hit.  It isn't uncommon to get a 30+ at short courses.  I am a +2.9 overall in driving, but when I play a short 2800 yard course and only use my driver basically twice otherwise it is hybrid and 3 wood I get the 30+ for the driving stat.

[IanW]

Actually, kind of dumb of me. I have this app that tracks all this stuff and here I am just pulling a random number like '220'. hehe.

Here is what the app says:

I will play my next round more 'strategically' and see how it goes.

I need to play a few other courses as well. Some of the irons I never hit, like my 6 iron. I am actually surprised now that I look closely at the distances. They are all a bit further than I expected. The big problem is variance I think. Here is their 'smart range' screenshot:

 

 

4 minutes ago, Grinde6 said:

The driving stat is the combination of distance and fairways hit.  It isn't uncommon to get a 30+ at short courses.  I am a +2.9 overall in driving, but when I play a short 2800 yard course and only use my driver basically twice otherwise it is hybrid and 3 wood I get the 30+ for the driving stat.

hmm. That is a bit annoying then isn't it :(

[dzclarkcpa]

25 minutes ago, IanW said:

I logged into the web ui and it shows the following for an explanation of 'driving handicap':

 

Your driving handicap is reflective of your performance off the tee on par 4s
and par 5s. it takes into account both distance and accuracy, on a per-shot
basis.

Penalties from driving and recovery shots associated with drives are also
accretive to your driving handicap; for example, if you hit your drive into
trouble (e.g. where you cannot take a direct approach to the green) and must hit
a recovery shot to get back into position, Arccos will penalize your driving
handicap instead of your approach handicap.
 

well sure if you actually want to go look it up!!!! LOL....thanks, now can you explain that in simple terms? I get not punishing approach shots, but it seems sometimes I score pretty good (for me) and have horrible driving handicap. Or feel that I stunk it up, but have a low one. My best driving handicap is +4.7 but didn't convert that to a decent score (81). My general problems are hitting the ball really wild off the tee, so a + drivng handicap should turn into a low round.

[natureboy]

3 minutes ago, IanW said:

Actually, kind of dumb of me. I have this app that tracks all this stuff and here I am just pulling a random number like '220'. hehe.

Here is what the app says:

Are you intentionally messing with your shots? How do you get that range with the 50* wedge vs the 4i? I thought low HCPs made consistent contact? 

[dzclarkcpa]

@IanW Love that 4i distance. Looks like my 5i, which is used often to punch out of trouble after an errant drive!!!

[IanW]

36 minutes ago, natureboy said:

Are you intentionally messing with your shots? How do you get that range with the 50* wedge vs the 4i? I thought low HCPs made consistent contact? 

I use my 4 iron to chip out of the trees almost exclusively. hehe. I can't remember actually using my 4 iron for a normal shot. I suspect that explains it :)

Largely I hit it all over the golf course. I usually make a couple birdies and 5 or 6 bogeys, maybe throw in a big number here and there. Lots of shooting 75, 84, 77, 86.... and you have my handicap. It likely helps that I previously played a course that was par 72 but rated nearly 74. So a 77 would be a 3.

I haven't actually put in my scores from this year but I believe it would be largely unchanged.

36 minutes ago, dzclarkcpa said:

@IanW Love that 4i distance. Looks like my 5i, which is used often to punch out of trouble after an errant drive!!!

Bingo :)