About Golf 3Trak for Distance Gapping

[jds127]

Hey all, I live quite north (Edmonton AB), and it's gotten a bit cold to be out on the range or the course. I recently made a bit of a swing change that got rid of my dreaded late flip at impact, and have hit at the range but not on the course. I felt like I was hitting it a bit further and more solidly, but wasn't sure on my club gapping (have never been 100% on this) so I went into a local indoor facility to see if I could get a good idea on what was going on.

It was an aboutgolf 3Trak system, which I was told should be fairly accurate as far as indoor systems go, but I was quite surprised by my distances. They seemed a little too deep on some clubs. I went back to my flippy at impact swing a few times to get a baseline and it was bang on for my previous course distances, but I'm still skeptical. Anyone have any experience with these systems? How reliable should I consider the data I was getting back? I did remove the outliers (obvious spin misreads), from my averages, but still would be uncomfortable with these distances on the course.

[dennyjones]

Read this

Welcome to TST.

From that link:

Quote

Erik, Did you have the opportunity to test out the 3Trak system? Assuming as much, how accurate is the camera-based system?

TONY COVEY

We weren’t impressed. I went with a pro who’s quite a bit more consistent than I am, and yet he was flying nearly similarly struck 7-irons anywhere from 165 to 195. The system seemed to reward great contact with too much added distance and to take off way too much distance for an ever-so-slightly missed shot.

I have no doubt that it derived spin, launch angle, and ball speed correctly. The system hides a “level of confidence” rating that I implored the host to display, because it’s an entirely different situation if the 195-yard shots showed a 70% level of confidence rather than, say, 96%. You could easily discard one and look at the others.

I hit a pair of 8-irons in the simulator later, which of course also uses 3Trak, and both carried barely 100 yards despite being struck fairly well (~155 yards). We were later told the “wind” setting was enabled, but I don’t remember seeing any wind and the ball flight didn’t appear to be similar to one hit by a wind of any kind, let alone a four-club wind…

 

[jds127]

I hit about 15 balls with each club, there were a number that flew just way too far that I took out of the averages. End of the day, I seemed consistently one club longer than I had been before the mechanics change at impact. The weird ones seemed 2 clubs deeper. I really want to believe delofting the club does that much for me, but maybe I'll have to get into a different machine to figure that out.

A local shop has a flightscope set up indoors that might be a bit more reliable

[Typhoon92]

Jds...we have 4 AG 3 trak systems at work.  Couple things to watch for...

Best bet is to be sure it's set to " player"...not another name because you can go in and change settings for a person to boost or cut back long, mid and short woods/irons.

Next up is be sure the balls have the black or green dash marks all over them.  Green is better because they are softer and spin is more accurate.  Black dashes are ok but spin is off...it's a solid ball vs the green is multilayer. If they are using a pro-v or something...nothing will be right.  Also occasionally you get misreads where a wedge or whatever will go stupid far...especially roll.  That a a misread.  If you look at the numbers, you will see a negative spin number.

If the ball is going like outside, then you're fine.  But if you are wedge gapping, you want the green dash balls.