RocketSci

Hi all, I was looking at some training aids recently and saw a mat with a diagram for proper alignment, address and ball positions and all that good stuff. I just started playing golf a couple of months ago, so correct me if I'm wrong, but you just cannot generalize feet and ball position like that. It is unique for every golfer and every club, not to mention, it is highly a matter of preference on what actually works for you. All of this got me thinking about my address and how much it actually varies every time I set up. With that said, I want to find what works for me and maybe build my own alignment/address training aid. I am thinking of just a few sticks at right angles with markings. If I find something that works for me, I know my feet need to be positioned on markers X and Y and my ball at Z. The purpose of this is to develop consistency on how I address each shot and perhaps achieve better overall consistency in my golf game. Does anyone know anything about the "perfect" address? Something that is geometrically perfect for a specific golfer and club. Being an engineer (on top of that the researcher type...), I try to find a systematic approach to everything, which is most likely the reason why I am actually pretty good at this -- I think, for a complete beginner at least. So, it is possible to find a perfect address in my opinion. Something to build your swing around... Now, the way I see it, the lie angle will pretty much dictate the plane of the swing. In my case, this only seems to apply to irons since my planes for my woods slightly flatter than the actual lie of the club and much flatter for my driver... (Is this supposed to be this way?) Other than the inclination of this plane, I am not sure how to go about ball and feet position. My goal is to create something like a diagram found in Hogan's five lessons but with dimensions... What do you guys think? Thanks for reading.

So let me see if I can understand what you mean, WUTiger... You want to record your swing and performance with club A, shaft B and ball C. Then you want to translate the same performance to club D, shaft E and ball F. I think it would be possible. If you know all relevant physical properties for club heads, shafts and balls, I don't see why you couldn't be able to convert it. For club heads, I think mass and loft angle would be the most important. For shafts, the main things would be flexibility, mass and length. And for the balls, you'd probably want dimple pattern, and some sort of compression coefficient (not sure what that would be called, but basically you want some measure of how much the ball compresses when hit). In fact, I think you don't even have to swing a club at all. You could input different swing conditions like club head speed, angle of attack, etc... and you could get the most efficient club head/shaft/ball combination. Wouldn't that achieve the same thing you are trying to do? But the main problem would be collecting a database with all this information. I think you'd be better off inputting the swing conditions and instead of getting a back club D, shaft E and ball F, you get back conditions on each component. Then you can try finding clubs and balls with similar characteristics, but I am guessing that would be a challenge by itself! If you are a club maker, that's more doable.

Thanks for all the ideas. I am thinking doing some Fourier analysis on the signal should be enough to isolate different aspects of the ball flight (speed, spin rates, etc). Also, if I introduce two radars instead of using just one, I can get a parallax-type effect going and the true direction of the velocity vector could be known, not to mention it would provide more observations (although I am not sure how advantageous this would be... any thoughts?). I think I high-speed would be too expensive, plus image processing is definitely not my forte. I have been thinking a lot about all this on my spare time (and not so spare time, too...), especially the problem of estimation of parameters. I think I can come up with an accurate dynamic model that would include everything relevant for estimating the ball flight path correctly. I also have found some papers on sport journals (the resourcefulness of a grad student at work) about aspects of sport balls flight and spin rate decay models for golf balls. If I can have accurate equations of motion, I don't need to observe the ball flight for all the time that it's in the air (which is probably what some launch monitors do). I plan on using the same approach as with satellite navigation by using Kalman filtering to estimate parameters like the velocity of the ball and spin rates. If I can't get a Doppler-radar transceiver with enough range to collect measurements through the whole flight, I can just use those observations (which could be as far as 50 yards out) and then propagate the trajectory forward until the ball hits the ground. Also, just to be clear, I am not trying to build an amazing launch monitor comparable to the high end monitors on the market. I want something that can accurately provide the basics. I know Zelocity has the PureContact which can provide ball speed and distance, but I am looking for a little more (club head speed, launch angles and perhaps spin rate). Also, it'd be nice to plot the trajectories in my computer... Another thing, even though building the radar is definitely doable, I'd like to find a transceiver already built. It would just make things easier. If you guys know where I can get Doppler-radar transceiver somewhere, please let me know. Thanks again, and sorry if I got too technical and boring.

Haha! you know... it's funny because if it wasn't for me being all geeky and analyzing all aspects and physics of every sport I play, I wouldn't be as good at them as I am. (Not to sound like I'm full of myself, but I am actually really decent at every sport I play... never the best though...) Anyways, the reason I want to do this is because I am certain I can lower my handicap with a tool like a launch monitor when I'm at the range. Just imagine knowing the exact numbers of every shot you take for every little adjustment you make to your swing. Even though I have only been playing for about 5 months (I actually have only been out on the course about 4 times, so my handicap is not a true handicap), I have gotten pretty good, with LOTS of practice though. I hit about 90% of my shots really straight or the way I want them, hit almost every fairway and shape my shots nicely. But there are two important aspects about my golfing I really need to work on: 1) knowing the exact distances of my shots and 2) have a better feel for my non-full-swing shots. For my shot distances, I have good estimates. When I get to the golf course, however, it's a whole different deal, usually overshooting my targets leading to missed greens (I blame it on driving range balls too...). For the feel of my shots, I am guessing it's something you gain with time and experience. Is it me or will training with a launch monitor help me with this and maybe more? I think it could be a great training tool. Anyways, I think it would still be a cool project. Plus, the stuff on the market is just way too expensive for a broke graduate student like me. I know most of you would think it would be better to spend time practicing than working on this, though...

So, I want to build my own launch monitor absolutely from scratch. Has anyone here ever tried this? I found a thread here about someone that wanted to build their own, but apparently he wanted more of a simulator type of deal and not truly build one from scratch. I think he later posted another thread on where he could find a launch monitor under $1,000. I know what you guys are probably thinking: "this guy is crazy, there's no way you can build one from scratch..." Well, I am not crazy. So I am calling out all of you geeky golfers out there, which I know there has to be a few. I am just wondering if anyone has ever tried this. I am basically looking for an affordable way to obtain a decent radar system with decent range (I tried eBay and craigslist, no luck). I am looking for something with decent range (I'd like at least 100 yds, but I think I can do it with 50 yds) but I definitely don't think I'd need full shot range measurements. I'd love something in the levels of the Trackman (they claim it's military-grade stuff) but that would cost me a lot more I think plus it might get me a knock on the door by the FBI... (or at least a phone call and a tail or something like that) A little bit about me (just so you know I'm not crazy), I am a PhD student in aerospace engineering that tracks satellites for a living. Basically, satellite tracking works by collecting measurements about the satellites flight characteristics, so technically I can do the same with a golf ball. After all, that's exactly what these companies do anyways. My programming background is fairly strong and my electronics background is decent enough but not that strong, but I still think I can handle a project like this. Thanks for reading, Ed