GolfSpy MPR

Let me echo @cnosil here: given what you're describing, Blast is your best option. Here was my setup for putting practice this morning: This is a combo of three apps/gadgets: Hackmotion, Focusband, and Blast. Hackmotion, at least in my experience, is incredibly useful for learning how the wrists need to work (or, to be more accurate, not work) in the putting stroke. My biggest complaint, other than cost, is that it tends to have a pretty high number of "ghost" reads, where it registers a putt when you're just moving or setting the putter on the green. That's annoying. It's a very small sample size, but I think they recently updated the app, and I had fewer of them this morning than in the past. So maybe it's getting better. The Focusband is a gadget for measuring brainwave frequency. I like this feedback; I'm learning to quiet my mind while putting, focusing on images rather than technical thoughts. But again, the Blast is going to do the most for you, based on what you're describing and price point. It has a variety of data points, including the length of your stroke (in both distance and time), tempo, how much you're twisting the face open/closed, how much you're changing your lie and loft during your stroke, and how fast you're swinging the putter. I picked mine up used; they're common enough that it's not hard to get a good deal on them.

For us, the course is made of mud and snow and the sand traps have polar bears.

This thread is a good reminder for me to be thankful for my local course. There is a clergy discount, so for me, I can play as much golf as I want for $320 for the season (typically, here, about six months or so). I've been playing this course for over 10 years now. To date, there isn't any such thing as "having to get a tee time." I show up, scope out the front or back tee to see what looks more open, and start my round. We don't even need to check in at the desk. Our course won't be making any top 100 lists (not even in the state of Michigan). It's very short (6,000 yards from the back tees), scruffy in places, and has a lot of weird doglegs that mean that you barely use driver. But the greens normally roll pretty true. And I'm playing a season's worth of golf for what a lot of guys will drop on a single round. So I'm thankful.

At this point, we have to compare it to the chaos of college football ranking. College football rankings exist, instead of mere standings, because not everyone plays everyone else. We can have a long debate about which ranking system is best (subjective power rankings, coaches' poll, writers' poll, computer rankings), but there's only one ranking list that matters. That's where we are with the OWGR right now. I tend to side with the OWGR is not giving points to LIV: the closed-shop argument matters, and to a lesser degree, the three-round tournaments. But anyone looking for some way to list the current best professional golfers in the world has to look in other places, whether that be DataGolf or TUGR or something else. I think I'm in favor of (if a peace treaty of some sort isn't signed) the majors reserving maybe 5 spots for LIV golfers, and allowing LIV itself to determine the formula for which of their golfers qualifies.

Here are the numbers for a fifteen index from the same thread: The effect of hitting 12 more fairways is indeed slightly higher for a 15 (closer to 3 shots instead of 2), likely reflecting the tendency of higher-index players to go more wayward. But the effect of hitting more greens is also even higher than it was for a five-index.

Lou Stagner (full disclosure: I work for Lou on the Hack It Out golf podcast) just posted a great thread on Twitter on this topic. I'll link to the tweet thread below, but here are side-by-side charts of what happens to a 5-index score with each additional green hit versus each additional fairway hit: That's honestly quite astonishing: if you told me that one round, I hit only a single fairway, and then in another, I hit 13 fairways, and then asked to predict the average score difference between those two rounds, I'm sure I would have guessed more than two strokes. By contrast, increasing GIRs by 12 reduces a player's average score by about 10 strokes. There is value in hitting fairways: for those of us looking to shave strokes, everything matters. But even if I went from missing nearly every fairway to being almost robotic in hitting fairways, it makes such a tiny dent in scoring. Thread: https://twitter.com/LouStagner/status/1764705382230884498

Good morning everyone! For those new here (and there seem to be a lot of you), I used to be one of the main moderators here on the Forum. Last fall, I took a position as the editor and social media guy for Hack It Out, the golf podcast of Mark Crossfield, Lou Stagner, and Greg Chalmers. So my presence here has tapered off a bit; hoping to post a little more frequently in the months ahead. One great bit of news I figured I share here; a little over a week ago, my wife and I welcomed our sixth child. This is Claire, and she and the whole family are doing well.

I've (ahem) not been around much lately. When I came back this week, I was blown away at the level of activity. So from me: a hat tip to the active members of the current team, who are continuing to make this forum both excellent and active (and it is not easy to do both). Well done, all.

When I did my Edel review, because of our remote location, Edel actually shipped their entire EAS fitting cart to us. The owner of Edel has a cabin in this area of the country, and personally did my fitting, but I had to bring the cart. So I had the entire toolbox in my position, and was very sad when I had to ship it back:

Most of you will be familiar with Sub70, the well-regarded DTC brand. Less known is one of Sub70s sister companies, Diamond Tour. When I first got into golf and discovered club building, Diamond Tour stood out as providing really inexpensive components for those who wanted to play cheaply. That's me. While over the years I've built fewer and fewer of my clubs and had the opportunity to move into "real" OEMs, I still have a soft spot in my heart for DTG. I absolutely endorse their line of junior clubs/components: if you have a kid that plays golf and also who grows every year, DTG's junior components are great for building new sets each year without going bankrupt. Anyway, that long preface is to say that I wanted to get some new irons for this upcoming season, and I returned to my golf roots: I picked up a set of 50, 54, and 58° heads from Diamond Tour, each in a different finish. I'm currently playing Sub70s 639CB irons, with black heads and the Aldila NV shafts, so I decided to make the wedges mostly match. I think that these look really sharp, and at least so far with indoor use in my garage, they hit the numbers I want. I'm not expecting any surprises when I get on the course; I've always had a pretty "stock" setup in my wedges. I caught these during one of DTG's sales (normally, holidays or golf majors): all in, they cost me less than $150 for the set.

As one who participated in the last Edel review, I'm definitely intrigued. I love Edel's fitting philosophy, and if I could get my hands on that whole case of Edel heads/alignment plates/weights/hosels, I would likely happily disappear for years. Without having been fitted for the Array, I would gravitate toward the F-1 headshape. I'll be especially interested in any observations from any of the testers who might have used any lie angle balanced or toe-up putter in the past. Edel (along with LAB, obviously; Axis1;and a couple of excursions from Odyssey) had been a major proponent of putters that were neither face-balanced nor had toe-hang. My understanding is that the new Array series is not like that. If any of the testers has used a toe-up putter before, I'd be interested in any observations as to how the new Edels compare.

The one downside: I have to shave my head to match Mark and Lou. My wife's not thrilled about it, but at least they're letting me keep my beard.

Appreciate it; but I'll be doing behind the scenes stuff (editing, posting). I'm not going to be another voice on the pod (unless, I suppose, I surreptitiously edit myself in...).

First, thanks @StrokerAce! I intended to start a thread about this, but you beat me to it. (I was on a golf trip with my dad and my son the past three days, so I was a bit unplugged.) I'm really excited to have a place on the Hack It Out team. Just for clarity: I'm not going to be on the podcast, but I'll be doing the audio editing, posting the podcast for download, and handling the social media for the podcast. It's cool for me as longtime fan of these guys to have a role in the podcast. I've learned a ton from all of them, and there have been all kinds of times when I've burst out laughing listening to them. I already kinda "felt" like I knew Mark, Lou, and Greg, and to be able to work with them directly is really cool. With this move, I'm going to be stepping down from "official" moderator duties here on the MGS Forums. I've had the privilege of "bridging" two different mod teams, first coming on with @Golfspy_CG2, @STUDque, and @StrokerAce, and then the current team led by @GolfSpy_APH. Both groups have been great and both have taken clear steps to make the Forum better. I know I've written this here before, but I stumbled on this Forum years ago when I first started getting into golf. Like many, I think I first came here because of a testing opportunity, because I wanted "free stuff." But after my first "real" post in the Forum (on my basement putting green), I found a community unlike anything else I'd ever seen on the internet, and that includes most theology forums I had been a part of (sadly). Courteous, friendly, and informed conversation has been the order of the day on this Forum. For sure, we've had some (ahem) "interesting" characters over the years, but we mods have been able, for the most part, to moderator with a very light hand, because the Forum is largely self-policing. So I'll still be around. Oddly, I typically post here more often in my golf off-season than I do during the season, because during the season I'm trying to play as much golf as possible before we get another 200 inches of snow.

The Studio comes with the Optoma GT1080 HDR. I have it ceiling mounted, about a foot or so in front of the top bar of the enclosure. The Studio ships with a tube (the same as the rest of the cage) for mounting the projector; I preferred to mount directly to the ceiling.

What we received here was a complete, ready-to-assemble kit from SkyTrak. The options are here: https://shop.skytrakgolf.com/simulator-studios.html We have the SkyTrak+ Studio 12' - Pro version.

We're up and functional, though we still have work to do: I've connected an old PC to be our main computer for use with the sim. I intended to get out this morning and play a quick nine at Bandon on E6, but alas, E6 had not downloaded any courses (despite my having told it to do so, I thought), and we currently have no decent wifi signal in our garage. This morning, I purchased a setup to extend our wifi reach, so hopefully that will be fixed. In the meantime, I need to bring the computer back inside the house to get the courses downloaded. Other items on the to-do list: We're going to build a metal cage around the projector. It's not an issue in the setup in the Tweet above, but if we move back away from the screen (so that we can use the Mevo+ with the SkyTrak), the projector is definitely in danger. We might move the projector back away from the screen a bit. As you can see above, I've currently got my computer running in 16:9 ratio; if I change it to something 4:3, I think we can fill the full screen. The downside/challenge then is getting the bottom corners of the screen without wrinkles, so that the image (especially the data) isn't visually distorted. I still have a window to replace in the garage, probably with something more shatter resistant. That will get us a bit more light. I will probably also add a permanent spotlight on the ball, which is useful for Mevo+ is "seeing" the face impact location.

Got the projector up and running after no little weeping and gnashing of teeth. I'll write the story tomorrow, but for now, I'll just say that SkyTrak Studios make for really nice family Street Fighter arcades.

Me too. Still.

A few thoughts so far on the setup process and first impressions: Unless I'm missing something, the Studio kit comes with very few instructions. There is a diagram for the cage assembly, but even that doesn't suggest an order for which parts should be assembled first. That said, the whole process was pretty logical; we made a couple of false starts before realizing "Nope, that's not going to work" and changing our process. At least on mine, I struggled mightily to get the top left side of enclosure material to get secure; it felt like it needed to be about a half-inch longer. That said, I'm probably wrong, and making the material wider would introduce a sag. But it was tough to get it secured on the second side. All the materials seem to be of very high quality. Absolutely nothing I opened and installed struck me as cheap or low-grade. The bounceback off the screen was (for us) virtually nonexistent from the very first ball. Maybe we just got lucky, but I assumed we'd have some process of tweaking the balance between getting the screen flat and taut vs. too much bounce. Longtime members here know that we have a large putting green in our basement. The boys and I carried up the putting surface from there to the garage, and we're using that to catch balls after they hit the screen. Because we installed that with some of those interlocking foam squares underneath, it does a great job of catching the ball with a dead bounce. The putting surface that comes with the Studio package will move to our basement green (after a bit of maintenance on the under-surface of the green, fixing a popped board and covering a hole we put in the middle of the green that just gets in the way). I'm hoping to install our projector this afternoon. I have to admit: I'm currently baffled by the ceiling mount, the bracket of which doesn't seem to fit the projector that's included with the Studio.

Got into the garage pretty early this morning and made a ton of progress on the SkyTrak Studio build. We have the entire enclosure up and I've worked out a nice setup to use both the SkyTrak+ and the Mevo+ at the same time. Got a TV mounted higher up on a wall now. My last (immediate) step is to set up the projector, though I'm a bit stumped at the moment. I can't quite figure out how the ceiling mount attaches to the projector that I have. (The step after that involves reinforcing and then cutting one truss, to allow for a driver swing. Still calculating there.) Anyway, here's the video of today's work, including a timelapse of the enclosure build:

I think just under. The longest club I can swing fearlessly is a hybrid.

Made a little progress this evening before dinner. This corner will be where the screen and enclosure will go:

In past years, I started threads about getting my SkyTrak and then about getting my Mevo+. Now I'm making it a trilogy of threads: Kirke and I are embarked on a serious upgrade of our practice space, courtesy of Chris Koske and the fine folks at SkyTrak. Earlier this year, Chris reached out to me and asked if I'd be interested in upgrading our garage setup. A bit of backstory: Chris used to work for Edel, and he was my main contact when I did my MGS Forum review of the Edel EAS 4.0 putter, which is still my main putter. He's since moved on to a position at SkyTrak. Turns out, SkyTrak purchased a company that sells home sim packages, and Chris offered to send us a setup for testing and review. The shipment (five packages!) arrived last week. Just for reference, here's the page for SkyTrak's Studio options: https://shop.skytrakgolf.com/simulator-studios.html. (Important full disclosure: while I received our setup for review, I am not a SkyTrak affiliate and receive nothing for anyone's purchases.) We received the SkyTrak+ Studio 12'. For those keeping score at home, that package not only includes the cage, screen, mat, and ball tray (which is initially what I thought Chris was offering), but also the very recently-released SkyTrak+ and the Optoma GT1080 HDR projector and mount. I still find myself with the need to periodically scrape my jaw off the floor. What that means, first, is that we're in the process of a garage conversion. Here's what we've been working with: 20230425_170835_1.mp4 We're hitting into a Rukket net, which has been reinforced a few times with more netting after we'd worn holes in the original. Behind the net, there's an old mattress (just in case), over which we've draped a piece of target vinyl from an even older net. Overhead, we have draped some heavy curtains to catch high wedges. We have been hitting off the FiberBuilt Flight Deck (that oval hitting surface), with a piece of stance turf glued to a board so that we're level with the Flight Deck. The boards running back from the Flight Deck (toward the camera) help give a level surface back to the Mevo+. It's janky, but it works. We hit along the back of our garage, width-wise. Google Maps suggests our garage is about 25' wide; that easily allows us to have the recommended 8' between the Mevo+ and the hitting area, with 12+' of ball flight. There's a shelf on the back of the garage (the right side of the above video): there, we have an old TV and another monitor. Typically, we've been using an old iPad to run either the FlightScope software (including the Skills app) and also Awesome Golf, which is a great (and relatively) inexpensive sim software which is perfect if you're playing with kids. As I say, it works. It's a very functional setup, and it's been great for getting practice. My enthusiasm for the Mevo+ is undiminished: I'm actually astonished that, with the upgrade packages, they took an already very competent LM and added a ton of useful data. Getting the lighting correct for using the Face Impact can be finicky, for sure, but if you can nail the setup, the Mevo+ is an incredible bang for the buck in the home LM space. Kirke and I plan to continue to use the Mevo+ alongside the SkyTrak+, trying to leverage the strengths of both (and likely writing a full comparison review at some point). Given the sketchy setup we had, I really didn't want to just unbox the Studio and slap it into place. My goal is to do this right, and build a really nice place for Kirke and I (and others in our family, if they wish) to practice and play. So right now, I'm filming the process in segments, documenting the transformation of our garage into a Simulator Studio. This is a channel I've started to post videos with Kirke and me, hopefully documenting up to the point in which he beats me from the full-length tees at our course for the first time. I've designated the channel on YouTube as "for kids": such channels can't be monetized, which is the point—I don't want to make money off videos of Kirke. It's just something for us to have fun with. That said, here are the first two videos, taking you on a tour of our garage before we start the teardown (with cameos from my youngest daughter), and then after a couple hours of cleanup: I'll keep posting these, and also posting here with text-based descriptions of our process. We need to get this up and running before the snow starts falling here, which is always sooner than you might expect.

While I'll have more to say as I keep using the cart, I have recorded my thoughts up to this point in my review post: