2022 Official Arccos Bundle Member Test

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1 hour ago, DiscipleofPenick said:

Overall I really like having this on my clubs. It's working great (with the phone in pocket) and I'm not overwhelmed by the data. I actually find myself reviewing rounds at night on the couch. I still don't totally get strokes gained, but I think it's showing me about what I expected to see. It was a breeze to set up and once it's set up you don't need to do anything, just turn the app on and go play.

But I do have two issues with it

1. The link does not work well at all. I played the first 3 rounds with the link clipped to my belt. The first round wasn't bad, but the other two I had to input 20+ shots after each round. The last two rounds I played I left the link at home and had the phone in my pocket. I only had to adjust the distance on maybe a handful of putts.

2. The course display is almost impossible to see on a sunny day. Even with brightness turned all the way up on the phone, it's still so dark that if there's any sun I can't see anything on the screen. They need some sort of contrast to lighten this up.

Great stuff!  

With the Link, clip it to to your front pocket so the device is on the outside and the clip is inside your pocket.  I found the belt location isn't as reliable, especially if you are wearing a loose fitting shirt or outer layer that rubs against or covers the device.

[DiscipleofPenick]

4 hours ago, Golfspy_Lukes said:

Great stuff!  

With the Link, clip it to to your front pocket so the device is on the outside and the clip is inside your pocket.  I found the belt location isn't as reliable, especially if you are wearing a loose fitting shirt or outer layer that rubs against or covers the device.

Ok I'm playing Saturday so I will try that. And it's supposed to be in the upper 60s & sunny so I shouldn't need a pullover.

[DiscipleofPenick]

So I was playing Saturday and looking at my SG stats. My approach stats seemed to be off. Then I was looking and saw that it was counting a lot of punch outs as negative strokes gained. I wonder why this is? I don't know a ton about SG, but this seems odd. Does all it count is that my second shot hit the green or not? I mean I put my drive into the trees and have to play a positional shot because I can't go at the green. In reality, this isn't a bad approach shot, I am just blocked from the green because my drive was terrible. I mean, shouldn't this count against my driving stats? Or does SG only care how far I hit the ball? Arccos can't identify that I'm hitting a punch shot. All it knows is that I hit a 4 iron 120 yards when I was 170 yards from the green and records that as a lost stroke in the approach game. But the stroke was lost because of a wild drive. This seems backwards to me a bit. Does anyone have insights on how this works?

Also, the caddie recommendations are pretty bad right now. It'll tell me to hit a hybrid off the tee, but then show I need to hit that shot 255 yards. I don't hit this club that far, 230 tops is my distance. Or it will show me 3 options but all of them are the same club off the tee, but then a 7-8-9 iron depending on flag position. Also on a 440 yard par 4 it recommended I hit 3W, but then on a 320 yard par 4 it recommened driver. This also seems counterintuitive? I am hoping that I need to add more data before it really starts to work. Also, most of my rounds have been in cool weather and wind. I am hoping that this is also a negative short-term impact and as I use the system next season, it will show my true distances over the course of the summer.

[GolfSpy BOS]

5 hours ago, DiscipleofPenick said:

So I was playing Saturday and looking at my SG stats. My approach stats seemed to be off. Then I was looking and saw that it was counting a lot of punch outs as negative strokes gained. I wonder why this is? I don't know a ton about SG, but this seems odd. Does all it count is that my second shot hit the green or not? I mean I put my drive into the trees and have to play a positional shot because I can't go at the green. In reality, this isn't a bad approach shot, I am just blocked from the green because my drive was terrible. I mean, shouldn't this count against my driving stats? Or does SG only care how far I hit the ball? Arccos can't identify that I'm hitting a punch shot. All it knows is that I hit a 4 iron 120 yards when I was 170 yards from the green and records that as a lost stroke in the approach game. But the stroke was lost because of a wild drive. This seems backwards to me a bit. Does anyone have insights on how this works?

Also, the caddie recommendations are pretty bad right now. It'll tell me to hit a hybrid off the tee, but then show I need to hit that shot 255 yards. I don't hit this club that far, 230 tops is my distance. Or it will show me 3 options but all of them are the same club off the tee, but then a 7-8-9 iron depending on flag position. Also on a 440 yard par 4 it recommended I hit 3W, but then on a 320 yard par 4 it recommened driver. This also seems counterintuitive? I am hoping that I need to add more data before it really starts to work. Also, most of my rounds have been in cool weather and wind. I am hoping that this is also a negative short-term impact and as I use the system next season, it will show my true distances over the course of the summer.

My thoughts on SG:

I feel like it doesn’t penalize you enough on drives that end up blocked out of your approach, but Arccos can’t really tell if you’re behind a tree, so then your positional shot is over penalized as it would still expect you to get close to the green even though you’re blocked. It would be a nice future feature to include a “punch out” option to help even that out. 
 

and as for the Caddie:

Mine got way better with more shots in my history.  Sometimes I still don’t agree with it, but the distances don’t seem to be too far off. 

[DiscipleofPenick]

13 hours ago, GolfSpy_BOS said:

My thoughts on SG:

I feel like it doesn’t penalize you enough on drives that end up blocked out of your approach, but Arccos can’t really tell if you’re behind a tree, so then your positional shot is over penalized as it would still expect you to get close to the green even though you’re blocked. It would be a nice future feature to include a “punch out” option to help even that out. 
 

and as for the Caddie:

Mine got way better with more shots in my history.  Sometimes I still don’t agree with it, but the distances don’t seem to be too far off. 

Yes, I understand things will get better as I input more information. Also I was looking at the individual strokes gained for each club and the 5-6-7 iron are some of the best clubs in my bag, but the 4 is one of the worst. The 4 is also the club I use for 90% of my punch outs, so that would be why Arccos shows that it is a poor club for me, and my distance with the 4 is shorter than the 5 or 6 irons. 

Don't know if any ShotScope users are following along, but if so, do any of you know if SS has an option to mark shots as punch out or "positional" plays?

[ejgaudette]

1 hour ago, DiscipleofPenick said:

Yes, I understand things will get better as I input more information. Also I was looking at the individual strokes gained for each club and the 5-6-7 iron are some of the best clubs in my bag, but the 4 is one of the worst. The 4 is also the club I use for 90% of my punch outs, so that would be why Arccos shows that it is a poor club for me, and my distance with the 4 is shorter than the 5 or 6 irons. 

Don't know if any ShotScope users are following along, but if so, do any of you know if SS has an option to mark shots as punch out or "positional" plays?

Yes shot scope does have an option to do just that. You can mark a shot as positional so it does not affect the average distances. They do not have strokes gained for each club, but I would want it to ignore that as well. Though I still find the same thing when I make a second shot as positional I find my approach play is the weakest, but many times I feel it comes more from poor drives than my actual iron play. Or maybe I just don't want to believe my iron play is my weakest area.

[Ben_Howell34]

Used the Arccos system for the second time today. I did not post after the first time because I did not have my putter attachment. A few thoughts: 

 

I like the way the app is set up and it gives you 3 distances into the green (back, middle and front) as well as how it is playing with current wind and a recommended club. However, many times the recommended club would be one longer than I need, but I am thinking that is more a lack of data for me versus a system error thing. 
 

Both times I have used it, the Link portion of the system has not worked well at all. The first time, it missed about 80% of my approach shots. Yesterday, it would not stay connected to the app at all, so I had to use my phone. The phone actually did well and only missed one shot (a putt). I just saw here that clipping it on your pocket vs belt has worked better so I will try that next time. 
 

The SG aspect is really cool, but seemed to be off on putting and driving. I did not drive well at all directionally (I tend to hit it pretty far either way) and my irons might have been the best I’ve ever hit them and my SG were almost identical on both. It’s possible that the app cannot tell if my drive is the reason I could not get a good shot at the green. I also putted pretty well but my putting was the worst. Since the app doesn’t always know pin location, you do have to move the putts around sometimes so it knows how close (approximately) to the hole you were for your putt. 
 

Excited to try this out again and work the kinks out. It was definitely helpful that I knew the app from the first time I played, since you can’t really “practice” the app without playing a round. 

[GolfSpy_APH]

https://mygolfspy.com/arccos-adds-usga-handicap-integration/

Any of the testers see this or care to give your thoughts on this feature which is being added?

[GolfSpy BOS]

8 minutes ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

https://mygolfspy.com/arccos-adds-usga-handicap-integration/

Any of the testers see this or care to give your thoughts on this feature which is being added?

I saw this e-mail and thought that this would be cool.  Anything that can make it easier for folks to have an official handicap is great in my book.  And I say this as someone who only has an unofficial handicap   

 

[Ben_Howell34]

On 11/4/2022 at 9:13 AM, GolfSpy_APH said:

https://mygolfspy.com/arccos-adds-usga-handicap-integration/

Any of the testers see this or care to give your thoughts on this feature which is being added?

I saw that email as well. Seems to be a cool feature as I do have a GHIN handicap. From what I read, I am assuming that I would just enter the round into Arccos and it automatically adds to my handicap? 

[Ben_Howell34]

Used it again yesterday for a quick 9. Did not try the Link again as I did not really have time to fool with it. The phone worked fine, but it did miss a couple of drives, which after the fact can be a bit annoying, as you basically have to guess where you hit it from on the map (although it seems to get fairly close based on my other distances).  I also need to figure out how to work the putting portion better.

 

Overall with my 1st 3 rounds it’s been fun to use and cool to see the data. 

[edingc]

I find it really interesting that the Link is causing so many issues. Although I've moved on from Arccos I still am a member of the Facebook group and it seems very few people actually have success getting the Link to capture shots correctly.

I really did enjoy Arccos' analytics, but ShotScope is catching up quickly in that area.

[WaffleHouseTour]

Yeah I am surprised too. I have had nothing but success with the Link. I’ve had two - one fell off my rainsuit one day and despite a vigourus search between its last known location I just couldnt find it.  But I’d had such success with it I ordered a replacement before I was off the course.
 

I attached it to the bottom of my front left pocket so it’s never covered by a pullover or jacket, and it always in position to “hear” the strike signal.  Missed putts, sure. But never a missed strike that I can attribute to the link. Always missing an x club means it’s that sensors battery dying. 

[GolfSpy_APH]

I have never used the link, not really had the desire to. I always felt like using a older iphone for the sole purpose of arccos worked great. The experience is just so much better on IOS vs Android and the older iphone I have is slim enough that it is more than fine being in my pocket. 

[DiscipleofPenick]

Another thing I've thought about with the link - I'm not sure it's really even useful. I find myself taking the phone out of my pocket for each shot to get all the data, or recommendations for club selection, I need to have it in my pocket. I check the yardage from the tee, and then on approach shots, I laser the flag then see what the plays-like distance is reading and make my calculation off of that. I can see using the link in tournament play where I'm not allowed to use the full Arccos features, but still want to be able to do shot-tracking. Leave the phone in the bag so I'm not even tempted and just use my rangefinder like I have for years. 

Also the Caddy suggestions are incredibly conservative. I played a round and I planned to hit whatever Arccos recommended off the tee. Not once did it recommend driver. 430 yard par 4? Hit a 3-wood. 475 yard par 5? Hit your Hybrid. There were only the 5 holes I disagreed with it (two 400+ par 4s & 3 reachable par 5s). It was a short course with all the other par 4s in the 330-370 range, so hitting hybrid & long irons into the fairway wasn't the worst play, as they still left me in wedge distance. Never hitting driver seems to be the opposite of the SG approach though? After that experiment, I make note of the suggestion, but mostly ignore it. It is good to know what my backup club should be when I have a day that the driver isn't working.

[Ben_Howell34]

Used it again Friday, app worked fine, but I am about to give up on the Link. Had it being charged for days before my round, and it picked up the first shot and then disconnected and would not connect. And it’s too much to fool with when I’m playing with buddies. 
 

I may go play a cheap course one day by myself and just see if I can get it working or figure out the kinks. I just can’t bring myself to fiddle with my phone and the Link when I am playing with others. Thankfully the phone works just fine when in my pocket. Although I do have to adjust putts most holes. I see something for “footsteps” on putting but cannot figure out what that is. Will do more research. 

[Ben_Howell34]

Tried the link one more time, and it worked the best it has thus far for me. Missed a couple of drives but overall did well. Not sure what the difference was, but hopefully it sticks. 

[Karlan]

I have never had any problems with my link. Missed maybe a shot every 3 rounds, usually when its very windy or twilight. I have it attached to my left pocket so its not blocked by my sweater, windbreaker etc.

My 2 main negatives with the arccos is the subscription model, quite expensive. Getting accurate data on the exact length on the putts is also a grind. To get useful putting stats (and to some extent short and approach) one would have to at a minimum pace off every putt and write down the lengths.

[Nunfa0]

So I know you guys are on a little snow break but how is the quality of your Arccos sensors? Any build issues? Any batteries dying yet?

[Ben_Howell34]

I have used it I believe six times total. The sensors seem to be doing great. It is also fun to look at stats and where it is saying I could see the most improvement, which is one of my main focuses in testing. I do need to figure out a better way to get more accurate on the putting, as I think those stats are skewed.  The issues I have had with the Link are documented, but the last round I had only one missed shot, so I think the charge the night before inside may have fixed the issue. 

I have not been able to play in over a month due to weather/work. I am hoping to have some days in January where I might be able to play and just fool around with it, as it is somewhat tough to learn on the fly without staring at my phone during a round.