Golf swing radar

Has anyone tried this ?
http://www.swingspeedradar.com/swingspeedradar.html

It is about $100 and wondering how accurate is it?

This part has me concerned

Ball speed will be measured accurately for balls passing directly over the Radar at launch angles of about 12 degrees or less. Ball speed measurements at higher launch angles, or off line in horizontal azimuth angles, are reduced due to the cosine effect of the ball trajectory and Radar vector.

If only measures 12 or under,what good is it, For the average golfer who needs more then 12* ,how can this tool be of any good?

Or did I misinterpret it?

It suppose to calculate club head speed by radar when it passes by, not the ball speed....

I will tell you a little story about this device. Last March, we were asked to review it for everybody and they sent a device. It was only measuring about every fourth swing, so we contacted the company and they sent another one out and we returned that one. The replacement did not work either. In fact the replacement worked less and when it did, the numbers were way off. We contacted the company again and they said once again to return this one and they would send another out for testing.

To this day, we have never heard from them again.

That pretty much sums it up for me, JB.

nicedivot said:

Has anyone tried this ?
http://www.swingspeedradar.com/swingspeedradar.html

It is about $100 and wondering how accurate is it?

Click to expand...

I have the one with the swing-tempo timer. I do not know how accurate the readings are. The readings do seem to be quite precise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision

BigLeftyinAZ said:

This part has me concerned

Ball speed will be measured accurately for balls passing directly over the Radar at launch angles of about 12 degrees or less. Ball speed measurements at higher launch angles, or off line in horizontal azimuth angles, are reduced due to the cosine effect of the ball trajectory and Radar vector.

If only measures 12 or under,what good is it, For the average golfer who needs more then 12* ,how can this tool be of any good?

Or did I misinterpret it?

Click to expand...

I interpret it as 0.02 (2%) being considered an acceptable error (cos(12*)=0.98=98%), and larger errors being deemed unacceptable. The 2% was probably chosen somewhat conveniently and arbitrarily.

alpha.Cos(alpha)
0*....1.000
2*....0.999
4*....0.998
6*....0.995
8*....0.990
10*...0.985
12*...0.978
14*...0.970
16*...0.961
18*...0.951
20*...0.940

And that concludes my celebration of Pi Day. :banana:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day

The above has me somewhat worried about the measurement of clubhead speed, where club-path errors are a real possibility. In addition, I have seen statements that the measured clubhead speed is higher when hitting balls than it is swinging without a ball. Is this because the golfer gives it a little extra, or does the unit pick up some of the ballspeed!? :confused2: I don't have an answer: It is a black box to me! + I have never used this while actually hitting balls, only for indoor swings.

nicedivot said:

It suppose to calculate club head speed by radar when it passes by, not the ball speed....

Click to expand...

They are trying to sell a second one to each customer: One set up for measuring clubhead speed, one for measuring ballspeed.

JB said:

I will tell you a little story about this device. Last March, we were asked to review it for everybody and they sent a device. It was only measuring about every fourth swing, so we contacted the company and they sent another one out and we returned that one. The replacement did not work either. In fact the replacement worked less and when it did, the numbers were way off. We contacted the company again and they said once again to return this one and they would send another out for testing.

To this day, we have never heard from them again.

Click to expand...

I use it for clubhead speed measurement only, and without a golf ball. Sometimes it seems to take a few tries to set up its position correctly, but once it is set up in the right spot, mine hasn't failed me.

================================================

I do not trust the product for accurate measurement of clubhead speed. I use it as a training aid, for feedback during practice.

Some things I learned by using it:

My tempo and swingspeed can be very consistent.
A hard swing might give less clubhead speed than a smooth swing.
A little extra effort through the impact zone increases clubhead speed.
A longer backswing does not necessarily equal higher clubhead speed.

I consider all of the above useful info when tinkering around with the swing. Do I think the unit is worth the $$$? I have no strong feelings about that. I don't regret buying the unit, but if it breaks I probably won't replace it.

Targeting accurate hits is very hard. One can do that with a proper practice or join clubs for the training. To get a perfect shot we should build the game with many things. It takes time and hard practice to get a designed result.

I have the "swing speed only" version. I normally use it at home when I am practicing my swing in my backyard using my "wiffle" balls. I am well aware of the fact that the unit does not record ball speed, and that is fine with me. The problem that I was having with hitting "wiffle" balls was that I had no idea how fast I was swinging since there is very little sense of distance that can be seen and felt when you hit one of those balls.

Best I can tell, the unit is fairly accurate; especially when used with their little chart that is supposed to help translate your club speed to distance. I know this because I have used it at my local driving range and the numbers all match somewhat closely between the "expected" and "actual" yardages.

When used, you will want to pay close attention to the manufacturer's instructions as to correct placement and use as they do affect accuracy of the numbers somewhat.

As for reliability, I can honestly say that I haven't had a lick of trouble with it since I bought it.

Hope this helps.