Another Sample Trackman Reading - Version 2.0

Another sample Trackman, this time with Manzella Academy instructor Kevin Shields.



The numbers:

91.2 mph clubhead speed
55.7 Vertical Swing Plane
-3.0 attack angle
-0.5 clubface angle

Kevin is one of the better non-touring professionals in the country and as you can see, he controls the clubface pretty well. He comes down on the turned shoulder plane with a 6-iron and thus his VSP is 55.7 degrees. If he wanted to move to the elbow plane, he would probably have to get in the area of 45-50 degrees.

With his clubface almost dead square (-0.5*), he's got a shot at hitting this dead straight at the target with a flush strike. His attack ange is -3.0*, so he will need a Horizontal Swing Plane of about -1.5 (left) or will need to 'release/swing left' by about -1.5* to hit it dead straight.

-4.4* Horizontal Swing plane
-2.4* Club Path

Kevin's HSP is actually -4.4* instead of -1.5*. This means his clubpath is going -2.4* left.

So, we get a face of -0.5* and a path of -2.4*, the ball should start slightly left and fade slightly back towards the target.

1.36 Smash Factor

Smash Factor = Ball Speed / Clubhead Speed.

The higher the smash factor, the more 'flush' the golfer struck the ball. The PGA Tour average with a 6-iron is 1.38. Kevin is at 1.36 which is still very good but maybe an indication he didn't quite catch it all.

-0.9 Horizontal Launch

As you can see by the ball flight as well as we predicted from reading the numbers, the ball started out slightly to the left.

0.0 Spin Axis

Ball had 'straight' spin. The numbers tell us that it should fade. According to Kevin, he caught this very slightly off the toe. Since the ball should've had fade spin and the smash factor was slightly less than optimal, it makes perfect sense that Kevin caught this slightly off the toe.

This is one of the beauties of Trackman as Brian Manzella pointed out on his 'interview' on his Web site (www.brianmanzella.com). It's very easy to mis-hit a shot and have even a slight mis-hit. This can fool the golfer into thinking some things that are actually not true.







3JACK