In the last posting, I discussed the shocking revelation I had today that what I thought was square was still not square, just not as open.
So what happened when I discovered this?
Well, the first thing was that I switched over the MCS Classic Golf Swing setup and began to swing that way to see how things would change with the new shoulder focus and setup, because this model is old hat to me.
I set up to the ball and began to let it rip, and yes, things changed instantly as you would expect, with the fixed shoulder angle.
Where before I was pulling the ball far left on my hardest and fastest swings, I was now basically down the line and even missing right instead of the left pull:
I felt such a difference in the setup and swing action with the shoulder alignment change, and the leverage felt even more effortless, because now I was just pivoting back and leveraging down without impacting the ball with open shoulders.
So, I got the highest ball and club speeds right at the end of the session when I should have been out of steam, and this was a 75 minute session instead of the usual 60.
Right now, I’m putting everything on hold to just hit balls with the adjusted setup using the MCS Classic Golf Swing model, because I’ve never felt this good swinging a club and I want to ingrain this feel to make sure I never lose that squared shoulder position again.
Launch Monitor Madness
Now, it’s time to discuss something about this launch monitor – I have no reason to distrust the speed numbers (most launch monitors are usually within a couple of mph of each others during testing) but the Launch Angle and spin numbers, I know are definitely off.
What’s my proof?
Have a gander below at this:
That’s correct – on a lower than usual shot trajectory, I may have even topped the ball because it struck the screen less than a foot high up – the launch monitor says I launched the ball on a 13 degree angle (no way it was 13) and that I got 6 yards of carry with 2.8 yards run out.
That is just goofy – there’s no way I launched that ball at 13 degrees, which would have taken hitting it off the crown or with a solid contact with a positive degree Attack Angle of around 7, but I saw where the ball impacted the screen – it was a topper.
And to say that it flew 6 yards and ran 3 – everyone knows that a topped shot runs far longer than it flies, so nothing about this data makes any sense.
And here’s the kicker – I shook my head and grabbed my phone to get a picture of that data, and my very next two shots were this:
Not just two later drives – these were the very next two drives, and notice that the Launch Angles are 1 degree different from the 8.8 yard drive – one a degree lower, the other a degree higher, but look at the back spin numbers and the carry and run – nothing makes sense.
This launch monitor is not reliable enough to do serious research with, because the faster the club and ball speed, the more the numbers break down, much like the laws of physics within the event horizon of a back hole.
The spin numbers are off, and I know now that the Launch Angle numbers are unreliable. In fact, on a swing near the end where I felt absolutely perfect on that swing as far as contact and launch angle, just pured that ball off the tee, this is what I got:
Sweet, Fancy Moses…
That’s right – I’m to believe that I produced an 18 degree launch angle with a 6 degree lofted driver, and that even if it were possible to impact a ball with 12 degrees of positive Attack Angle, that this would have produced over 4,100 rpm of back spin when we know that positive Attack Angle reduces back spin and negative increases it.
And of course, the distance numbers are insane – I’ve hit my 4 iron 260 yards, get out of here with 267 carry on 128 mph club speed.
Not in a million years and in no universe we know could you get these numbers legitimately, and like I said, I absolutely loved this drive off the club face – and with a SMASH of 1.475, you know that ball was pretty near to dead center sweet spot, which was why it felt so nice off the face.
With a 6 degree driver swinging the way I do with a positive Attack Angle of around 5-6 degrees, I should be getting a Launch Angle of 11-12 degrees, which I do most of the time – but when the Launch Angle is what I expect, the back spin numbers go off the charts the higher my club and ball speeds.
So my supposition stands – the higher the club and ball speed, the less reliable all of the other data is. This monitor is built to track up to 115 mph club speeds and ball speeds up to around 165 mph I’d say, and any higher than that, things go haywire with the algo.
In this regard, I’ll have to just use the facility to work on my club and ball speed and hopefully the sidespin numbers are accurate enough to give me a decent idea of how straight I’m hitting it.
But today was spectacular just on my shoulder alignment discovery alone, with the added amusement that this launch monitor was giving me on my numbers.
So I’ll take some sessions to settle down the feel of the new and actually squared setup, and I’ll update on anything significant that arises, but I can no longer really say that I’m getting accurate feedback on my swing.
It’s a shame, but it just gives me a couple of months to rejig my setup and swing and hopefully get the Post-Modern model working once I’m in a better setup and feeling natural about it.
Once I’m there, I’ll likely start to record and post some swing clips.
More to come.
PS – It has just occurred to me that the machine could be adding back spin to higher angled drives than say 9 or 10 degrees because that’s the top range expected from people using the facility.
So, if the machine algo is adding spin to my drives with any Launch Angle higher than single digits (because a higher loft immediately increases back spin all else equal, so I must be using an 11 or 12 degree lofted driver), it’s a cascading effect where the algo then calculates even higher back spin with higher ball and club speeds.
And there you get the ballooning ball effect where I’m apparently getting 267 yards of carry on a 128 mph club speed.
It’s a mad world.
WAX Golf 