In most places in the world it’s getting colder, so most golfers are headed indoors to practice. But don’t fret, there are still ways to get better and practice effectively! As we all know, practice without feedback can be difficult even for the most experienced players. However, I am here to show you a way you can kill two birds with one stone.

By now, most golfers know a teacher or fitter in their area who has a Trackman for teaching and/or fitting purposes. I would highly suggest you contact them to see if they will “rent” you an hour or two per week so you can practice with the unit. In this article, I want to show you how to practice with Trackman so you can work on things just like you would on the range in the middle of your golf season.

Trackman has more than 26 data parameters, but I want you to focus on a few simple ones during your practice sessions:

• Low Point: The club’s lowest point in the swing arc.
• Club Path: The direction of your swing (AoA + swing direction).
• Face Angle: The direction of the face at impact.
• Club Speed: The speed of the club at impact.
• Smash Factor: The correlation of club speed to the resulting ball speed.
• Dynamic Loft: The loft you deliver at impact.
• Carry: How far the ball carries in the air.
• Height: The apex of your ball’s flight.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the parameters.

Low Point

Your low point is mainly influenced by the pivot of your body, so if your pivot is faulty then your low point will be inconsistent, causing you to hit fat and thin shots. This is never more apparent than when you’re hitting short pitch shots. Therefore, my favorite way to work on my short game indoors is to hit 20-50 yard shots while auditing my low point. At this stage, I’m not looking for any specific number — I just want to make sure I have a very consistent range of where my club “bottoms out” after the golf ball. I never want to see my low point changing significantly from swing to swing; if so, I have some work to do.

Club Path

The path of the club is created by two factors: Angle of Attack (AoA) and swing direction. For our purposes, it is only necessary to monitor the path of your club through impact. I want you to hit 7-irons and look for two things:

1. Is the path of your club moving in the direction you “feel” it is moving?
2. If so, to what degree is it moving in that direction?

I first want you to make sure your path is going in the direction you want it to, because “feel is (often) not real.” If your path is moving in the wrong direction, that’s the first thing we need to fix.

Now let’s assume we ARE swinging in the direction desired. What is the range? It is impossible to swing “X” degrees in-to-out or vice versa every single time, so let’s instead find a 3-degree numerical range we can consistently swing the club. Based on your desired curvature amount, this range can be 1-3, 4-7, 7-10 etc., but 3 degrees would be my suggestion for the masses.

Remember that a path that moves in-to-out on Trackman will be a positive (+) number, while a path that moves out-to-in will be a negative (-) number.

Face Angle

One of the most misunderstood factors in golf is that the face angle at impact (mostly) controls the ball’s initial starting direction. Thus, the ability to get the club face in the correct position at impact is crucial for you to start the ball where you would like it to start.

What I like to do is put a range bucket directly between the ball and the target, and hit a few shots to the right and left of the bucket noting the face angle on Trackman. Then I do the same thing while moving the bucket a little right and a little left of my target. With this drill, I am educating my hands to produce specific starting directions without actively thinking about it. And this is the key to being able to start the ball where you want each time under pressure.

Club head speed

The first way to develop swing speed is simple; learn how to swing the club faster without compromising impact quality. But what is the second way to develop club head speed?

You need to “find” the speed that gives you maximum distance, control, and impact quality. Sometimes this is faster than what you’re used to, other times it can be just the opposite. Everyone has their own speed; think Nick Price versus Payne Stewart. They had different swing speeds, but they were both great players and ball strikers in their own right.

Smash Factor

The quality of your impact is shown with smash factor on Trackman, as it pertains to input versus output. In a perfect world, you would like to transfer maximum energy from the speed of the club head into the ball, which becomes “ball speed.” The better the quality of impact, the more ball speed you will gain with all things being equal. Once again, it’s not about a specific number, but gaining a consistent range of smash factors based on your level. Yes, you can obtain a higher smash factor and hit awful shots, so take smash with a grain of salt. You are striving to hit solid, quality shots with a higher smash factor than you are used to having — that’s the key for this data parameter.

Dynamic Loft

Everyone knows that you can deliver too much loft at impact, but few recognize that you can deliver too little loft at impact as well. Your loft at delivery is one of the biggest keys to controlling your launch angle. With too little loft, you won’t carry the ball as far or be able to hold greens. With too much loft, shots won’t carry far enough and won’t react properly when they land. As you watch your shots fly on the simulator, you can see where they land and how much they chase out per the club used. We want the ball to carry as far as possible and land softly with irons, but with the driver we’d like to carry the ball a fair distance and have it run out when landing. So use your dynamic loft number to control carry and landing angle and you’ll learn to hit more effective shots.

Carry

Try to carry your shots as far as possible with your irons so they will land softly, but remember your driver carry should be optimized for course conditions. If you play soft and wet courses, I would suggest you try carry the ball as far as possible. If the conditions are firmer, you can work on a lower trajectory so the ball lands a touch flatter and runs out more. Experiment with your carry on Trackman and you will see what I mean as it pertains to total distance.

Height 

The average height of a golf shot on the LPGA Tour is 75 feet in the air, while on the PGA Tour it’s 95 feet. People have NO idea just how high this is! Most players hit the ball too flat and this compromises distance in the end. Take your time to play around with your height on Trackman and you will see that you probably need to hit it higher than you think in order to get greater distance with softer landings.

Secondly, hit super low and super high golf shots to see how distance changes when you are playing in windy or windless conditions so you can access tight pins. If you cannot alter your trajectory, the game becomes very difficult.

I hope by now you have seen that Trackman can be a very effective learning tool — it can be a full-service practice tool for you all winter if you use it properly. Good luck, practice hard and stay warm!