The premier event for EYL Boy’s golf, hosted by the Tulare High Schools and organized by Tulare Union HS coach Andre Martinez.
How important is launch monitor data?
All the pundits on Golf Channel and YouTube try to sell us on the idea that we can’t be a good golfer without data. You will never hit it long or straight unless you know your AoA (Angle of Attack) or your FTPR (Face to Path Ratio) or any other extreme data point. We see these magical orange boxes, and strange grey things with “Photovoltaics” and “Doppler Radar,” flashing lights, and buttons. Beep, blup, boink! And yes, scientific progress goes boink!
Dynamic loft, spin loft, and static loft, what do they mean? As a custom golf club fitter and lover of golf tech, we can pull the layers back on all of these terms and what they mean to the average golfer. My question is if you play a round of 18 and have to grind out an 89, do these mathematical formulae help or hurt? Your static loft on your Mavrik Max seven iron is 30 degrees; you flip your wrists before contact and add loft, creating an additional dynamic loft of two degrees. You now have 32 degrees of loft at the impact on a club that generates less spin than others so the ball flight is penetrating and doesn’t spin up, so very little spin loft added. Granted I am using round numbers to prove the point, how much did that information help?
The other side of this argument is this. That was on swing one, and the standard deviation could be something like 5 degrees either way, just on the dynamic loft. Now we add path and face angle and the deviations of those numbers. Unless you can consistently provide similar numbers with minimal deviation there is a very limited purpose for $20,000+ launch monitors. Personal Launch Monitors are a different category and may serve a purpose with drills and training; the same for data-driven tech like Arccos. Data is not intrinsically bad.
I do club fittings here at the golf course, and our Professional Instructors teach on the driving range. We have no plastic mats to hide mistakes, and no net to hit into, just blue sky and green grass in front of you. If I hand you a seven iron custom built for you, you can watch the ball flight and how it lands on the range. If you doubt it’s better than your current club, we can go out to a known distance and hit into an actual green. I have taken a customer to the 150-yard marker on our tenth hole and pulled out the laser rangefinder to test all kinds of products. You hit three balls from 158 yards out, back pin today, with your club and 2 are short. I hand you the latest and greatest custom fit super duper seven iron, and you put two on and one close. Does it matter to you that one iron had 600 more rpm or that the new iron launches 1.5 degrees higher?
The same situation with the new golf ball, you can argue all day that the Titleist Pro V1 is the best ball ever, and it is #1 in golf, but maybe you should be playing the Mizuno RB Tour or the Srixon Z Star. It could be that you are a Pro V1 player not a V1X player. Let’s find a good wedge distance and test 5 of each on the green you play on. Maybe you are correct and the Pro V series is #1 because of performance, not the billion-dollar marketing budget. Perhaps Tiger Woods is right and Bridgestone is the best ball in golf, then again maybe you need to play a ball that suits your price point and feel, and stop worrying about what Tiger, Phil, or DJ play.
I am a tech-head, and I love gadgets, we do have a SkyTrak Launch Monitor at the course because data does have value. In my opinion, though, after I stopped using Arccos and SkyTrak to “fix” my golf game, it became more enjoyable and magically when its more fun you improve. In summation, if your instructor or club fitter can’t help you without a launch monitor, maybe they don’t understand the game as much as they should.
The Value of Golf
With the holidays upon us and the New Year right around the corner, everyone I know is counting the money we have for the small things in life. As biased as I am about golf, even I have to freely admit that golf is a luxury, not a necessity. My only qualifier to that idea is this, so is every other sport.
When I talk to parents about getting their kids into sports, I’m told that golf is far too expensive. Of course, I would never tell anyone how to spend money, or where the value of their money is; however, facts are facts, and golf is no more expensive than the major sports played in Tulare County.
We have an amazing baseball/softball community, and soccer is almost as popular as football, but we could never argue these sports are less expensive than golf. With the average Easton baseball bat priced at $300 and a fielder’s mitt averaging $150, how can we argue about price?
Football is easily several hundred for our kids in a year, and soccer is the same. That is unless you become competitive and travel. Travel teams are one of the best ways to test our children’s abilities against the best possible competition and explain why Tulare County constantly sends teams to the national stage in multiple sports.
Travel teams are also a major expense to families and have created a perpetual need to fundraise. Entry fees, lodging, food, and the other costs involved in entering a weekend-long tournament can stop an athlete from competing before they start.
What does all of this have to do with GOLF! With golf specifically, nothing. With the argument that golf is too expensive, everything!
For less than the price of a premium bat, you can get a full set of youth clubs; for less than the price of a midrange fielders mitt, you can outfit your child in the latest golf apparel. If you are not in Tulare where we don’t charge anyone younger than High School age for range balls during the day, there are still plenty of programs for your child to learn to love golf.
Youth On Course is a program for kids between the ages of 6-18 years old and allows members to pay $5 or less to play golf on 1,200 courses all over the United States. For more information on this program, please visit www.youthoncourse.com. We at Tulare Golf Course not only fully support their mission to grow the game, but we are also a Youth On Course member.
We have small leagues locally that can give your child a real competitive environment to grow in. Unfortunately, Tulare Golf Course hasn’t found the right person to help lead a youth team for this league. You can contact Steve Maaske at Exeter Golf Course for more information.
For less than $500 annually, your child can play golf, a sport they will be able to play for the rest of their lives. If they grow to love the game, the opportunities for scholarships are less impacted then the other sports I’ve mentioned, which could be considered a return on your investment. I don’t recommend any athletics be geared as the only way to make it to higher education, it steals the fun out of the sport, but it is a nice potential side benefit.
Golf is also one of the only sports where Grandpa, Grandma, parents, and children can all play on the same field at the same time. You don’t have to yell from the sidelines when you are right next to your child, supporting them, and showing them the values of being a good sport, and the importance of integrity.
The value of family playing together and spending time together is greater than any other thing golf can offer, and hopefully, when you are a grandparent, we can host you and your grandchild for a round of golf.
Play, Sponsor or volunteer by clicking on the register button!
• 7:30 AM Check-in 8:30 AM Sharp Shotgun
• Tulare Golf Course 5300 Laspina Street, Tulare, CA, 93274
• Cost $100.00 per player
• Hole Sponsors are welcome at only $100
• Four-person scramble
• Golf, cart, and lunch
• Award reception immediately after
• 1st, 2nd, 3rd Place Team Awards
• Cash prize for first place
• Men’s/Women’s Longest drive
• Men’s/Women’s Longest Drive over 65
• Putting Contest
Money raised will be kept and used here locally to support our valley’s Heroes. NO MONEY WILL LEAVE THE VALLEY For more more information about A Combat Veteran’s Hope go to www.acombatveteranshope.org
Cash Prizes!
Winning Teams 1st $500 / 2nd $400 / $300 – Closest to the Pin $50
Vegas Hole / Longest Drive (men and women) / Hole-in-One (sponsored by Ed Dena)
All Players receive a T-Shirt and Goody Bag
Check-In: 10:30 a.m. Shotgun Start: 12:30 p.m.
When: 10/13/2019
Where: Tulare Golf Course
Time: 12 Noon Shotgun Start
Format: 4 Person Scramble
Cost: $125.00 per Player (includes green fee, mulligans, cart, range balls & meal)
Four Person Scramble $400/Team
Includes: Green Fees, Cart, Lunch & Gift Bag
Mulligans $5.00
Player Registration 11:00 A.M.
Shotgun Start 12:30 A.M.
Proceeds Benefit Programs of the Tulare Police and Fire Foundations
We have all fallen victim to the winter blues. Wet, cold, foggy conditions in Tulare County stop most of us from coming out and playing, nevermind taking time to practice on the range. As the days get shorter it may be more difficult to come hit a bucket after work, or spend just a little bit of time on the putting green figuring out why you keep missing those three footers.
The internet is filled with all manner of gadgets to help you keep up with you swing at home. Nets, simulators, foam balls, things with strings and VR coarses all to help you keep things dialed in. All the gadgets in the world will never duplicate the beauty of mother nature and hitting a ball of grass; then watching it climb through the air, turning ever so slightly as it begins to descend.
We have added lights to our range in an effort to help extend our range season, and hopefully keep the rust off through this winter. We can’t stop the rain, and the Tule fog will always roll in, but maybe we can stop your handicaps’ annual climb back up. The lights will be on starting at dusk and stay on at least until 9 during the fall. We haven’t experienced a cold winter with the lights yet, so we will have to work that out as time goes by.
Have you ever hit at night on a lit driving range, or do you plan on visiting us and trying it out?