Well it just got better and a whole lot easier. So many people ask me what the benefits of going on Trackman are and I have to say its a hard question to answer as the benefits are numerous.
Effectively I have seen, been around and worked with Trackman since 2005 and coaching on the different Tours since 1992 I really get to see a lot of new products when they are at a testing and research/development stage. The benefit of this is two fold as in reality I have seen the product “first hand” and not just someones review of it, and secondly, I have watched the World’s best players test these products and listened to their real responses, especially back to the Tour vans and club specialists.
In my opinion Trackman is probably the single biggest development step in golf teaching in my lifetime, and it is beyond question the most accurate (and incidentally the only one I and many of the top players really trust). Ultimately what this unit can’t tell you is not worth knowing and some teachers out there debate and say that if you are not having a lesson on a Trackman and having an expert interpret your data (Many amateurs try and interpret data alone), then some think its not a real lesson at all.
So where has Trackman helped me? Well again its a two fold answer. Firstly it has gone a long way to backing up my teaching theories. The theories that I have learned, known and seen first hand since 1992. It is great to have the information to confirm what I can see with my very own eyes. The numbers so often match the words used in previous lessons and this gives people huge confidence in what you are teaching is quantifiable.
Secondly it is not an opinion. For many years I disagreed with my own PGA about their ball flight laws and the fact that on Tour the Tour Pro’s did not really subscribe to what most PGA Professionals were then teaching. On Tour we had already seen what was proven to be correct and more importantly to me what I was already teaching that. Top Tour specialists with world class information like Ian Clarke (Srixon Tour fitter pictured below) / Iain Steele (Cleveland/Srixon Tour player liaison) and Peter Harrison (cleveland Tour) and Gene Fulton had been already telling me for some time about their swing, club and ball data in even more detail so in essence Trackman really made a lot of sense to me back then.
Eventually I stopped justifying it and just carried on teaching what I knew deep down (to me) was correct as opposed to what I was hearing time and time again from many others. Trackman has now changed all that of course and even had our own organisation (The PGA) and so many other teachers reassess their ideas and what they had thought and coached for many years.
So in many respects I often look back and think of Trackman as being more than just a unit, and actually a very good friend!