Golf Simulator Data For Beginners: Part 1 - The Most Important Metric

Golf simulators are exciting and provide an easy way to play golf conveniently without depending on weather. However, simulators also provide so much data that it can make a golfers head spin. Especially a new or beginner golfer who is just understanding the game. A seasoned golfer may not understand all of the data, but should be able to understand the basics. Utilizing a simulator to find your true carry distances for each club, or gaps, can provide an instant improvement in your golf game. The most important aspect when finding out your gaps is finding an average and not taking your longest. We want to track our outliers to create a dispersion so we can understand our misses better, but the average carry will give us a good baseline for our gaps. This is the hard part, as it is human nature to bloat our carry distances. To lower that score, you'll have to toss your ego aside and play off of your true averages. Be sure to test as needed so you are not relying on old data. If you aren't' sure if your distance is increasing or decreasing throughout your season, get in the habit of getting your gaps every 6 weeks. One final note. It is vital that you do not mix or compare simulator technology. Whatever you use, from a $200 iPhone launch monitor to the most advanced golf simulator technology by aboutGOLF, keep it consistent! Every launch monitor has different technology and algorithms to produce data that can be effected by multiple external variables. Don't worry too much about the actual comparison to indoor and outdoor data. It won't be so far off that you'll notice it outdoors. We aren't on Tour...