At Monday and Tuesday practice rounds on the PGA Tour, it’s almost odd at this point to see a player without some sort of launch monitor device being carried around to measure every shot.
On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped, Trackman’s Harry Shih explained what numbers pros and their caddies are actually focusing on when they are on the course using a launch monitor.
Shih said he walks every Tuesday practice round with Xander Schuaffele to help record data from all of his shots.
“It’s really carry and then spin rate are the two things that we’re looking at,” Shih said. “Especially for a guy like Xander, who’s pretty low maintenance when it comes to change.”
That’s not only useful to Schauffele but perhaps more useful to his caddie, Austin Kaiser.
“For Kaiser, he wants to be able to refine his judgment of wind, what he tells Xander in the practice round, ‘Hey, I think it’s a 180 ball,’ and if it actually goes 175, then he knows maybe if his 5-yard calculation was right,” Shih said. “But then also just seeing just maybe some different things out on the golf course, spin rates, how it’s coming out of a first cut lie versus a fairway lie, ball speed differences, spin rate differences.”
Schauffele isn’t one to change equipment much, but when he does, that’s where Shih will let Kellen Watson and the rest of the Callaway team take over.
That work is also primarily done on the driving range and they are looking at things like peak height and gapping. When they are out on the golf course, the work is more about hitting shots and being able to trust numbers.
“Is it performing the same way on the golf course as it was on the range?” Shih said. “Can we take a little bit off of it? Can we hit it a little bit higher? Things like that. But it’s really, hey, is spin rate and carry where we need it for maybe that week.”
For more from Shih and Fully Equipped co-hosts Johnny Wunder and Jake Morrow, listen to the full episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped here, or watch it below.
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