Timing?

The other day there was a big demo-day at my local club.

While testing the latest Wilson irons (I like the Ci6 a LOT), i was offered a chance to try a wrist watch from a company named Suunto (model name was G6 Pro).

It was able to retrieve 4 pieces of information regarding my swing.

Total swing time from beginning of backswing to impact (avg. 1.34s for me)
Percentage of swing time spent on downswing (avg. appx. 28%)
Angle of top of backswing compared to address (avg. 160deg)
Swing speed at impact (avg. 73mph)

Although I was fairly disappointed with my clubhead speed, I was quite happy with the level of consistency of my swing.
I'm considering purchasing such a watch, but I'd love to hear whether you all think it is a worthwhile training aid or just another piece of gadget-hype??!!

__________________
//Mox
2007 bag:
Mizuno MX-500 460cc 10.5* Fujikura Tour Platform 26.3 stiff.
Wilson Deep Red strong 3w 13,5* and 5w 18* graphalloy fatshaft stiff
Cleveland HALO 3i hybrid 22* graphite regular
Mizuno MP-60e forged 5i-PW True Temper Dynamic gold R300 steel
Mizuno MP Black OX raw haze 50/6 GW, 54/9 SW, 58/10 LW
Odyssey White Steel 2-ball SRT putter
Titleist NXT Extreme

At 400 Dollars!!!
Nooooo Wayyy..way Too Expensive
Just Find Few Excercises To Work In You Swingspeed
Working In Strech You Body Will Help You A Lot

Well Iam waiting for it to hit ebay

It does double as a watch, you know

It also contains an electronic scorecard and statistics system to help you keep track of fairways hit, GIR and number of putts.

Also - I didn't think of it as a training device to improve swing speed (albeit I'm still shocked by how slow I swing), but more of a consistency thing.

I just bought one at ebay, so I'll get back to you all on the value.

i find that hard to believe that a watch can determin you club head speed. it can see you arm speed maybee. but there is shaft flexablitly and hove much lag you create and how well you release the club head, how long the shaft is, and way to many variable that you can't dertermine club head speed by the hands speed.

and just as vijays speed stick, club head speed doesn't always mean a powerful hit. some people release there club head too early and get 125mph but still can't hit 300yds. and there are people that get 115mph but hit 300 yds because they time it correctly and accerate through imnapct and use the proper lag and shaft flex to maximize power. so carfull at chasing club head speed.

and as far as the angle and the swing time and all that can be determined with a cSwing or other anylysizers for cheaper.

but that would be interesting to try, hope it works for you

I've had the G6 for some 10-11 weeks now, and I can honestly say that it's a great training aid.

I was a 30 handicap golfer when I got it, and play to 24.8 today (not saying that this couldn't have happened without the watch - but still worth a mention )

It does work though.

It's setup and calibrated through the PC and takes into consideration your arms length as well as the length of each of your clubs.

In practice mode, you start by telling the watch which club you're hitting, and then go ahead and hit some balls.

The watch then tells you - for each shot - your Tempo (the total time of your swing) - your Rhythm (the percentage of the total swing spent on the downswing) - the length of your backswing (in degrees of the circular arc that your hands move in) - and your clubhead speed.

I took it to my pro and he helped me do the final calibration using a launch monitor.

When properly calibrated, the deviation between the watch and the launch monitor was less than 2% for the woods and just about 1% for the irons.

The measurements of the watch was consistently lower than those of the launch monitor, and did not fluctuate very much.
By 'cheating' with the length of the irons registered in the watch, we would probably have been able to get very close to correct speeds, but I settled for having consistency and a deviation of less than 2%. After all, the feature will mainly be used with range balls which will likely cause larger deviation than the watch does.

The watch has 5 modes:

1) Time (well ... it's a watch - nothing too fancy there)

2) Game (Electronic Scorecard. Very simple and intuitive to use. Keeps track of fairways hit, greens in regulation, penalties, bunkers, sand saves, up and down, out of bounds, putts, score, standings (in matchplay mode) and stableford points (in stableford mode). It can keep track of up to 4 players' scores, and - if you enter the information on the course you're playing and the handicaps of the players - stableford points for all players. Did I mention that it was very easy to use? Well it is. Plus it saves a lot of time when adding up the scores.

3) Practice (as described above - keeps track of Tempo, Rhythm, Backswing and Clubhead speed for 100 shots per session - and keeps track of up to 20 sessions at a time before you have to dump data to the computer. Every shot can be tagged as a 'good' or 'bad' shot ... or not tagged, which can then be used back on the PC to locate your 'hot zone', the intervals where most shots turn out good. Then all that is left is to practice staying inside those intervals.)

4) Test (this is my favorite mode. You hit 10 shots with the same club. It gathers the same data as in Practice mode - Tempo, Rhythm, Backswing and Clubhead speed - but also calculates the deviation between the 10 shots. Since golf is a game of repetition, this mode is brilliant practice. Pick out your 'usual' approach club ... in my case that would be the 9 iron ... and hit EXACTLY the same shot 10 times. If you can do that with very little deviation, then you'll find it a lot easier to get your lenghts right on the course, and that will do wonders to your approach game!)

5) Memory. (Stores course and player information as well as stats and swing logs from Practice, Test and Game sessions for you to review on the spot - which makes data usable even without your PC).

Yeah ... I like it. I'd say it's well worth the money.

Add to all of the above features, that it has a large motivational quality as well. It's fun to go practice, and that'll lure you to the range more often. Once there, it gives you structured practice at the range, as opposed to just 'hitting balls'.

It's good stuff!

__________________
//Mox
2007 bag:
Mizuno MX-500 460cc 10.5* Fujikura Tour Platform 26.3 stiff.
Wilson Deep Red strong 3w 13,5* and 5w 18* graphalloy fatshaft stiff
Cleveland HALO 3i hybrid 22* graphite regular
Mizuno MP-60e forged 5i-PW True Temper Dynamic gold R300 steel
Mizuno MP Black OX raw haze 50/6 GW, 54/9 SW, 58/10 LW
Odyssey White Steel 2-ball SRT putter
Titleist NXT Extreme

Hi Mox

Just joined GTO and read your thread concerning the G6 Pro.
I would be interested to hear how you have used the watch in the last few months and if you have found the information useful in developing your swing.

I was very fortunate that my daughter bought me one as a present and I'm just getting to grips with it.

Have you used it with the guidance of a pro or have you used it on your own.

I am a 24 Hcp golfer but I am trying to improve my consistency of my swing. 4 recent Tests (10 swings each) with 7 iron resulted in consistency indexs 14.1, 16.2, 17.1 and 20.2.
Each test preceded a game and I achieved nett 64 with the best test 14.1 it also felt good.

Please reply as I am keen to exploit the potential offered by the watch.
Have you read the Tour Tempo book by Novosel.

Regards Beano

I've heard of clubfitters using the G6 to determine fitting needs (tempo, ss, and I'm sure you can extrapolate release point from the data).

I can't justify it right now (having bought a Vector Pro) but it seems like a sweet toy.

My opinion is that those watches are not just a gadget. They are very useful, especially if you use them correctly and draw data from better swings and better days so use as a benchmark.

Here is my acid test for any training aid or gadget. Are there any pros using it. Because with the kind of money these guys are playing for now, if it even remotely helps, them guys are all over it. I don't mean endorsement, I mean they use one. Example, heavy club, lot of pros using them, square groove, all over it, they determined they work. Face forward wedges, nada, just a gimick. Metal headed woods, they all gotem now, graphite shaft, dito. Watch them guys closely, if you hear or read about any of them using something and it is not connected to an endosement, it probably works.

The G6 Pro is used by one of the hardest working guys in golf - The Open champion: Padraig Harrington, along with Darren Clarke, Ian Poulter, Thomas Levet and Paul McGinley.

Apart from that, most of the Pros have access to Launch Monitors, which are of course more exact, but we - "the ordinary people" - can rarely afford such tools.

Hi Beano.

Yes - I'm still using the watch when practicing, and I'm still happy with it.

At the moment I'm working on my swing with my local pro - trying to get a more inside path to the ball, and I can use the watch to check if I'm on track. If my takeaway and backswing is "correct", I will be unable to rotate more than appx 155 degrees, but if I get it wrong, my hands and arms collapse and my backswing goes to 180 degrees (sometimes even more ).

I can also see a substantial increase in clubhead speed (but you can of course just look at how far the ball goes for that).


Apart from that, I of course use the consistency test - but due to the swing change, I'm not all that consistent at the moment. From a value point of view, I think the test-mode is the most important tool.

I usually go to the range - stretch and warm up - hit 10-15 balls with a 6 or 7 iron - take a 10 shot test - then hit maybe 100 balls contiously working on whatever change is on the agenda and using the practice mode - then take another 10 shot test, hoping to improve on the first.

I'm playing off 22.4 at the moment - not a big improvement over last year, but I've spent a lot of time working on my swing this year and getting back to level, and I'm definately hitting it a lot better and more consistent now than last year, scoring a lot better on average, despite not breaking my best score by much.

I still find a lot of motivational value in the G6. I still look forward to switching it on, every time I go practice. And after having it calibrated and tested on a launch monitor with fairly good results, I'm confident in the information it puts out.

Only thing that annoys me is the lame PC-software that just isn't up to modern standards. The data format is XML though, so with a bit of programming skills it should be easy to get more from the data. So easy, in fact, that I'm deeply dissapointed that Suunto haven't done a better job at it.

The same goes for the community site at SuuntoSports - a great idea, but poorly executed - and nobody uses it. A shame, really.

If only ...

I haven't looked into the "Tour Tempo" stuff - not books, CDs, tapes, beeping gadgets or anything. But I HAVE tried to calculate the Beats Per Minute of my swing and picking out tracks on my iPod to help with in practice. I found that insanely annoying. Perhaps I should just read the book.


In 54 "games" I have used 4619 shots. I wish I could say that it was an average of 85,53 shots for 18 holes, but sadly, some of those games were only 9 holes
I get up-and-down only 2% of the time (chipping and pitching sucks, but putting is the main culprit), 6% sandsaves (SUCK), 87 GIR (11% - thats only twice per round), 150 Fairways (26% - better than it feels at the moment ) and 1653 putts (averaging 2.04 per hole).
All that data is from the "History" mode.

Let us know how you get on - and be sure to ask if you have questions, even the stupid ones. I'll happily provide stupid answers.

__________________
//Mox
2007 bag:
Mizuno MX-500 460cc 10.5* Fujikura Tour Platform 26.3 stiff.
Wilson Deep Red strong 3w 13,5* and 5w 18* graphalloy fatshaft stiff
Cleveland HALO 3i hybrid 22* graphite regular
Mizuno MP-60e forged 5i-PW True Temper Dynamic gold R300 steel
Mizuno MP Black OX raw haze 50/6 GW, 54/9 SW, 58/10 LW
Odyssey White Steel 2-ball SRT putter
Titleist NXT Extreme

just got the G9 pro for a steel off ebay!
just need a power adaptor to charge it up then ill see what it can do!

The G6 Pro - or the G9?

The G6 is the swing measuring device, the G9 is the GPS thingy.