GOLF TECH PRECISION
Dear HIW,
I’ve recently subscribed to your excellent magazine. I’ve been watching a lot of golf lately and I’m wondering if someone could explain how things like Trackman follow the flight of a golf ball after it’s been hit. It seems incredible that it can highlight the curve, height and distance for hitting something which is quite small. You may have featured this tech in a previous issue, but with the US Open and British Open still to be played this year, it would be nice to know how this magic happens.
Allan Bannerman
Thanks for getting in touch Allan, and welcome to HOW IT WORKS. Trackman is one of the most widely used monitors used to collect data during large golf tournaments. It uses two different radars to track the movement of both the golf clubs’ heads and the golf balls as they travel through the air. The direction and angle of a club’s swing is determined using 4,000 data points per 0.1 seconds. Doppler radar measures the speed of the club and the ball as it is launched into the air. As microwave signals are sent out from the Trackman device, which is placed around the player, the signals bounce off moving objects. This causes a change in signal frequency that is directly proportional to the speed of the moving object.
At 90 metres, Trackman can pinpoint the landing spot of a golf ball with an accuracy within 30 centimetres. Today’s Trackmans have ultra-high-frequency radars, allowing for the balls’ paths to be closely and accurately tracked. This radar is backed up by a HD video camera so that the movements can be synchronised.