I've Finally Entered the Golf Sim World!

[mjbcfc]

Hello all,

I started my golf sim journey about 7/8 weeks ago by researching the available golf sim products at my disposal. Things didn't start too brightly; I emailed BoGolf for a quote and was hit with a high quote in the region of $25,000 USD (always worrying when a site doesn't advertise prices and only has a 'contact us for a quote' option haha). I feared that this would be the case and that a golf sim at home would only be possible with a lottery win however I thankfully found this forum and my eyes were open to all the options available to me.

From the information I gathered I of course started researching the P3Pro and Optishot as I'm sure all golf sim owners do and I was almost about to purchase the P3Pro when I decided against it. I realised that I'd be spending a lot of money on a projector, new laptop, hitting platform and impact screen so might as well purchase a more accurate system to justify the high cost of the setup, I was also put off by the tape at the bottom of the club and the poor reviews of the P3Pro management). This then led me down the road of the Protee and GGS systems, Protee seemed to be winning over the GGS PX5 system however once I spotted that Martin was developing the LX I was instantly sold.

As I'm sure you're all aware the LX is still in testing, I emailed Martin asking if the club camera add-on of the LX (LX2) was at least ready as it has a PayPal button next to it with a listed price. Alas it wasn't however he cleverly convinced me that a cheaper and more accurate alternative would be to purchase his 'Ccam plus' package then add-on the LX1 at a further date rather than purchase the LX1+LX2+full GSA software. At first I was sceptical that Martin was just trying to get my money (I regret feeling that way now after getting to know Martin via email these last few weeks). Thinking about it the Ccam was a win win scenario as it was slightly cheaper than the full LX package and software, it is out of view whilst the LX2 club camera would have to be looking at you next to your ball which I thought may be off putting (pardon the pun) and the main advantage was that the Ccam was ready now and was tried and tested.

I spent the last 2 weeks in May preparing my garage by setting up my screen (HQ raw impact screen from Cory at Par2Pro), projector, laptop, hitting platform and clearing out some of the crap in the garage that would be in the way. I then received my Ccam package last week and started to set everything up, I've still yet to setup the Halogen light fixture as I'm not too clued up when it comes to things electrical so waiting for my dad to sort it out.

Martin has been extremely good with support, I had a few problems with the setup which he walked me through via email (simple solutions such as driver updates, doh!), he even responded on Saturday and Sunday! My only gripe was that he sent out the system without the halogen light fixture (only included the track and the bulb), this isn't bad as he told me that it would have delayed the order by a few weeks waiting for the part so he waived the high shipping costs to the UK (an extra $300USD) and sent the system without the fixture. I don't mind any of that as I received the order much sooner and it worked out cheaper as I sourced the fixture over here for much less than what the extra cost of the shipping would have been, but my issue was the fact that he had neglected to inform me of this until I emailed him upon the delivery of the system.

At the moment the garage light above does an adequate job of lighting up the trigger sensor so I can at least swing and see what my club is doing but without the high concentrated halogen light the reflective dots on the top of the club are obviously not getting picked up sufficiently, still it is very satisfying to see my club head at impact (I knew I had an open face but the actual photographic evidence is quite shocking, I can see this really helping me and my slicey swing)!

First impressions though are extremely good, the fiberbuilt trigger mat is a joy to hit off and the courses look stunning on my 2.4m x 1.8m screen (7’10” x 5’11” to ya’ll across the pond I believe). I can imagine that using the Ccam as a standalone system might be annoying when it comes to topped shots or fat shots as I believe the system will interpret every shot as having the default LA set by the selected club however at least if the LX doesn’t see the light of day I can simply add the Vcam and Hcam to my system. Also, as stated, I’m mainly after game improvement so addressing my slicey swing is key which I believe the Ccam will greatly help.

Sorry for the long ramble however I’m very happy and excited to finally be part of the golf sim community that I had to share it with this wonderful forum. I’ll post my setup pics later when I get home and will hopefully write up a review of my experience with the Ccam system once it’s fully up and running if desired.

Mike.

[bubba22]

Congrats Mike. Keep us posted with the progress. Post some pics as well. So you are getting just the Ccam and will add the LX later?

[mjbcfc]

Yes bubba I'm using the Ccam as a standalone system, but as stated if for whatever reason the LX doesn't see production (everything though is looking good at the moment) then I can always purchase the Hcam and Vcam instead to at least offer more accurate ball flight.

I'm a bit concerned with side protection though for using real golf balls (which I believe the LX requires, sure you could adjust carry distance but doubt spin off the club would be same for foam ball as a real ball??). I'd like to think that I can hit a 2.4m x 1.8m screen from 2.5m away however despite playing for nearly 2 years now the shank is always possible which is quite a scary prospect in the confines of my garage haha. I did cut up my outdoor golf net and sew it into the hems of the screen around the side (I'll attach a picture when I get back home) however I haven't found an easy way to fasten the net yet so it just flops next to the screen pretty much making it redundant. Good thingabout the Ccam is that I can carry on with the foam balls until I sort the issue out.

Only pic I currently have is of the raised flooring I built, I followed Martin's guide on his site so just nailed a sheet of ply on to some horizontal and vertical timbers. The picture below shows the 2 layers of soft underlay also attached on the ply but I've also attached a layer of artifical grass on the underlay as well, overall it looks fine and feels nice to walk on. The trigger sensor mat then sits nicely in the cutout I made (which I cut several times before it fit snug) on top of 2 layers of underlay as I didn't fancy having the trigger sensor mat in direct contact with the conrete floor for obvious reasons.

2012-06-08 20.55.54.jpg

Pretty boring picture but a lot of love went into that, I'm no joiner so I'm quite proud of it haha.

[wbealsd]

Congrats!!

[mjbcfc]

Here's a few pics, first one shows the completed hitting platform with the trigger sensor whilst the second pic shows the view from the tee to the screen.
2012-06-11 17.52.41.jpg2012-06-11 17.53.26.jpg

Here is my sewing work (I sewed a golf net into the sides of the impact screen), I was proud of this at first however I'm rethinking its effectiveness.
2012-06-11 17.53.47.jpg

Finally a quick pic of the projected image onto the screen, have to say that I'm very impressed with the material purchased from Par2Pro as it was easy to work with and provides a really good picture.
2012-06-11 18.57.35.jpg

Still a few little kinks to work out with the setup though, as you can see in the picture the bungee cord in the right portion of the screen seems a little tight causing a ripple in the image. I also need to properly sort out the side protection however for now I'm more than happy, my dad will hopefully help fit the halogen light tonight so will be able to give the sim a good test soon

[mjbcfc]

Got everything setup now, to say the system needs a bit of tinkering is an understatement. Managed now though to get everything calibrated so that it's recognising all my shots and reducing number of mislaunches (I've altered the min club speed so that it only detects a proper shot rather than just addressing the ball, I've also had to reduce the shutter speed to about 1500 micro seconds because with anything over 2500 the camera picks up too much light from the ball and sometimes picks this up as the reflective dots of the club resulting in some crazy mis launches)!

Still not entirely happy with the distances though, as stated I'm high handicapper (mid/low 20's) but my 7 iron in the sim is only reaching about 110 whereas I normally see a distance of between 135-145. All the settings are correctly calibrated; I've even put a tape measure on the mat and measured the pixels over a 100mm distance to see if the scale ties in and it does, I've then applied this scale to ensure that the software reads the ball size as being 42.67mm as advised. Considering the data and the speed calcs are correct should mean that my resulting club head speed is correct however I have no idea what my swing speed in the real world is anyway so might need to check at a golf/pro shop who have the technology available to measure this. Either way does 55mph club head speed seem slow for a person who hits a 7 iron between 135-145 yards? I tried boosting the carry distances in the GSA software to tie in with my correct 7 iron distance however this then adversely pumps up my putting speed (as a note putting seems extremely accurate with the carry boost factor at default but other clubs as stated are way too short). I tried editing individual clubs within the GSA CP however the max boost within the CP doesn't seem enough, I might try later to increase the carry slightly in GSA then further increase all clubs in the CP except for the putter which I'll then reduce to what it was at default (I'm sure these boosts only increase/decrease smash factor so I'll just adjust the putting until the default smash factor is achieved).

As a side note just purchased some World of Golf foam balls and they are the best practice ball I've tried yet, thanks to bubba22 for mentioning them in his previous posts in other threads.

[bubba22]

Awesome mjbcfc. Keep us posted.

[syhlif32]

It often takes a few days to get the full swing speed when you start swinging the golf club indoors.

[wigalo]

[FONT=Tahoma]Got everything setup now, to say the system needs a bit of tinkering is an understatement...
Still not entirely happy with the distances though, as stated I'm high handicapper (mid/low 20's) but my 7 iron in the sim is only reaching about 110 whereas I normally see a distance of between 135-145. All the settings are correctly calibrated; I've even put a tape measure on the mat and measured the pixels over a 100mm distance to see if the scale ties in and it does, I've then applied this scale to ensure that the software reads the ball size as being 42.67mm as advised. Considering the data and the speed calcs are correct should mean that my resulting club head speed is correct however I have no idea what my swing speed in the real world is anyway so might need to check at a golf/pro shop who have the technology available to measure this. Either way does 55mph club head speed seem slow for a person who hits a 7 iron between 135-145 yards? I tried boosting the carry distances in the GSA software to tie in with my correct 7 iron distance however this then adversely pumps up my putting speed (as a note putting seems extremely accurate with the carry boost factor at default but other clubs as stated are way too short). I tried editing individual clubs within the GSA CP however the max boost within the CP doesn't seem enough, I might try later to increase the carry slightly in GSA then further increase all clubs in the CP except for the putter which I'll then reduce to what it was at default (I'm sure these boosts only increase/decrease smash factor so I'll just adjust the putting until the default smash factor is achieved).

I have the same exact problem with my modified cx5. (see my posts at the end of the GSA thread). I think my problems stem mostly from an error in how the vcam calcs ball speed, but my club speed is off too.

Funny thing is that I can't calc scale on the ccam page per instructions. The "measure brackets" won't show up around the ball so that I can adjust scale to 42.67mm. I have the bcam and they show there, but won't with the ccam. Instructions are easy enough so don't think I'm missing any steps. Was there a trick to it for you?

[mjbcfc]

@wigalo

I too noticed that no brackets show up around the ball whilst setting up the ccam scale, therefore as stated I decided to stick a tape measure on the mat and then scale it from there accordingly. This is possibly more accurate than the brackets around the ball anyway however it is a bit weird that the brackets don't show despite, as you say, they are shown in the setup instructions from Martin.

I'm also finding that the ball seems to overly slicing/hooking, as I've established my natural shot is a fade/slice however I do hit a lot of straight shots however the system seems to register every shot as a big slice. I've tried to counter this by over emphasising my release of the club head but this can then result in some crazy draws/hooks. As a note to counter act my slice in the past I've tried to draw the ball on the range and I've never been able toget even a slight draw let alone a hook therefore when sim is showing a hook or big draw when I try to and all my natural shots are slicing a lot with none going straight then it's making me think that there is something not right.

Another issue is that putting and chipping with just the Ccam is definitely not ideal at all (with no vcam chipping is not great). Don't like adjusting my stance too when putting (to avoid blocking the Ccam) and I was hoping you could setup the software for putting to show the actual distance from your tee to the virtual hole (like that amazing video of bubba putting on the Protee).

At this moment in time I regret to say that I'm not as happy as I thought I'd be, I guess I wasn't fully prepared for just how much tweaking is required and without knowing some of my vital stats (such as swing speed and exact yardage for each club in my bag) then I can't fully tweak it to fit my game.I'm also having trouble with my short game on the sim, can't seem to get the 'feel' for the shots within 80 yards (either come up 30 yards short or completely balloon it through the green).

I imagine that all this will get smoothed out and the accuracy vastly improved with the Vcam and Hcam (or LX, although I'm now second guessing the LXdue to the requirement for using real balls).

This seems negative however I'm still happy with the purchase and I'm sure I'll be more satisfied once I finish the tweaking. I can't wait though to upgrade the system and improve the accuracy, in the meantime I've got a few quick questions to fire at Martin (such as a possible putting view similar to Protee to take into account the distance from the mat to the screen to the hole, the lack of the measuring brackets for the ball in the Ccam setup and also a problem with my putting setup because when the camera is in putting mode the red lines signifying where the ball is being hit from is shifted further right than it is for normal shots and I can't seem to adjust it).

Another long rambling post by yours truly, I apologise haha.

[bubba22]

Vcam alone is not enough. Once you add the Vcam and Hcam it will be better.

[mjbcfc]

Well I decided to reset all my shot tweaking in the GSA Control Panel to default and just give my shots a boost within the GSA game software. This seems to be the best way and I'm very happy with the results as everything seems a lot more consitent and I've developed a very nice 'feel' for the short pitches, chips and even putting! This shot boost now seems to properly tie in with my real distance especially with the short half swing pitches (7, 8, 9 o'clock pitches). The putting has a very nice feel too however as stated it would be really beneifical to have the software take into account how far my ball is from the screen then show the hole distance accordingly.

I'm now extremely happy with the setup however further upgrades will definitely be purchased at some point when possible to further smooth out and improve the overall experience, I would like to be able to hit some nice flop shots, low punches, bump and runs near the green and I'd even like to see my topped shots trickling a few yards rather than booming down the fairway haha.

To clarify I'm now very happy and will hopefully write up a review in a month or two (I'll give it this long so that I can develop the most impartial review because as you can see my opinion keeps changing in these early days haha).

p.s. the courses are simply stunning, was hoping to have the Olympic Club so I could play along with the US Open but settled for last years venue (Congressional) and it was amazing!