How To Practice With The Trackman iO

Most golfers are familiar with the default range mode in the Trackman software suite. You’ll get simulated ball flight and a rich amount of data on your clubhead delivery and ball flight.

The range is a great place to initiate your practice session and start dialing in your numbers.

One of Trackman's strengths is that you can customize your view and focus on the metrics that matter. For example, you might be working on your club path with your irons or angle of attack with your driver. You can easily display those metrics and hide others that might not be relevant to you.

While most other launch monitor companies can offer a practice range environment, we believe Trackman’s advantage is its wide range of environments based on the style of practice you are looking to use.

Additionally, you can increase the difficulty of the landing area to accommodate your skill level or increase the challenge. For example, you could create a green with water on the front and a back right pin location to help match a scenario you might face on your home course.

If that’s not enough, you can move your golf ball just about anywhere, whether you want to create a wedge shot over water or hit your drive with the pressure of obstacles on one side of the hole.

Pro tip: Try to randomize your targets so you don't repeatedly hit the same shot. This will heighten your awareness and force you to adjust to a new target mentally.

Similar to Target Practice, the Performance Center allows you to customize the types of shots you are hitting and targets. But you’ll receive more feedback on the quality of your shots.

You can randomize wedge shots, work on stock yardages, and choose from different green layouts.

Arguably, the best feature is the strokes-gained feedback on every shot. If you are not familiar with strokes gained, it’s a way to assign a value to each shot you hit relative to other golfers.

For example, if you hit your 7-iron on the green 60 feet away versus 10 feet away - you know the second shot is much better. But traditional statistics like Greens In Regulation can’t add that level of detail.

So, while practicing, you’ll know whether each shot has lost or gained strokes and how much.

This is a valuable exercise because you’ll start to understand what good shots are for your skill level, which can help manage your expectations on the course and help you select better targets.

Try to be intentional and use this environment to think through what club you would choose and where you are aimed, just as you would on the course.

Trackman’s software will keep track of your performance from different distances. So, from a top-level view, you might find out that your short irons are an area of strength, whereas you need more work from 150+ yards.

Knowing this data can help you spend your time more efficiently. Sometimes, golfers don’t fully understand their strengths and weaknesses and spend too much time practicing parts of their game where there isn’t much room for improvement.

As you navigate the different practice environments, you change the type of practice and, more importantly, build your way to more realistic scenarios.

For example, you might work on a technical element of your golf swing in range mode. Can you work on your slice by moving your club path a little less out-to-in and gain invaluable feedback after each swing of measuring “feel versus real?”

But you want to balance the risk-free environment of the range with a more situational practice that adds pressure. And that’s precisely where the on-course practice feature shines.

Golfers can get creative and choose from the massive library of golf courses in Trackman’s library.

Do tree-lined fairways stress you out? Are you uncomfortable with holes that have a forced carry over water? Well, maybe it’s time to start hitting shots with those visuals.

You can move your ball anywhere on the course and hit as many shots as you need in each scenario. 

One of the main benefits of using a simulator is testing your equipment and abilities. Trackman's Test Center makes this much easier and more effective.

Those familiar with the famed Trackman Combine know that getting a score after each shot is valuable feedback (and a great way to get your competitive juices flowing). The test center offers this same analysis.

In the Test Center, you can customize any scenario you can imagine. This is gold for analytical players who want to optimize their on-course decision-making.

You will receive scoring feedback on each shot and can also visualize shot dispersions and other data points to help illustrate the clear winners of your tests.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Distance control test: You could pick a yardage between clubs. Try running one test where you take less club and swing harder. Then, test again with more club, and swing at 70-90%. Is there a clear winner? Are you seeing better scores and dispersion around your target by taking more club? Now you can have the confidence to make that decision on the course.

• Tee shot test: Many golfers aren’t familiar with their left-to-right dispersion patterns with tee shot clubs. You could do a series of 10-20 shots with a driver, fairway woods, hybrids, or even irons. Pay attention to how wide the landing area is and your “north to south” carry distances. Perhaps you might find that your safety clubs aren’t as safe as you think. Use this data to help plan out your tee shots.

• Awkward Wedge Yardages: Do you struggle with which club to use from a distance like 40, 65, or 80 yards? Experiment with which wedges give you more confidence to hit your carry distances more effectively. Some golfers might find that using a lob wedge works better for all of them. Others might shift between 52, 56, or 60-degree options.

• Shot Shaping : Are you a golfer who likes to work in both directions? Or should you just stick to one stock shape? You can quickly run that test and see if there is a clear winner for you. Or you might see more success changing between a fade or draw, depending on the scenario. The answer is which shot improves your overall proximity to the target.

• Equipment Testing: Are you trying out a new driver or irons and want to see if the upgrade is worth it? Hit a series of shots with your current gamer and see if the newer equipment produces a higher score. If not, you might save some cash!

This is just a short list of ideas to get you started. But whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced player, there are many different ways to run tests to help answer some of the nagging situational questions we face on the course.

Shot Analysis mode will be your best friend if you do more intensive work on your golf swing.

In this mode, you can combine swing video alongside all the other parameters that Trackman measures. Recently, a new AI Motion Analysis was added to analyze your body's static and dynamic aspects during your swing.

If you are working with a swing professional, this mode can be handy as you practice between lessons to verify you are achieving some of the benchmarks your coach has prescribed.

Shot Analysis will also provide feedback on shot optimization to help you identify areas for improvement. For example, you might notice that your spin rate with your driver is too high or that your peak height with your irons is too low.

Hopefully, you better understand what makes Trackman’s practice software so unique and robust. For golfers who demand the best, in our opinion, you won’t find a better option.

And the best part is that it doesn’t end there! You’ll also be able to play other games and tournaments and compete against friends. To learn more about these features, you can read this article.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact our expert staff. We’re happy to help you make your purchase decisions and ensure the best fit for your project.