00:00:00
Speaker 1: The guys from Paying They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.
00:00:04
Speaker 2: I just love that I can hit any shot I kind of want.
00:00:06
Speaker 3: We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, everybody, welcome back to the Ping Proven Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane Bak and joined as always by Marty Jerts and Marty. Rarely do we have somebody that I think has a higher IQ than you on the podcast, but I believe that's the case today. Frederick Tuxson, the CTO and co founder of track Man, is going to join us in chat about track Man and the technology that has really changed kind of the way we interpret golf. Marty, I know you've been a track Man guy for a long time.
00:00:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, Shane, you know, I do get excited talking to tour players, But in my world, Frederick's kind of on the in a lot of us here at Ping and engineers in the golf space, kind of on the Mount Rushmore of golf technologist and has kind of changed the arc of golf as we know it today. So Frederick, we're super excited to have you on. Thanks for taking some time to us to spend with us.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: It's an an abenia, so thank you for having me.
00:01:00
Speaker 4: So, Frederick, I want to start here.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: I mean track man is now kind of in the vernacular right in terms of the way people talk about golf. Where did the idea of track man originate from? Like, how did that conversation come about?
00:01:15
Speaker 1: It actually came around and that mine now co founders. They were at the time they were actually owning some of the biggest driving ranges in Europe, and they thought about, you know, we hitting the ball on the driving range, but we're not getting any feedback whether this shot was any bit longer or better than the previous one. So the idea was that we have this facility, the driving range, could we not enhance the value of that by actually using technology to find out where the boat actually landed on the ground. So at the time, I was head of andy for a company making raiders for military applications for a lot of the US Army proving grounds and the Air Force, Marine Corps, etc. So that was basically tracking bullets and missiles. Played a lot of golf in my in my youth and so on. So it ended up you know, sort of being like a joint venture proposal. But you know, long story short, I actually quit my safe job and you know, basically insults the technology from scratch. But the idea was to determine where does a golf ball land on the driving range? So and my solution to that was to track it all the way from launch to landing. And yeah, when we wanted to then we had that and we solved that, and we thought sort of more or less came over. But then we thought, oh, how good is this actually? And then you know what we thought was, why don't we show to this to some of the people that really really need this information. So that was where we thought about, you know, equip manufacturers, club manufacturers like pain those must be in the forefront of you know, the technology and so on. So so we ended up making a trip where one of the stocks on that very first trip was Phoenix, Arizona, where I had you know, sold Ryan my in my bag and so on, and and a somewhat functioning track man. Actually where we came came to to Arizona and Phoenix, there was something that happened with the wires in the inside there. It was a prototype, so so I actually I actually had to use the the sod Ryan. We were we were set up for the demo in the v I in the v I P Bay with John Solheim sitting, you know, in the nice chest of fields of waiting for to demonstrate and so on, and I said, sorry, guys, there's something wrong here. Can you take a break for an hour and then come back and then I'll make sure that that this this would work? And they say yeah, sure, sure enough. And then one year what one hour later they came back and then the worked, and you you can say, there we really realized that that this was the you know, nobody had ever done this before. I mean actually at the time in in Phoenix at the Pink's test facility. There you try to at one point have microphones buried in the ground and then by measure measuring the delay to each of the receivers figure out where I landed. But we got all kinds of stories about grits, you know, eating the wires and not very reliable and so on. So yeah, so that was the original idea. And actually also how we sort of you know, got to going with you guys, I mean you were the first one to actually see the product working.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty amazing. Yeah, so Shane that the proving grounds are our range still has microphones embedded in the ground, and we were trying to triangulate where it carried. And I just love the story from Frederick that it's kind of started with that problem statement and then grown into what it is today. Frederick talked a little bit about so you kind of started with, hey, let's track where the ball goes, Let's do the full entire flight, and to how the evolution of track man from tracking all the ball flight, and then talk a little bit about how kind of measuring the club came to be, and it was measuring the club kind of a surprise to you. Was that part of your grand plan?
00:05:20
Speaker 1: You know?
00:05:20
Speaker 3: And then we'll talk we'll kind of go towards some of the new stuff you guys are working on.
00:05:25
Speaker 1: Sure sure, As I said, originally the idea was to find out where the ball landed on the ground, and then we thought that's it, I mean, what golf is about, you know, controlling to land the ultimately had the ball finish up and at the spot you have picked. So in a way where when the first product we showed to you guys, it only measured the ball. It only measured the ball trajectory. And then then we of course and you also talked about can you guys measure spin? No, we could not at the time. Why is that important because we measure where the ball is landed. Why do you need the spin? And then we learned a lot from you guys. Okay, spin is important because you know if you play on different conditions and da da da da, and then you you say, then you also when you had this, when you mentioned the ball trajectory, then you want to understand what is it that creates this ball trajectory. So that and that's where the club data come in. And it was it was sort of a little bit. It was not part of the master plan. Let let me absolutely say that. But then it was actually at we were showing the product for actually, sorry to say, for another equip manufacturer at the point in time, and then I was showing our new sales director that was only one sales people, so that was easy to get that position. But Matt Freelich and and I was showing him the road data and said, yeah, here's the ball trajectory in the radar data, and here you see the club and house approaches the ball and so on, and then said that said, hey, hey, listen, do you see the club? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you see it here, and yeah, it's you know, it's a negative. We didn't call it attack angle at the point in time, but you know it's on the under down blow and you know it's the club is moving out to the right. And then you went all like that and say, hey, that's massive if we can measure how the club is delivered to the ball. And then of course we learned that and I went back together with my engineers and then we figured out how we could track that reliable. So that's what's sort of Originally it was maybe the first adopters were equipment manufacturers like yourself for player testing, equipment evaluation and so on, but very quickly it went into fitting as well. But then when you added the club data, which is also important for fitting, but for teaching and instruction, it's huge. So that was really what sort of pivoted is a little bit away from our original idea about driving range. That that was where it all started, and then we sort of went this way from to fitting and then to instruction, and along the ways we learned that that some of the ways that that that the so called ball flight laws was taught, how the why the ball is starting like it's doing and why it's curving like it's doing. Well, that was not what was taught, was not what's actually happening in reality. So and we had equipment that could prove that. So so that gave us, of course a stage to to sort of spread the message. And because we had equipment that could prove that that was not taking place. So in a way, I feel we were quite fortunate about having that misunderstanding because we sort of had had that opportunity, uh, to to to to tell what what's the right golf physics.
00:08:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was interesting time for me, Frederick, because I was going through the PGA of America education program, and sure enough, all of those teachings were still in there, the the old ball flight laws understanding, right, And so here I am, you know, using track Man, going through track Man University, uh, kind of learning all those fundamental physics and kind of struggling struggling with that which which exactly you guys were able to kind of level up the entire industry. Talk a little bit about that, Frederick, just I really appreciate what track Man has done just the macro level, uh level up of all the understanding of impact physics and ball flights and things of that nature. How important was the teaching coaching community kind of early on as you were building the brand and getting some of those concepts out there.
00:09:37
Speaker 1: I mean, the the community was absolutely. I mean, first of all, the fact that the that golf is one of those sports, but there is a teaching community and there is and has been for you know, decades, has been this. That's actually one of the reasons why we I think we've been successful as a company, because there are other sports which we actually are entering these years here where there's not the same teaching community and where you have to sort of start from scratch educating and motivate people. This is actually something that that you know, you you need to understand what's going on here and these things that can be taught and so on. So, but it was also so that at the time when we came out with this and that there was this sort of old ball flight laws guy, and there was you know, groups that was maybe not so motivated to learn new stuff, and then there were some that actually were really motivated to to learn about, you know, everything new and and those people were extremely important for us and very supportive. Of course we we we helped them also a lot by by listening to what is it that they need and what can we do in order for you to be more successful as coaches and bringing you know, your message across to to your to your students and so on. So so that shaped also, I would say, the whole There was a vocabulary that that did not exist at the time. I mean, for example, take a thing that we today we just take for granted, things like attack angle and a cloud path and so on. At the time, what they were talking about when they say cloud path or swing path, which were also discussed, is actually what we today know as swing direction is the wall swing, meaning it doesn't matter where sort of in the swing arc you make contact with the ball. But cloud path and attack angle matters. You know, everything is where where where you hit it in the arc. So there were some definitions that needed to be defined there, so having the teachers to develop this language. Uh and and because if if not, if you don't have a language to communicate this, you can't get these messages across. So so that was and I would like to think that we sort of took the front lead on on on that and and and developed that. But that was collaboration and euseonizing that coaching space big time, and again the forward thinking of that coaching community. And if you look now today, where it's a lot of sort of everybody takes this for granted, this is how we you know, things related to each other in the golf swing and the impacts and so on, that was not the case. I can tell you twenty something years ago.
00:12:29
Speaker 2: Frederick I was interested in you know, you have, you know, the plan of a company, right, the plan of an idea. I think a lot of the time, the plan of something new is to solve X. And then as you start to kind of uncover other ideas, you realize there's other stuff to solve. I mean the idea of like where does the ball in on the driving range? At what point did you realize there was all of this knowledge that hadn't been uncovered yet in terms of the way people think about golf. Was this a eureka moment? Was this as you guys started to kind of chat with people in the golf world about what maybe didn't exist because it feels like as you guys started to kind of encounter OEMs and people in the golf space, you started to feel that there was a lot of understanding that maybe they didn't even quite know.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, I mean, I would say one of the things that we very very quickly actually, and thanks to you guys and some of the other equip manufacturers, we were very very quickly sort of out on tour and on the driving range and you know, basically measuring on the best players in the world. And one of the things that stood out for me and was that there was and this is one of your friends in the industry, I won't name drop them, and further onanth of the bus, but they were saying a driver needed to be launched a twelve degree launch angle and had to have twenty seven hundred rpm. That's a good driver show. And then we measured all the players sort of on the there and they were all over the place, and there was some launching it at six degrees, some at fifteen, some had the eighteen hundred RPMs, some had your thirty three thirty four hundred rpm. So how come that these players, the best players in the world, that have all the equipment available at their disposal, and they're doing this for a living, and of course they have figured out to be what works for them and to be optimized. So how come they are so you know, widely spread. And that was sort of for me sort of there's something missing here, there's something we don't understand here. And by analyzing a lot of dates, I figured out the holy grail to this is a tack angle, because if the more you hit up on your ball, the more positive your attack angle is, the easier it is to get a high launch angle with a lower off the club. The lower off the club will give you lower speed spin rate and also higher ball speed, so that that's where you get that high launch low spin. And if you hit down on the ball, well you need to have the ball up in the air, so you need to increase the loft of your club then, but that comes with a penalty of more spin weight and you actually drop in ball speed also. So that was sort of what fit all this together, and that was something that was not understood and I had sort of had had to Yeah, I say, develop this scratch, which was super fun by the way, but but that was one of the things where I could really see there's really something missing here. And then when you add the next layer was this, as I said, understanding, you know, why does a ball start to the right. Is that because your path is going out to the right. No, it's you know, dominantly, because your face angle is pointing to the right. So understanding that, and what does that mean in terms of the correction you need to do in order to hit your decided shot shape and so on. I mean that was another one of those hey we have we are lacking some information here.
00:16:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, Frederick, Shane's a good example. He hits generally your standards shot shape. For Shane hits down on it negative angle of attack what three four degrees? Usually Shane launches a little bit lower, with a little bit more spin, but he is he is optimized for his delivery because Shane's Shane's Kike kind of one of your modern day tour players that brings a lot of speed uh to the table.
00:16:30
Speaker 4: Frederick.
00:16:30
Speaker 3: So yeah, just talk a little bit more about that driver angle of attack. When that when you kind of brought that those findings right to the the tour, you saw a lot of players trying to work on hitting more up and certainly the shorter, slower clubhead speed players that kind of need to But nowadays you're seeing some of the faster players still play golf hitting hitting down on the driver. Why do you think that is? And maybe talk a little bit about some of the stuff you're working on you you can feel free to transition this in to some of your some of the things you're working on with the with the body movement tracking.
00:17:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is actually this was hitting down or up on the ball. It's actually something that had changed over the years. So in generally speaking, the the if you look at the PGA Tour, they are generally ball up on the ball then they used to be. So there's definitely dinner shift. It is true that if you have a lot of club speed, then you can say in some ways you have the distance given to you, so you're you're not looking for that extra yard or ten or twenty yards and so on. Having said that, you look at the tour today, I mean all that the whether it's Roy mclarroy or the you know just had here in Nikolai Hig you know driving it was at three hundred and ninety yah, yeah, yesterday, it's they're they're hitting up on the ball, but they're combining a high speed with the mechanics to actually hit up on the op the ball as well. So I I it's it's not just because you have the speed that you you you will still gain on hitting up on the ball. So and and and that of course, so it is advantageous for everyone playing this game if they want to hit it further hitting up on the ball and get fitted to a driver with the approper got loved. And you need for every one degree, roughly speaking, you hit up on the ball more, you need have a degree less a lot of driver. That's sort of a general rule of thumb. But of course it becomes interesting then how do you I mean, ultimately, uh, you know you have to change how you're swinging the club in order to hit it more up on the ball. Yes, you can move the ball more forward in your stands and you can keep that swing, but that will come with Yeah, you're probably the club will go both more left then. So, but understanding how you are both generating the power and then hitting off the ball, indicate with your driver on the irons you do want to hit downloaded. That of course means that we have to you know started the body also, and I would say the evolution of how we we've really been working sort of backwards where we we ultimately we started measuring where the ball landed. Our solution to that was measuring the full trajectory. Now that's a result of how you deliver the club to the ball, impact location, et cetera, et cetera. But that is a consequence of how you're swinging the golf flop. Of course there is equipment, uh, specifications and properties also involved here, so it's it's actually sort of a completely natural step that we now attractman start looking at the body. So so we we are we are launching now marcles camera tracking where we are using two cameras down the line and a face on triangulate the trianguli those and then we're giving the body motion. And what's unique about that is this is the first time where there is body measurements, as I say, in the same coordinate system as you have the club delivery and the ball data. Before that, all motion capture systems have sort of been in their living on their own island. But of course it matters, and just think of simple things like set up. Well, it depends where should that ball be depends on where your target is, So you need to know where your target line is. So that's one of the things that I'm really really excited about bringing out here in twenty twenty six is to have this motion analysis to the emotion analysis and also bridging it with the club delivery, which ultimately is what we want to affect is the ball trajectory where the ball is ending up, but it all comes from the player movement and then there's some equipment in between.
00:21:00
Speaker 2: No, So, Marty, Marty, I wanted to ask you just in terms of track Man, what is track Man done done to your side of the business over the last couple of decades in terms of R and D and working on new clubs and new drivers, Like how much easier has it made your job? Is there times where there's so much information that it's almost made it more complicated at times? Like how has that evolution been in terms of that partnership.
00:21:26
Speaker 3: I think Frederick mentioned it, But there's a lot of things now in twenty twenty six that we look back and we kind of just take for granted. You know, TrackMan, the way track Man works is Frederick give you a lot of credit for this, it's just magic. You know, you have this orange box and all these magical things happen, which there's just so much really good fundamental physics and calculations and algorithms. Everything that Frederick and his team have built in there have been pretty magical. Ping has invested very heavily in track Man. I think we have a two hundred and fifty six track Man, but got to be up there. Frederick, if not the lead in terms of your customer base, and we even Shane to that point. Train All of our field reps, our sales reps have gone through track Man University. This is like getting your bachelor's and how to use TrackMan, understand all the pretty pretty technical kind of definitions and things of that nature so that we can get the most out of it. We've actually, we have absolutely loved having this technology not only at our rain chain that we use at the proving grounds for R and D testing side, club fitting side, but also all the data we get from all of our fittings we do globally worldwide gold mine of data data mining, certainly for the club fitting standpoint, to develop all of our club fitting algorithms and to have the data feed coming in not only from ballflight, also from the club. Like Frederick talked about being able to fit the perfect launch conditions of a driver to the individual player, you can look at the three dimensional delivery of the club, which is super duper important. Then you'll open the door to things beyond the driver, which is the you're gapping analysis, optimizing your fairy Wood trajectory, things of that nature. You're gapping analysis. Now we're moving into more leveraging track man even well, Frederick, I love to talk to you a little bit about this for short game and putting more, and that's kind of the latest kind of deep dive that we're going down at paying Frederick. I know, you know we've talked about this in the last couple of years, some fun research we've done on the short game side and the putting side. So I would love Frederick to get your two cents on. Let's say you're you're in indoor club fitter and you're fitting maybe wedges, you know, maybe for grinds, spin generation, things of that nature. What are some tips and tricks there, whether somebody using the TM four or the IO for wedge fitting specifically indoors where you kind of don't have that sound in that turf interaction. What are some of the data tiles in the metrics that could be important in that scenario.
00:24:02
Speaker 1: I mean for wet fitting, it's absolutely to be able to sort of control the launch angle is a key thing, and also getting the proper spin on the ball those I mean, of course speed it depends on. That's how you control the distance. But getting that sort of launching in the right window and getting the proper spin rate. Now, in order to do that you have to make you've said, a proper contact to the ball, So impact location is of course a key thing here. Also attack angle or if you prefer to look at it as a low point, is also a super important parameter in order to But ultimately it's about how do you control your launch angle and your spin rate? Those are the things, and it can be one of the things that can be a little when you go to we all we talked about the driver and twenty seven hundred up ym the sort of maybe was a good spin rate. Now we all have our individual optimized spin rates, but they're sort of in that two thousand range typically for most players when you do short game it's in general spin rate will be proposal to the club speed you are generating. And that means that it can maybe be difficult to say, on a thirty yard pitch shot, well what spin rate should I get because you don't have anything to benchmarkt against. So in fact, for that purpose, we created actually a new metric which we call spin index. So basically this tells you relative to the actual spin rate you are getting compared to what is the spin rate you would have got had you got sort of a good, nice contact with good friction between the club and the ball. And that's index needs to sort of be ideally close to one hundred percent. But if it's anyway sort of above ninety, you are you are you're you're in good shape. If it starts, you know, dropping bit below like seventy, maybe even down to sixty, you have you have an impact problem here. Or it could also be that your wages the grooves on your wedges are worn out. Maybe if if that doesn't happen in indoor settings, but if you if you're playing you know, on real grass, if you're getting grass or moisture between the club and the ball, that will reduced that friction and you will immediately see them in the spin index. So so so those those are, you know, some of the things I would keep an eye on. And if you're looking then to finding out what is the best grind I get on my wedges in order to give me make get the most consistent launch on. Maybe it's not the one you get the high spin rate with, but if you're consistent and you can count on it, that's really what what I think is the most attractive thing. So there was about putt.
00:27:06
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna ask what about putting? I mean, how are you guys kind of implementing your technology. I mean, obviously the full swing stuff was was the initial idea, but how about putting and kind of what you can kind of look at in that world.
00:27:19
Speaker 1: I would say, first of all, we think partting is a completely underserved area with regards to to technology and that it goes also for for and to some extent also understanding what's what's happening because partting is where where I mean launch for when you when you make a putt is sort of a wedge between a club head and the ground, so that the actually turf condition matters and what partting stroke to use on what turf and you know, whether it's it's not only the stint. There might also be other factors that are in here. So I would say we we are on the track man. All we have what's called performance partting. We are again we are tracking sort of the full trajectory of the ball, so we are measuring the actual break and if it hits a stone on the way, if which shouldn't be there. But let's say we will measure that that it actually you know, bounces to the side. So again that's because ultimately that what is what it's about is controlling where the ball is going and how how far it's going. But then we are measuring all kinds of things like it's it's you know, the first phase of our part is is actually skidding means it's actually doing micro bounces and for every bounce there is friction between the club and the ball, and that means that there will be you know, jumped down in speed. You'll you will lose speed sort of in a in a step, but then you will pick up some spin rate as as a consequence of that, and that will continue to happen until the spin rate sort of matches the the speed of the ball at that point the ball is actually rolling, so you have that sort of the first typically it's it's a couple you know, it could be two feet on on a ten ten feet part or something like that, where the ball is actually skidding and then it starts to roll. But that is influenced on how you you are. What's the launch condition actually of the ball when you when you're you are launching it typically a little bit, you know, with a positive attack, a positive launch angle about two degrees and so on. So it's it's and we're measuring all these things here, including impact, location and so on. Uh, And I would say we are still learning. How do we then translate this? And I know you guys also learning is in terms of okay, what does that mean in terms of both partting technique, and what does it mean in terms of of you know, fitting the potter and so on. How how do we put these things together? But ultimately it's all about controlling where the ball is going. And that's why we think it's so important that everything we are doing here when we are sort of whether we are called research or what we do, is that we're measuring what actually happens, What does the result of what we are doing here, so I.
00:30:17
Speaker 4: Can, Frederick, I'm a little nervous.
00:30:19
Speaker 2: Now Marty's going to have like four different strokes for the different grass type. And listen, if there's anybody that's going to implement that in tournament golf, it'll be Marty Jertsen. So now you're adding like the bags.
00:30:32
Speaker 4: When you travel.
00:30:33
Speaker 3: Now, oh yeah, I got to measure the we'll be able to pull a few metrics out of performance putting. Frederick, right before the tournament round, maybe changed my stroke a little bit. Frederick, what is the kind of quote unquote ball fly laws of a putt for folks listening out there, like what percentage of the start line is controlled by the face to the path and what you've been seeing so far for a putt specifically.
00:30:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for putt, I would say the starting the action meaning what we call the launch direction is it's almost one hundred percent the face angle of of the of the potter. We are in something that is ninety or more than ninety percent that is controlled by the actual phase angle of the potter. And then the remaining part is only the path, meaning that you to to a high degree, you can say that the path as such does not matter as much for for for Potter, I do think that the path could matters for controlling your face angle, so and and and there comes some closure thing in as well there. But but really the the and also control controlling the impact location, which is is really important as well because get the consistent I mean bold speed, which is is utually important for for your business control. And so so it's about ninety percent that is face angle or slightly more than that. And that's if we look at the full game then on on you know, like a driver, we're talking about something like eighty five percent for iron shots to get down to the seventies. So so yeah, that's that's what we have seen so far.
00:32:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, Shane, that's all I always think back to like Billy Mayfair's putting stroke, right, he had the big loop and his stroke and oh you know he can't control the path. It's all about the start line. And Frederick brought up a very nuanced point there that you see all the tour players doing block practice and they're they're refining their path. Well, it's probably just influencing the hey their path, their mechanics are informing the consistency of face face delivery and impact location. But I think Frederick, I'm with you, it's a very exciting time for short game and putting because I feel like we'll be sitting here in you know, two three four years looking back and you we're kind of on the steep part of the learning curve of really understanding, understanding what's going on and then informing in our world, helping improve our fitting recommendations and making it even more individualized, just like we've done with the driver launch conditions. They used to be generic, now they're specific. I think that is the trajectory that we're going on thanks to your guys technology on the on the putting side, So I.
00:33:29
Speaker 1: Totally agree with you with you and that it is exciting times for both. I would say a short game and for partting it's it's it's it is areas where we maybe don't have the complete picture yet.
00:33:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, hopefully hopefully get that that'll help us out. Frederick.
00:33:47
Speaker 2: Something I've always been interested in in terms of the business of track Man is like, like who's buying them?
00:33:54
Speaker 4: How are you guys?
00:33:55
Speaker 2: Kind of where are you guys going in terms of sales, like where does your but where's your focus? In terms of the business of track man kind of lie is in you know, tournament golf, simulator golf, you know ranges, I mean players, Like, where's the focus for you guys? As you guys continue to kind of expand and look at maybe new markets or new technologies.
00:34:17
Speaker 1: Our focus is is golf. That's That's the short answer, because there is. And so it's one of the ways we are now starting sort of to measure us our success is that we estimate that that yearly there's about two to three hundred billion golf shots hit a year. And I know that's a estimate, but we sort of we don't think it's far far off. Last year we recorded four billion golf shots. That means that there was somebody who turned on an app, whether it was on our range or was it in assimilator, or was it on a drive range where it's pre installed and so on. That happened for four billion shots last year. So we we are we are maybe one and a half percent penetration yet. Uh, And so I think you understand with that ambition that there's a lot more we want to do, but we also want to make the value of those shots. We are recording a much more yeah, valuable to the user. I mean, we have a huge focus on the actual golfer. We have a belief that we can make golfers better and enjoy golf and more by using our technology. And that means that giving insights in your own game, but also make it more fun to play golf. So that's it. It's and we don't all we're not built the same way. Some of us range kings and like to write out there. Some of us like to just have you know, fun and play golf courses in as simulator and have a you know, a beer or drink while we are doing that. And someplace likes to play on real golf courses and you know it shoots scores below power and you know, just aiming for being the best golfers in the world. And we basically want to serve all those needs. So it's it's ambitious.
00:36:25
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, well, I mean it's you know, for me personally, like my personal relationship with track Man is you know, I don't personally own a track Man, but I've hit a ton of golf balls with track Man in the past. I had an instructor out in Arizona that would use track Man specifically I think I was the first time I really encountered it a while back, and I got to the point with my instructor, Frederick, where I'd go hit balls on the track man and I could just look at the numbers.
00:36:49
Speaker 4: And see what I was doing quote unquote wrong with my golf swing.
00:36:52
Speaker 2: And I always found that so enlightening because sure, I had an instructor there that in terms of his eyeballs and understanding my golf swing, he could help me. But there was times where I just simply looked at the screen, go look at my path, spin, attacking, all things like that, and I simply knew what I was doing wrong with my golf swing. That's the reason I was there. And so for me, I mean, just my relationship with the technology made me better when I went out there and encountered No.
00:37:19
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And you can say, and there's been some voices, as you know, are tracking making coaches sort of obsolete and so on, But no, we're not. We're just you know, increasing the level of the games. Of course, the coaches need to you know, step on that train, and they are doing that. But that's also why we have this sort of TrackMan university and basically we're just giving them better tools. But it's true that you could say you can help yourself more than you could in the past, and it's actually fun to do that. When you first when you understand, oh, I need to look at my path that needs to be here and here, you probably at some point need a coach to tell you, Okay, how do I then do that? And how do I do it in the best possible way without screwing up other things? Right?
00:38:05
Speaker 3: So, yeah, Frederick, one of the you know, things I think track Man and Ping kind of have in common is just our our focus on the engineering first and being pretty rigorous to you know, we've delayed products at Ping when we didn't have the performance right exactly where it was. There's been a lot of times over the over the years we've worked with you and track Man where we would, uh, we we want a new data tile to come out and you're just not quite there on refining it yet and holding a very high standard uh before you release maybe maybe a new metric and new data tile and some maybe the average listener out there doesn't know is that we are always getting pushed software and firmware updates that get more out of your guys hardware technology, which is which is very fun. I absolutely love products like that. Talk a little bit about that internal process, uh and just that standard that that you hold yourself to before kind of releasing a new data tile, a new metric, No.
00:39:01
Speaker 1: I mean what you're actually touching upon. And I can say I mean that's also why we are huge respect for for Ping and how you go around with your product. I think actually it comes back to being you know, even though that my co founders and I went on in family, we we actually you know, think of it as a family business like Ping is. And I think when you are a family business, you're we're always playing the long game. We have we have no benefit of any short games. Uh. And and if we come out with with you know, it has taken us many, many years to give build up our reputation and that when you get something from track Man, you can trust it, and when you get numbers from track Man you can trust them and so on. So and that can be ruined in a split second if we just push out too too much without having done rigorous testing. So I mean maybe I will answer your question in in in in a in a little bit engineering way. But but they're there for every parameter that we introduced me we we could owe night toppled the number of parameters that we output, but with I mean, we could tell you what the speed is at apex and whatever I mean. And yes, that is measurements. But is that something that is useful for you or are we just giving you one more number to relate to that doesn't give you added value? And if it doesn't give any value, will we not output it because then it's regundant and we are not doing you a favor. On the contrary, another thing is what every parameter needs to be actionable, meaning that you it needs to have an accuracy so you can make an foamed decision just based on one single shot. Because when you're working on your golf wing, you're trying things, I want to improve my cloud path or what it is, and then you try, what if I do this, oh that way, that didn't go in the right direction, or it screwed up something else and so on. You need to have that feedback when you're sort of exploring what is it, what's the right solution for me to fix my club path? And that means that you were requiring high accuracy of course. But then the other thing is that if sometimes and it hurts my heart every time I see it, there will be a data now, but that is not cracked within the tolerances that we would like it to be. That's what we call an outlier, and we are doing everything we can to avoid those. If you were to guarantee it never happened, we will never output in data. I mean it is uh, you know, sensor data. And there always are reasons for why things can be you know, in in weird circumstances, can can be a little bit you know of of and so we're doing a lot of cross checks, and we're doing things feeling, you know, not absolutely sure that this will be within the tolerance. We much rather have an empty tile then running the risk of showing a wrong data parameter. So this is what we call the outlier percentage. So this is something that that you know, I asked my engineers, Okay, how many times if you see one measurement that you can will your I say this was not correct? I mean if we said the ball landed, you know, five yards left, and you could your iic, no, it was straight at the target. So you lose conference right there in the in the track Man. How many good measurements does it take to you forget and regain your trust in track Man and the numbers we are spitting out. And my answer to that is it's about two hundred. So that means our outlier percentage has to be below point five percent. For some measurements, there's a much lower tresshold than there, But that means that that making sure that we have an accuracy where it actually makes the parameter useful and we are not running the risk of outputting a bad number and at the same time having a pickup rate where you don't you know, it's not like only every second shot, but you can actually count on getting it and then once in a while you might see an empty tile. That's really what I think. What we have made very different from every other technology, measurement technology you see out there, and we have benefited a lot from doing that. Even though it is frustrating to see empty tiles, but it's much better than seeing a wrong number.
00:43:37
Speaker 2: Frederick, before we let you go, what about track Man's venture into other sports? Obviously you know this conversation typically is focused in and around golf, but I mean always the interest I think is to venture into you know, maybe another sport it's similar to golf, something like a baseball or a hockey or a tennis. How's that world for you guys.
00:43:56
Speaker 1: Well, actually we have been active in baseball. We started in baseball in two thousand eight because we brought this out, you know, to especially to the US in the golf and they immediately told you, guys need to go to baseball. They're crazy about data. The only thing they have is a speed gun. You need to take this to baseball. So we started on that in two thousand and eight. But you know, we're based out of Denmark. We don't play baseball here. We have sero knowledge about that. So we had to learn and a long story short is that we had to go directly into the MLB stadiums because they didn't know what good data looked like. What is twenty two hundred our pm and a fastball good? They didn't know, so we had to figure it out. So we had to measure the best guys and making a stadium system that can do this. But actually today this is actually a significant part of trackment business. It's about eighteen percent of our total turnover is baseball. And now we're also in softball, diamond sports as we call it. We had the last few years we have entered also American football, so we started started with the kicking, but we're just released also some quarterback applications and then what I call real football, sorry, but soccer. We also have an application for that. And but both for I would say for for kicking in American football, the the quarterback and especially soccer. There's not this same teaching humunity, so knowing you know what's good and so on. We have to learn that from the bottom. So it's taken a little bit slow, I would say, to penetrate. It would be fantastic market, I'm sure in a few years, but at least we have started on that. And then maybe I'm breaking a small secret here but saying but we will also will be launching this year a quick product. Oh yeah, so it's it's actually the second biggest sport in the world, and you know, we can leverage a lot of what we have developed for for baseball, so we'll we'll do cricket and have gained a lot of interest from the beta testing we've been doing so that that's quite exciting but very cool. No matter what we do if for the foreseeable future, I can only see golf maintaining it's sort of eighty percent of our revenue and focus and all that. There are so many opportunities still within that.
00:46:35
Speaker 4: Frederick.
00:46:36
Speaker 2: What's it like for you guys when you go to a major championship and you're down on the range on a Tuesday or Wednesday and you see, you know, a track.
00:46:43
Speaker 4: Man after TrackMan after TrackMan on the range.
00:46:45
Speaker 2: I mean, is it still a pinch me moment for you guys when you see the best in the world using your product, relying on your product.
00:46:52
Speaker 1: It's it's it. I mean it sounds maybe a little bit, yeah, spoiled whatever, but but I've gotten used to it. But then once once in a while, once in a while, then when I take a break and you know, take it, you know, standing in the shade and I'm looking out there, and then I'm seeing all these orange boxes that you know, you have all the best players in the world. They say, huh, really changed something here, But but you know, it's and and you know, I talked to all the the the players and and how they're using out to God, It's it's fascinating and it's truly is rewarding. And of course, you know, being there with the best players in the game is very, very rewarding.
00:47:38
Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, but I'm sure it's similar to Marty. You know, like Marty using a driver he developed, and all of a sudden you see somebody using it to win a big golf tournament and you're you kind of go wow that. I remember the early days of R and D when we were you know, we were drawing stuff on a computer and then all of a sudden you got love Watson using the driver to hit at three thirty on the middle of a fair way.
00:47:58
Speaker 1: You know that there are those moments there and and yeah, yeah, it's it's I never got bone of it, I would say, But yeah.
00:48:11
Speaker 3: Frederick, I know you're you're a key, You're you're a keen, passionate golfer yourself. Yeah, what is a if you have one, what is a data tile or metric or maybe it's a plus minus number in track man that that you work on in your own game that maybe, uh is less common by other players or teachers. Is there any is there any little secrets in there that you you you found that having having built the technology that you think is important that you work on that.
00:48:40
Speaker 1: Maybe others don't, No, actually not, I'm I'm looking at the same thing as a Scottish chafferin Roy Mceroy and those guys. I when I practice, of course I look on my carry. I mean, understanding how far I hit the ball is absolutely crucial depending on on what I'm working on. I think maybe the biggest thing for me, what I always have off on the screen because I struggled maybe a little bit with me with it is consistency of impact location. That is that is key for me. Even even though that you know I've trained, especially on drivers, I can feel where I impacted now. I can you know, tell whether it's you know, heal high, low, tow center and so I can feel those things now, but it's still getting get quantified. That that that that that's a key thing to to look at, and especially with irons. And you talked about the short game before. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to hit it on the toe on my short game and sometimes you know that that it comes up short.
00:49:43
Speaker 4: That's the reason, Marty, do you have a talent you focus on?
00:49:48
Speaker 1: Uh?
00:49:48
Speaker 3: I mean it depends on which it depends on kind of what I'm working on my mechanics, I mean, my my coach, my teacher, Andy Patnaw track man user. Locally we work on Yeah, vertical swing plane a lot, swing direction, vertical swing plane driver. I'm always looking at angle of attack impact. Yeah yeah, angle attacks a big one for me. So those are kind of the core ones. Certainly short game stuff we're having a lot of fun playing around with. I think, just always making sure ball speed, launch spin is good. I'm a big believer. I you know, We've done a lot of stuff out there. There's a lot of different thoughts on shaping the driver, having some spin axis, tilt or not. I like the beauty call me a theorist here, but of the dead straight shot for maximum distance. So I'm always trying to reduce my spin axis for me personally, I know different players have different thoughts and strategies around that one.
00:50:42
Speaker 4: No deviation with the driver.
00:50:43
Speaker 2: Well, Frederick, we could go on with you, probably for hours on end, but we don't want to take up your entire day. As I said off the top, it's crazy that the word track band has become what it is in golf.
00:50:56
Speaker 4: I mean it's because you know, you think about Kleenex.
00:50:58
Speaker 2: You know, it's basically the the term we use when we talk about tissue paper, right, I mean, track man is basically the way we think about data when it comes to golf balls and swing plane and golf clubs and all that.
00:51:09
Speaker 4: And so congrats to you guys. It's been awesome to chat with you and we'll have to do it again soon.
00:51:15
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for having me here. It's been super fun talk to you, Shane and always find to talk with you, Mady.
00:51:22
Speaker 3: Dido, Frederick, thanks for coming on.
00:51:24
Speaker 4: This is the Ping Proving Grounds Podcast
Speaker 1: The guys from Paying They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.
00:00:04
Speaker 2: I just love that I can hit any shot I kind of want.
00:00:06
Speaker 3: We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, everybody, welcome back to the Ping Proven Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane Bak and joined as always by Marty Jerts and Marty. Rarely do we have somebody that I think has a higher IQ than you on the podcast, but I believe that's the case today. Frederick Tuxson, the CTO and co founder of track Man, is going to join us in chat about track Man and the technology that has really changed kind of the way we interpret golf. Marty, I know you've been a track Man guy for a long time.
00:00:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, Shane, you know, I do get excited talking to tour players, But in my world, Frederick's kind of on the in a lot of us here at Ping and engineers in the golf space, kind of on the Mount Rushmore of golf technologist and has kind of changed the arc of golf as we know it today. So Frederick, we're super excited to have you on. Thanks for taking some time to us to spend with us.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: It's an an abenia, so thank you for having me.
00:01:00
Speaker 4: So, Frederick, I want to start here.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: I mean track man is now kind of in the vernacular right in terms of the way people talk about golf. Where did the idea of track man originate from? Like, how did that conversation come about?
00:01:15
Speaker 1: It actually came around and that mine now co founders. They were at the time they were actually owning some of the biggest driving ranges in Europe, and they thought about, you know, we hitting the ball on the driving range, but we're not getting any feedback whether this shot was any bit longer or better than the previous one. So the idea was that we have this facility, the driving range, could we not enhance the value of that by actually using technology to find out where the boat actually landed on the ground. So at the time, I was head of andy for a company making raiders for military applications for a lot of the US Army proving grounds and the Air Force, Marine Corps, etc. So that was basically tracking bullets and missiles. Played a lot of golf in my in my youth and so on. So it ended up you know, sort of being like a joint venture proposal. But you know, long story short, I actually quit my safe job and you know, basically insults the technology from scratch. But the idea was to determine where does a golf ball land on the driving range? So and my solution to that was to track it all the way from launch to landing. And yeah, when we wanted to then we had that and we solved that, and we thought sort of more or less came over. But then we thought, oh, how good is this actually? And then you know what we thought was, why don't we show to this to some of the people that really really need this information. So that was where we thought about, you know, equip manufacturers, club manufacturers like pain those must be in the forefront of you know, the technology and so on. So so we ended up making a trip where one of the stocks on that very first trip was Phoenix, Arizona, where I had you know, sold Ryan my in my bag and so on, and and a somewhat functioning track man. Actually where we came came to to Arizona and Phoenix, there was something that happened with the wires in the inside there. It was a prototype, so so I actually I actually had to use the the sod Ryan. We were we were set up for the demo in the v I in the v I P Bay with John Solheim sitting, you know, in the nice chest of fields of waiting for to demonstrate and so on, and I said, sorry, guys, there's something wrong here. Can you take a break for an hour and then come back and then I'll make sure that that this this would work? And they say yeah, sure, sure enough. And then one year what one hour later they came back and then the worked, and you you can say, there we really realized that that this was the you know, nobody had ever done this before. I mean actually at the time in in Phoenix at the Pink's test facility. There you try to at one point have microphones buried in the ground and then by measure measuring the delay to each of the receivers figure out where I landed. But we got all kinds of stories about grits, you know, eating the wires and not very reliable and so on. So yeah, so that was the original idea. And actually also how we sort of you know, got to going with you guys, I mean you were the first one to actually see the product working.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty amazing. Yeah, so Shane that the proving grounds are our range still has microphones embedded in the ground, and we were trying to triangulate where it carried. And I just love the story from Frederick that it's kind of started with that problem statement and then grown into what it is today. Frederick talked a little bit about so you kind of started with, hey, let's track where the ball goes, Let's do the full entire flight, and to how the evolution of track man from tracking all the ball flight, and then talk a little bit about how kind of measuring the club came to be, and it was measuring the club kind of a surprise to you. Was that part of your grand plan?
00:05:20
Speaker 1: You know?
00:05:20
Speaker 3: And then we'll talk we'll kind of go towards some of the new stuff you guys are working on.
00:05:25
Speaker 1: Sure sure, As I said, originally the idea was to find out where the ball landed on the ground, and then we thought that's it, I mean, what golf is about, you know, controlling to land the ultimately had the ball finish up and at the spot you have picked. So in a way where when the first product we showed to you guys, it only measured the ball. It only measured the ball trajectory. And then then we of course and you also talked about can you guys measure spin? No, we could not at the time. Why is that important because we measure where the ball is landed. Why do you need the spin? And then we learned a lot from you guys. Okay, spin is important because you know if you play on different conditions and da da da da, and then you you say, then you also when you had this, when you mentioned the ball trajectory, then you want to understand what is it that creates this ball trajectory. So that and that's where the club data come in. And it was it was sort of a little bit. It was not part of the master plan. Let let me absolutely say that. But then it was actually at we were showing the product for actually, sorry to say, for another equip manufacturer at the point in time, and then I was showing our new sales director that was only one sales people, so that was easy to get that position. But Matt Freelich and and I was showing him the road data and said, yeah, here's the ball trajectory in the radar data, and here you see the club and house approaches the ball and so on, and then said that said, hey, hey, listen, do you see the club? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you see it here, and yeah, it's you know, it's a negative. We didn't call it attack angle at the point in time, but you know it's on the under down blow and you know it's the club is moving out to the right. And then you went all like that and say, hey, that's massive if we can measure how the club is delivered to the ball. And then of course we learned that and I went back together with my engineers and then we figured out how we could track that reliable. So that's what's sort of Originally it was maybe the first adopters were equipment manufacturers like yourself for player testing, equipment evaluation and so on, but very quickly it went into fitting as well. But then when you added the club data, which is also important for fitting, but for teaching and instruction, it's huge. So that was really what sort of pivoted is a little bit away from our original idea about driving range. That that was where it all started, and then we sort of went this way from to fitting and then to instruction, and along the ways we learned that that some of the ways that that that the so called ball flight laws was taught, how the why the ball is starting like it's doing and why it's curving like it's doing. Well, that was not what was taught, was not what's actually happening in reality. So and we had equipment that could prove that. So so that gave us, of course a stage to to sort of spread the message. And because we had equipment that could prove that that was not taking place. So in a way, I feel we were quite fortunate about having that misunderstanding because we sort of had had that opportunity, uh, to to to to tell what what's the right golf physics.
00:08:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was interesting time for me, Frederick, because I was going through the PGA of America education program, and sure enough, all of those teachings were still in there, the the old ball flight laws understanding, right, And so here I am, you know, using track Man, going through track Man University, uh, kind of learning all those fundamental physics and kind of struggling struggling with that which which exactly you guys were able to kind of level up the entire industry. Talk a little bit about that, Frederick, just I really appreciate what track Man has done just the macro level, uh level up of all the understanding of impact physics and ball flights and things of that nature. How important was the teaching coaching community kind of early on as you were building the brand and getting some of those concepts out there.
00:09:37
Speaker 1: I mean, the the community was absolutely. I mean, first of all, the fact that the that golf is one of those sports, but there is a teaching community and there is and has been for you know, decades, has been this. That's actually one of the reasons why we I think we've been successful as a company, because there are other sports which we actually are entering these years here where there's not the same teaching community and where you have to sort of start from scratch educating and motivate people. This is actually something that that you know, you you need to understand what's going on here and these things that can be taught and so on. So, but it was also so that at the time when we came out with this and that there was this sort of old ball flight laws guy, and there was you know, groups that was maybe not so motivated to learn new stuff, and then there were some that actually were really motivated to to learn about, you know, everything new and and those people were extremely important for us and very supportive. Of course we we we helped them also a lot by by listening to what is it that they need and what can we do in order for you to be more successful as coaches and bringing you know, your message across to to your to your students and so on. So so that shaped also, I would say, the whole There was a vocabulary that that did not exist at the time. I mean, for example, take a thing that we today we just take for granted, things like attack angle and a cloud path and so on. At the time, what they were talking about when they say cloud path or swing path, which were also discussed, is actually what we today know as swing direction is the wall swing, meaning it doesn't matter where sort of in the swing arc you make contact with the ball. But cloud path and attack angle matters. You know, everything is where where where you hit it in the arc. So there were some definitions that needed to be defined there, so having the teachers to develop this language. Uh and and because if if not, if you don't have a language to communicate this, you can't get these messages across. So so that was and I would like to think that we sort of took the front lead on on on that and and and developed that. But that was collaboration and euseonizing that coaching space big time, and again the forward thinking of that coaching community. And if you look now today, where it's a lot of sort of everybody takes this for granted, this is how we you know, things related to each other in the golf swing and the impacts and so on, that was not the case. I can tell you twenty something years ago.
00:12:29
Speaker 2: Frederick I was interested in you know, you have, you know, the plan of a company, right, the plan of an idea. I think a lot of the time, the plan of something new is to solve X. And then as you start to kind of uncover other ideas, you realize there's other stuff to solve. I mean the idea of like where does the ball in on the driving range? At what point did you realize there was all of this knowledge that hadn't been uncovered yet in terms of the way people think about golf. Was this a eureka moment? Was this as you guys started to kind of chat with people in the golf world about what maybe didn't exist because it feels like as you guys started to kind of encounter OEMs and people in the golf space, you started to feel that there was a lot of understanding that maybe they didn't even quite know.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, I mean, I would say one of the things that we very very quickly actually, and thanks to you guys and some of the other equip manufacturers, we were very very quickly sort of out on tour and on the driving range and you know, basically measuring on the best players in the world. And one of the things that stood out for me and was that there was and this is one of your friends in the industry, I won't name drop them, and further onanth of the bus, but they were saying a driver needed to be launched a twelve degree launch angle and had to have twenty seven hundred rpm. That's a good driver show. And then we measured all the players sort of on the there and they were all over the place, and there was some launching it at six degrees, some at fifteen, some had the eighteen hundred RPMs, some had your thirty three thirty four hundred rpm. So how come that these players, the best players in the world, that have all the equipment available at their disposal, and they're doing this for a living, and of course they have figured out to be what works for them and to be optimized. So how come they are so you know, widely spread. And that was sort of for me sort of there's something missing here, there's something we don't understand here. And by analyzing a lot of dates, I figured out the holy grail to this is a tack angle, because if the more you hit up on your ball, the more positive your attack angle is, the easier it is to get a high launch angle with a lower off the club. The lower off the club will give you lower speed spin rate and also higher ball speed, so that that's where you get that high launch low spin. And if you hit down on the ball, well you need to have the ball up in the air, so you need to increase the loft of your club then, but that comes with a penalty of more spin weight and you actually drop in ball speed also. So that was sort of what fit all this together, and that was something that was not understood and I had sort of had had to Yeah, I say, develop this scratch, which was super fun by the way, but but that was one of the things where I could really see there's really something missing here. And then when you add the next layer was this, as I said, understanding, you know, why does a ball start to the right. Is that because your path is going out to the right. No, it's you know, dominantly, because your face angle is pointing to the right. So understanding that, and what does that mean in terms of the correction you need to do in order to hit your decided shot shape and so on. I mean that was another one of those hey we have we are lacking some information here.
00:16:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, Frederick, Shane's a good example. He hits generally your standards shot shape. For Shane hits down on it negative angle of attack what three four degrees? Usually Shane launches a little bit lower, with a little bit more spin, but he is he is optimized for his delivery because Shane's Shane's Kike kind of one of your modern day tour players that brings a lot of speed uh to the table.
00:16:30
Speaker 4: Frederick.
00:16:30
Speaker 3: So yeah, just talk a little bit more about that driver angle of attack. When that when you kind of brought that those findings right to the the tour, you saw a lot of players trying to work on hitting more up and certainly the shorter, slower clubhead speed players that kind of need to But nowadays you're seeing some of the faster players still play golf hitting hitting down on the driver. Why do you think that is? And maybe talk a little bit about some of the stuff you're working on you you can feel free to transition this in to some of your some of the things you're working on with the with the body movement tracking.
00:17:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is actually this was hitting down or up on the ball. It's actually something that had changed over the years. So in generally speaking, the the if you look at the PGA Tour, they are generally ball up on the ball then they used to be. So there's definitely dinner shift. It is true that if you have a lot of club speed, then you can say in some ways you have the distance given to you, so you're you're not looking for that extra yard or ten or twenty yards and so on. Having said that, you look at the tour today, I mean all that the whether it's Roy mclarroy or the you know just had here in Nikolai Hig you know driving it was at three hundred and ninety yah, yeah, yesterday, it's they're they're hitting up on the ball, but they're combining a high speed with the mechanics to actually hit up on the op the ball as well. So I I it's it's not just because you have the speed that you you you will still gain on hitting up on the ball. So and and and that of course, so it is advantageous for everyone playing this game if they want to hit it further hitting up on the ball and get fitted to a driver with the approper got loved. And you need for every one degree, roughly speaking, you hit up on the ball more, you need have a degree less a lot of driver. That's sort of a general rule of thumb. But of course it becomes interesting then how do you I mean, ultimately, uh, you know you have to change how you're swinging the club in order to hit it more up on the ball. Yes, you can move the ball more forward in your stands and you can keep that swing, but that will come with Yeah, you're probably the club will go both more left then. So, but understanding how you are both generating the power and then hitting off the ball, indicate with your driver on the irons you do want to hit downloaded. That of course means that we have to you know started the body also, and I would say the evolution of how we we've really been working sort of backwards where we we ultimately we started measuring where the ball landed. Our solution to that was measuring the full trajectory. Now that's a result of how you deliver the club to the ball, impact location, et cetera, et cetera. But that is a consequence of how you're swinging the golf flop. Of course there is equipment, uh, specifications and properties also involved here, so it's it's actually sort of a completely natural step that we now attractman start looking at the body. So so we we are we are launching now marcles camera tracking where we are using two cameras down the line and a face on triangulate the trianguli those and then we're giving the body motion. And what's unique about that is this is the first time where there is body measurements, as I say, in the same coordinate system as you have the club delivery and the ball data. Before that, all motion capture systems have sort of been in their living on their own island. But of course it matters, and just think of simple things like set up. Well, it depends where should that ball be depends on where your target is, So you need to know where your target line is. So that's one of the things that I'm really really excited about bringing out here in twenty twenty six is to have this motion analysis to the emotion analysis and also bridging it with the club delivery, which ultimately is what we want to affect is the ball trajectory where the ball is ending up, but it all comes from the player movement and then there's some equipment in between.
00:21:00
Speaker 2: No, So, Marty, Marty, I wanted to ask you just in terms of track Man, what is track Man done done to your side of the business over the last couple of decades in terms of R and D and working on new clubs and new drivers, Like how much easier has it made your job? Is there times where there's so much information that it's almost made it more complicated at times? Like how has that evolution been in terms of that partnership.
00:21:26
Speaker 3: I think Frederick mentioned it, But there's a lot of things now in twenty twenty six that we look back and we kind of just take for granted. You know, TrackMan, the way track Man works is Frederick give you a lot of credit for this, it's just magic. You know, you have this orange box and all these magical things happen, which there's just so much really good fundamental physics and calculations and algorithms. Everything that Frederick and his team have built in there have been pretty magical. Ping has invested very heavily in track Man. I think we have a two hundred and fifty six track Man, but got to be up there. Frederick, if not the lead in terms of your customer base, and we even Shane to that point. Train All of our field reps, our sales reps have gone through track Man University. This is like getting your bachelor's and how to use TrackMan, understand all the pretty pretty technical kind of definitions and things of that nature so that we can get the most out of it. We've actually, we have absolutely loved having this technology not only at our rain chain that we use at the proving grounds for R and D testing side, club fitting side, but also all the data we get from all of our fittings we do globally worldwide gold mine of data data mining, certainly for the club fitting standpoint, to develop all of our club fitting algorithms and to have the data feed coming in not only from ballflight, also from the club. Like Frederick talked about being able to fit the perfect launch conditions of a driver to the individual player, you can look at the three dimensional delivery of the club, which is super duper important. Then you'll open the door to things beyond the driver, which is the you're gapping analysis, optimizing your fairy Wood trajectory, things of that nature. You're gapping analysis. Now we're moving into more leveraging track man even well, Frederick, I love to talk to you a little bit about this for short game and putting more, and that's kind of the latest kind of deep dive that we're going down at paying Frederick. I know, you know we've talked about this in the last couple of years, some fun research we've done on the short game side and the putting side. So I would love Frederick to get your two cents on. Let's say you're you're in indoor club fitter and you're fitting maybe wedges, you know, maybe for grinds, spin generation, things of that nature. What are some tips and tricks there, whether somebody using the TM four or the IO for wedge fitting specifically indoors where you kind of don't have that sound in that turf interaction. What are some of the data tiles in the metrics that could be important in that scenario.
00:24:02
Speaker 1: I mean for wet fitting, it's absolutely to be able to sort of control the launch angle is a key thing, and also getting the proper spin on the ball those I mean, of course speed it depends on. That's how you control the distance. But getting that sort of launching in the right window and getting the proper spin rate. Now, in order to do that you have to make you've said, a proper contact to the ball, So impact location is of course a key thing here. Also attack angle or if you prefer to look at it as a low point, is also a super important parameter in order to But ultimately it's about how do you control your launch angle and your spin rate? Those are the things, and it can be one of the things that can be a little when you go to we all we talked about the driver and twenty seven hundred up ym the sort of maybe was a good spin rate. Now we all have our individual optimized spin rates, but they're sort of in that two thousand range typically for most players when you do short game it's in general spin rate will be proposal to the club speed you are generating. And that means that it can maybe be difficult to say, on a thirty yard pitch shot, well what spin rate should I get because you don't have anything to benchmarkt against. So in fact, for that purpose, we created actually a new metric which we call spin index. So basically this tells you relative to the actual spin rate you are getting compared to what is the spin rate you would have got had you got sort of a good, nice contact with good friction between the club and the ball. And that's index needs to sort of be ideally close to one hundred percent. But if it's anyway sort of above ninety, you are you are you're you're in good shape. If it starts, you know, dropping bit below like seventy, maybe even down to sixty, you have you have an impact problem here. Or it could also be that your wages the grooves on your wedges are worn out. Maybe if if that doesn't happen in indoor settings, but if you if you're playing you know, on real grass, if you're getting grass or moisture between the club and the ball, that will reduced that friction and you will immediately see them in the spin index. So so so those those are, you know, some of the things I would keep an eye on. And if you're looking then to finding out what is the best grind I get on my wedges in order to give me make get the most consistent launch on. Maybe it's not the one you get the high spin rate with, but if you're consistent and you can count on it, that's really what what I think is the most attractive thing. So there was about putt.
00:27:06
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna ask what about putting? I mean, how are you guys kind of implementing your technology. I mean, obviously the full swing stuff was was the initial idea, but how about putting and kind of what you can kind of look at in that world.
00:27:19
Speaker 1: I would say, first of all, we think partting is a completely underserved area with regards to to technology and that it goes also for for and to some extent also understanding what's what's happening because partting is where where I mean launch for when you when you make a putt is sort of a wedge between a club head and the ground, so that the actually turf condition matters and what partting stroke to use on what turf and you know, whether it's it's not only the stint. There might also be other factors that are in here. So I would say we we are on the track man. All we have what's called performance partting. We are again we are tracking sort of the full trajectory of the ball, so we are measuring the actual break and if it hits a stone on the way, if which shouldn't be there. But let's say we will measure that that it actually you know, bounces to the side. So again that's because ultimately that what is what it's about is controlling where the ball is going and how how far it's going. But then we are measuring all kinds of things like it's it's you know, the first phase of our part is is actually skidding means it's actually doing micro bounces and for every bounce there is friction between the club and the ball, and that means that there will be you know, jumped down in speed. You'll you will lose speed sort of in a in a step, but then you will pick up some spin rate as as a consequence of that, and that will continue to happen until the spin rate sort of matches the the speed of the ball at that point the ball is actually rolling, so you have that sort of the first typically it's it's a couple you know, it could be two feet on on a ten ten feet part or something like that, where the ball is actually skidding and then it starts to roll. But that is influenced on how you you are. What's the launch condition actually of the ball when you when you're you are launching it typically a little bit, you know, with a positive attack, a positive launch angle about two degrees and so on. So it's it's and we're measuring all these things here, including impact, location and so on. Uh, And I would say we are still learning. How do we then translate this? And I know you guys also learning is in terms of okay, what does that mean in terms of both partting technique, and what does it mean in terms of of you know, fitting the potter and so on. How how do we put these things together? But ultimately it's all about controlling where the ball is going. And that's why we think it's so important that everything we are doing here when we are sort of whether we are called research or what we do, is that we're measuring what actually happens, What does the result of what we are doing here, so I.
00:30:17
Speaker 4: Can, Frederick, I'm a little nervous.
00:30:19
Speaker 2: Now Marty's going to have like four different strokes for the different grass type. And listen, if there's anybody that's going to implement that in tournament golf, it'll be Marty Jertsen. So now you're adding like the bags.
00:30:32
Speaker 4: When you travel.
00:30:33
Speaker 3: Now, oh yeah, I got to measure the we'll be able to pull a few metrics out of performance putting. Frederick, right before the tournament round, maybe changed my stroke a little bit. Frederick, what is the kind of quote unquote ball fly laws of a putt for folks listening out there, like what percentage of the start line is controlled by the face to the path and what you've been seeing so far for a putt specifically.
00:30:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for putt, I would say the starting the action meaning what we call the launch direction is it's almost one hundred percent the face angle of of the of the potter. We are in something that is ninety or more than ninety percent that is controlled by the actual phase angle of the potter. And then the remaining part is only the path, meaning that you to to a high degree, you can say that the path as such does not matter as much for for for Potter, I do think that the path could matters for controlling your face angle, so and and and there comes some closure thing in as well there. But but really the the and also control controlling the impact location, which is is really important as well because get the consistent I mean bold speed, which is is utually important for for your business control. And so so it's about ninety percent that is face angle or slightly more than that. And that's if we look at the full game then on on you know, like a driver, we're talking about something like eighty five percent for iron shots to get down to the seventies. So so yeah, that's that's what we have seen so far.
00:32:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, Shane, that's all I always think back to like Billy Mayfair's putting stroke, right, he had the big loop and his stroke and oh you know he can't control the path. It's all about the start line. And Frederick brought up a very nuanced point there that you see all the tour players doing block practice and they're they're refining their path. Well, it's probably just influencing the hey their path, their mechanics are informing the consistency of face face delivery and impact location. But I think Frederick, I'm with you, it's a very exciting time for short game and putting because I feel like we'll be sitting here in you know, two three four years looking back and you we're kind of on the steep part of the learning curve of really understanding, understanding what's going on and then informing in our world, helping improve our fitting recommendations and making it even more individualized, just like we've done with the driver launch conditions. They used to be generic, now they're specific. I think that is the trajectory that we're going on thanks to your guys technology on the on the putting side, So I.
00:33:29
Speaker 1: Totally agree with you with you and that it is exciting times for both. I would say a short game and for partting it's it's it's it is areas where we maybe don't have the complete picture yet.
00:33:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, hopefully hopefully get that that'll help us out. Frederick.
00:33:47
Speaker 2: Something I've always been interested in in terms of the business of track Man is like, like who's buying them?
00:33:54
Speaker 4: How are you guys?
00:33:55
Speaker 2: Kind of where are you guys going in terms of sales, like where does your but where's your focus? In terms of the business of track man kind of lie is in you know, tournament golf, simulator golf, you know ranges, I mean players, Like, where's the focus for you guys? As you guys continue to kind of expand and look at maybe new markets or new technologies.
00:34:17
Speaker 1: Our focus is is golf. That's That's the short answer, because there is. And so it's one of the ways we are now starting sort of to measure us our success is that we estimate that that yearly there's about two to three hundred billion golf shots hit a year. And I know that's a estimate, but we sort of we don't think it's far far off. Last year we recorded four billion golf shots. That means that there was somebody who turned on an app, whether it was on our range or was it in assimilator, or was it on a drive range where it's pre installed and so on. That happened for four billion shots last year. So we we are we are maybe one and a half percent penetration yet. Uh, And so I think you understand with that ambition that there's a lot more we want to do, but we also want to make the value of those shots. We are recording a much more yeah, valuable to the user. I mean, we have a huge focus on the actual golfer. We have a belief that we can make golfers better and enjoy golf and more by using our technology. And that means that giving insights in your own game, but also make it more fun to play golf. So that's it. It's and we don't all we're not built the same way. Some of us range kings and like to write out there. Some of us like to just have you know, fun and play golf courses in as simulator and have a you know, a beer or drink while we are doing that. And someplace likes to play on real golf courses and you know it shoots scores below power and you know, just aiming for being the best golfers in the world. And we basically want to serve all those needs. So it's it's ambitious.
00:36:25
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, well, I mean it's you know, for me personally, like my personal relationship with track Man is you know, I don't personally own a track Man, but I've hit a ton of golf balls with track Man in the past. I had an instructor out in Arizona that would use track Man specifically I think I was the first time I really encountered it a while back, and I got to the point with my instructor, Frederick, where I'd go hit balls on the track man and I could just look at the numbers.
00:36:49
Speaker 4: And see what I was doing quote unquote wrong with my golf swing.
00:36:52
Speaker 2: And I always found that so enlightening because sure, I had an instructor there that in terms of his eyeballs and understanding my golf swing, he could help me. But there was times where I just simply looked at the screen, go look at my path, spin, attacking, all things like that, and I simply knew what I was doing wrong with my golf swing. That's the reason I was there. And so for me, I mean, just my relationship with the technology made me better when I went out there and encountered No.
00:37:19
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And you can say, and there's been some voices, as you know, are tracking making coaches sort of obsolete and so on, But no, we're not. We're just you know, increasing the level of the games. Of course, the coaches need to you know, step on that train, and they are doing that. But that's also why we have this sort of TrackMan university and basically we're just giving them better tools. But it's true that you could say you can help yourself more than you could in the past, and it's actually fun to do that. When you first when you understand, oh, I need to look at my path that needs to be here and here, you probably at some point need a coach to tell you, Okay, how do I then do that? And how do I do it in the best possible way without screwing up other things? Right?
00:38:05
Speaker 3: So, yeah, Frederick, one of the you know, things I think track Man and Ping kind of have in common is just our our focus on the engineering first and being pretty rigorous to you know, we've delayed products at Ping when we didn't have the performance right exactly where it was. There's been a lot of times over the over the years we've worked with you and track Man where we would, uh, we we want a new data tile to come out and you're just not quite there on refining it yet and holding a very high standard uh before you release maybe maybe a new metric and new data tile and some maybe the average listener out there doesn't know is that we are always getting pushed software and firmware updates that get more out of your guys hardware technology, which is which is very fun. I absolutely love products like that. Talk a little bit about that internal process, uh and just that standard that that you hold yourself to before kind of releasing a new data tile, a new metric, No.
00:39:01
Speaker 1: I mean what you're actually touching upon. And I can say I mean that's also why we are huge respect for for Ping and how you go around with your product. I think actually it comes back to being you know, even though that my co founders and I went on in family, we we actually you know, think of it as a family business like Ping is. And I think when you are a family business, you're we're always playing the long game. We have we have no benefit of any short games. Uh. And and if we come out with with you know, it has taken us many, many years to give build up our reputation and that when you get something from track Man, you can trust it, and when you get numbers from track Man you can trust them and so on. So and that can be ruined in a split second if we just push out too too much without having done rigorous testing. So I mean maybe I will answer your question in in in in a in a little bit engineering way. But but they're there for every parameter that we introduced me we we could owe night toppled the number of parameters that we output, but with I mean, we could tell you what the speed is at apex and whatever I mean. And yes, that is measurements. But is that something that is useful for you or are we just giving you one more number to relate to that doesn't give you added value? And if it doesn't give any value, will we not output it because then it's regundant and we are not doing you a favor. On the contrary, another thing is what every parameter needs to be actionable, meaning that you it needs to have an accuracy so you can make an foamed decision just based on one single shot. Because when you're working on your golf wing, you're trying things, I want to improve my cloud path or what it is, and then you try, what if I do this, oh that way, that didn't go in the right direction, or it screwed up something else and so on. You need to have that feedback when you're sort of exploring what is it, what's the right solution for me to fix my club path? And that means that you were requiring high accuracy of course. But then the other thing is that if sometimes and it hurts my heart every time I see it, there will be a data now, but that is not cracked within the tolerances that we would like it to be. That's what we call an outlier, and we are doing everything we can to avoid those. If you were to guarantee it never happened, we will never output in data. I mean it is uh, you know, sensor data. And there always are reasons for why things can be you know, in in weird circumstances, can can be a little bit you know of of and so we're doing a lot of cross checks, and we're doing things feeling, you know, not absolutely sure that this will be within the tolerance. We much rather have an empty tile then running the risk of showing a wrong data parameter. So this is what we call the outlier percentage. So this is something that that you know, I asked my engineers, Okay, how many times if you see one measurement that you can will your I say this was not correct? I mean if we said the ball landed, you know, five yards left, and you could your iic, no, it was straight at the target. So you lose conference right there in the in the track Man. How many good measurements does it take to you forget and regain your trust in track Man and the numbers we are spitting out. And my answer to that is it's about two hundred. So that means our outlier percentage has to be below point five percent. For some measurements, there's a much lower tresshold than there, But that means that that making sure that we have an accuracy where it actually makes the parameter useful and we are not running the risk of outputting a bad number and at the same time having a pickup rate where you don't you know, it's not like only every second shot, but you can actually count on getting it and then once in a while you might see an empty tile. That's really what I think. What we have made very different from every other technology, measurement technology you see out there, and we have benefited a lot from doing that. Even though it is frustrating to see empty tiles, but it's much better than seeing a wrong number.
00:43:37
Speaker 2: Frederick, before we let you go, what about track Man's venture into other sports? Obviously you know this conversation typically is focused in and around golf, but I mean always the interest I think is to venture into you know, maybe another sport it's similar to golf, something like a baseball or a hockey or a tennis. How's that world for you guys.
00:43:56
Speaker 1: Well, actually we have been active in baseball. We started in baseball in two thousand eight because we brought this out, you know, to especially to the US in the golf and they immediately told you, guys need to go to baseball. They're crazy about data. The only thing they have is a speed gun. You need to take this to baseball. So we started on that in two thousand and eight. But you know, we're based out of Denmark. We don't play baseball here. We have sero knowledge about that. So we had to learn and a long story short is that we had to go directly into the MLB stadiums because they didn't know what good data looked like. What is twenty two hundred our pm and a fastball good? They didn't know, so we had to figure it out. So we had to measure the best guys and making a stadium system that can do this. But actually today this is actually a significant part of trackment business. It's about eighteen percent of our total turnover is baseball. And now we're also in softball, diamond sports as we call it. We had the last few years we have entered also American football, so we started started with the kicking, but we're just released also some quarterback applications and then what I call real football, sorry, but soccer. We also have an application for that. And but both for I would say for for kicking in American football, the the quarterback and especially soccer. There's not this same teaching humunity, so knowing you know what's good and so on. We have to learn that from the bottom. So it's taken a little bit slow, I would say, to penetrate. It would be fantastic market, I'm sure in a few years, but at least we have started on that. And then maybe I'm breaking a small secret here but saying but we will also will be launching this year a quick product. Oh yeah, so it's it's actually the second biggest sport in the world, and you know, we can leverage a lot of what we have developed for for baseball, so we'll we'll do cricket and have gained a lot of interest from the beta testing we've been doing so that that's quite exciting but very cool. No matter what we do if for the foreseeable future, I can only see golf maintaining it's sort of eighty percent of our revenue and focus and all that. There are so many opportunities still within that.
00:46:35
Speaker 4: Frederick.
00:46:36
Speaker 2: What's it like for you guys when you go to a major championship and you're down on the range on a Tuesday or Wednesday and you see, you know, a track.
00:46:43
Speaker 4: Man after TrackMan after TrackMan on the range.
00:46:45
Speaker 2: I mean, is it still a pinch me moment for you guys when you see the best in the world using your product, relying on your product.
00:46:52
Speaker 1: It's it's it. I mean it sounds maybe a little bit, yeah, spoiled whatever, but but I've gotten used to it. But then once once in a while, once in a while, then when I take a break and you know, take it, you know, standing in the shade and I'm looking out there, and then I'm seeing all these orange boxes that you know, you have all the best players in the world. They say, huh, really changed something here, But but you know, it's and and you know, I talked to all the the the players and and how they're using out to God, It's it's fascinating and it's truly is rewarding. And of course, you know, being there with the best players in the game is very, very rewarding.
00:47:38
Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, but I'm sure it's similar to Marty. You know, like Marty using a driver he developed, and all of a sudden you see somebody using it to win a big golf tournament and you're you kind of go wow that. I remember the early days of R and D when we were you know, we were drawing stuff on a computer and then all of a sudden you got love Watson using the driver to hit at three thirty on the middle of a fair way.
00:47:58
Speaker 1: You know that there are those moments there and and yeah, yeah, it's it's I never got bone of it, I would say, But yeah.
00:48:11
Speaker 3: Frederick, I know you're you're a key, You're you're a keen, passionate golfer yourself. Yeah, what is a if you have one, what is a data tile or metric or maybe it's a plus minus number in track man that that you work on in your own game that maybe, uh is less common by other players or teachers. Is there any is there any little secrets in there that you you you found that having having built the technology that you think is important that you work on that.
00:48:40
Speaker 1: Maybe others don't, No, actually not, I'm I'm looking at the same thing as a Scottish chafferin Roy Mceroy and those guys. I when I practice, of course I look on my carry. I mean, understanding how far I hit the ball is absolutely crucial depending on on what I'm working on. I think maybe the biggest thing for me, what I always have off on the screen because I struggled maybe a little bit with me with it is consistency of impact location. That is that is key for me. Even even though that you know I've trained, especially on drivers, I can feel where I impacted now. I can you know, tell whether it's you know, heal high, low, tow center and so I can feel those things now, but it's still getting get quantified. That that that that that's a key thing to to look at, and especially with irons. And you talked about the short game before. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to hit it on the toe on my short game and sometimes you know that that it comes up short.
00:49:43
Speaker 4: That's the reason, Marty, do you have a talent you focus on?
00:49:48
Speaker 1: Uh?
00:49:48
Speaker 3: I mean it depends on which it depends on kind of what I'm working on my mechanics, I mean, my my coach, my teacher, Andy Patnaw track man user. Locally we work on Yeah, vertical swing plane a lot, swing direction, vertical swing plane driver. I'm always looking at angle of attack impact. Yeah yeah, angle attacks a big one for me. So those are kind of the core ones. Certainly short game stuff we're having a lot of fun playing around with. I think, just always making sure ball speed, launch spin is good. I'm a big believer. I you know, We've done a lot of stuff out there. There's a lot of different thoughts on shaping the driver, having some spin axis, tilt or not. I like the beauty call me a theorist here, but of the dead straight shot for maximum distance. So I'm always trying to reduce my spin axis for me personally, I know different players have different thoughts and strategies around that one.
00:50:42
Speaker 4: No deviation with the driver.
00:50:43
Speaker 2: Well, Frederick, we could go on with you, probably for hours on end, but we don't want to take up your entire day. As I said off the top, it's crazy that the word track band has become what it is in golf.
00:50:56
Speaker 4: I mean it's because you know, you think about Kleenex.
00:50:58
Speaker 2: You know, it's basically the the term we use when we talk about tissue paper, right, I mean, track man is basically the way we think about data when it comes to golf balls and swing plane and golf clubs and all that.
00:51:09
Speaker 4: And so congrats to you guys. It's been awesome to chat with you and we'll have to do it again soon.
00:51:15
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for having me here. It's been super fun talk to you, Shane and always find to talk with you, Mady.
00:51:22
Speaker 3: Dido, Frederick, thanks for coming on.
00:51:24
Speaker 4: This is the Ping Proving Grounds Podcast
