 Awesome product |
| Review Date: August 18, 2009 |
| Reviewer: B. Davis, Corpus Christi, TX USA |
If you are really good already and live on a golf course and have membership and play several times a week you'll probably think this product is not very interesting.. But if you are like me and only get to play 3 - 4 times a month yet want to improve you'll love this product.
Fact is I plugged this up to my computer and was using it w/out any tweaking right away. It recognizes my shots spot on.. I was seriously amazed.
The great thing about it is that it tells you exactly what you are doing wrong, outside/in swing with open club face (so that's why it sliced).. but aside from its practice app if you get bored just swinging a club over and over like at a driving range you can play the 3dd golf that comes with it. You currently get 4 courses with various difficulty levels and basically you feel like you are playing a game of golf w/out having to leave your home. And you can take muligans or go into practice mode and just practice the same shot over and over..
It reads chips and pitches spot on as well with great flight and roll dynamics.. the physics in this game is as good as what is in tiger woods golf..
The putting is a little fast in my opinion but that is because I am use to playing on slow greens. It allows you to tweak stuff like that, I have not quite got around to doing that though.
You'll want to keep using your other training aids along with this, the best part is that it tells you why your swing was wrong so you can practice and correct errors knowing what you need to correct.. Unlike a driving range where you don't always know what you are doing wrong. All the while you are playing a game of golf and actually feel like you are in the golf game instead of just aiming at targets and swinging over and over again.
Some things to be aware of,
1) This only works indoors. You need good lighting and no shadows over the sensors. Since it only works indoors you also need a lot of room.
2) from the base to the bottom of the ball is 1 3/8" so you'll need some platform to stand on. I just got a 3/4" thick board and stapled artificial turf to it and I use my golf shoes when I play it seems to be pretty perfect.
3) You'll probably want to hit a foam ball but you'll need something that it can impact against.. YOur indoor walls will bounce the balls right off.. I got an old comforter and just tack it up when i use it and put a chair under it so that it's away from the wall.. The ball hits it and rolls back to me..
4) sometimes when you hit the ball the base will move.. if it is not perfectly squared up to where you are aming/swinging you'll get the wrong read for your club and get a bad shot. So you'll have to make sure you keep it in a straight line. Dancin dog sells a mat that it can connect to, but I just eye ball it after each shot and correct it.
in summary I love this product, but if you are already super awesome and play all the time you wont find it useful.. but if you are still awesome but can't play for whatever reason you'll enjoy the simulated golf aspect of this system on days you want to play but can't... and if you suck like me you'll figure out why and be able to work on fixing it
EDIT - July - 2010
Well.. almost a full year of using this thing and I would like to update my post and say that I'm still using it and loving it. I broke down and got a Golf coach. If anything this simulator showed me that I'll never fix my swing on my own. Welp.. 6 months after I started seeing the coach on a weekly basis and practicing on this simulator daily I finally broke 90. I went from shooting in the 105 range on my best days to shooting 92 on my worst days. This simulator has allowed me to practice with ease if nothing else. It's sometimes hard after work to make the trek to the range and even then you don't always know whats wrong with your shots. With this simulator you know exactly whats wrong and since I've been taking lessons for so long I've learned how to correct my errors.
a couple of things I want to say
1) if you don't swing with a ball placed on the simulator (foam ball is fine) you'll have sporadic shots. I honestly think its the brain. You need to see something there to hit or else the motions can't happen as they should. So if you plan to use this plan to use a ball or you will have a hard time hitting decent shots. Again foam ball is fine.
2) Stance is very important to any swing. If you've knocked this simulator off a bit or whatever your standing on is off a bit and you are not squared off properly you'll more than likely have a bad shot. It's worth it to invest in the dancin dog mats that will keep everything from moving around.
I honestly think that the people who say it's not reading their swings right are either not squared up properly, are not using a ball, or do actually in real life have very sporadic shots.
There are several simulators on the market but none at this price point. If you want a game to just play with this is probably not the product for you.. if you want to work on your golf game in the comfort of your own home believe me this tool is very nice
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Best bang for the buck!
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| Review Date: October 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: R. Robinson, |
| Having researched many competing golf simulators, I chose to take a chance on the Optishot. I am very satisified with my purchase as the accuracy, reliability, and ease of use of this product far exceeded my expectations. I use it in my garage and have a low-cost projector attached to my laptop that displays the images on the wall (no screen is needed since you can play without a ball!). The Optishot does NOT need any special tapes (like some of its competitors) and I can use my own clubs. The accuracy is dead on as I usually pull hook bad shots and within a few days of using this I have now been able to see EXACTLY why and when I make these bad shots and correct them. The 3DD software that is included has some really good graphics and is quite realistic (especially displayed using a projector). I also purchased the Tiger Woods 08 game and that has allowed my children to want to play with Dad now too! I think there was an earlier version last year that some folks may have had some trouble with lighting conditions, but the new version works with no problems at all even with some outside light coming in through the windows. I highly recommend this product as anything less than $400 is well worth it if it can help you to enjoy playing golf that much more! |
GREAT Product
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| Review Date: January 14, 2010 |
| Reviewer: F. Macioce, |
| This was voted Best NEW product of the 2009 PGA show. I was skeptical at first, but I bought it & LOVE IT ! It shows you club head path & face angle, which are the 2 most important elements in the swing. As a bonus, it also tells you your swing speed, tempo, distance, & if you hit it off the heel, center or the toe ! This simulator got my 6 year old & my wife playing it. They all really enjoy it. |
an excellent product...provided you take the time to read and follow directions
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| Review Date: February 16, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Om S, United States |
I live in montana and the winters are painfully long.
We are lucky if the course is open in mid-november and luckier still if it opens in mid-April.
As a 13hdcp who is aspiring to be single digit this season, I needed to keep my swing in shape during the winters.
Hitting balls into a net is ok but it doesn't give any feedback.
That is where the dancindogg or optishot comes in.
I got it from amazon because I find it easy to deal with them in case I didn't like the product and had to return it.
The product arrived nicely packed and was simple to open. The software installed easily and the unit was ready to go very quickly.
Finding the right lighting condition is critical if the unit is to operate effectively.
My tip is to keep a lamp lit in the room at a distance from the unit. The lamp must have a compact fluorescent bulb and not halogen. I cannot over emphasize the right lighting.
Next, make sure your feet are level with the unit because the unit's hitting pad sits an inch and a quarter above the floor. Build your stance and make sure you are square. If you compensate for a less-than-perfect stance, you will want to discredit the results and think that the unit is faulty. But the unit is a machine and it doesn't lie. Several people are disappointed because the unit tells them their swings are not as good as they believed. But I believe the unit and its feedback. It will take a little adjustment (swing speed and distance settings) to get the distance you get on the course. Once done, you can enjoy the unit and do some serious practice.
There are two modes for practice...practice zone and 3DD practice. Both have their value. The latter has on-course graphics and is a simulation. The former is geared only toward technical numbers like path angle, face angle, swing speed and tempo.
The sensors are indestructible unless you just pick up the club and bring it straight down like an axe to hit the sensors. The sensors are set deep enough in the turf to not get hit by a club moving along the turf.
Depending on the design of the sole of your driver, you may not have luck in registering driver swings. A common trick is to cover the sole with masking tape and then using a strip of reflective tape on the leading edge of the sole right along the club face. The tape will help the unit pick up the swing.
Irons are naturally reflective and should work without any tape at all even if they aren't very shiny.
Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase. It is the best value simulator out there...do your search and you won't find anything in this price range that offers so much.
Pros: good graphics, lots of personalization possible, easy setup, unit is well constructed, practice mode allows a good review of your swing
Cons: Printed matter doesn't give you tips and tricks to make the unit work...online forums have very little discussion except for ottawa golf. personalization (listed as pro above) is also a downside. Some people may not like tinkering so much to get good results. You'll need the lengths, lofts, and offsets of your irons because the unit has room for such details. Not everyone knows the exact specs of their clubs.
Recommendation: strongly recommended. can't go wrong if you take the time to set up.
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Not quite what expected, but good nonetheless.
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| Review Date: June 7, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Adam J. Hand, Macon, GA United States |
I'd been thinking of getting a sim for some time and finally took the plunge on this one, which is certainly the least expensive one available. There's plenty of info on this on the internet so I won't go much into it, but I've been quite satisfied so far. Occasionally it won't pick up your swing (maybe once every 20-25 swings) and you have to reswing. Of course that only happens when you've really hit one flush. Distances with clubs weren't particularly accurate for me and this seems to be something that is fairly common, but you can adjust the distances (e.g. increase distance 10%, decrease distance 5%, etc.) to make the sim distances align with your real ones. I was consistently hitting drives of 320+ which felt good but wasn't going to do my real game any good. Incidentally, my average driving distance is more like 265, so I had to decrease driving distance about 17%. Programming in my clubs and setting distances took maybe 30 minutes and was sort of fun anyway.
There are several courses that come with the sim, as well as a driving range that you have to download as an update once everything's installed. There were several updates to download and while they're not necessary to start playing, if you want the newest courses and the range they are, and they take a couple of hours to download. You can play it right out of the box but download the updates overnight.
I was somewhat dismissive of the computing power recommended for this program. My computer is not quite 2 years old and certainly fits the minimum requirements for running the software, but running the program is not smooth. I've turned off everything in the program that takes processing power but it's still not great, though acceptable, and this isn't really DD's fault anyway, but just the way it is with software and computers. But the newer and more powerful your computer the better this will look, and it does make a difference.
Some people have complained that swings with their driver don't register well with the system. Can't say I've had that problem. So far all of my clubs have been picked up by the sensors just fine. One thing that DD has apparently changed though is the measurement of swing path. For example, after a swing you'll get a reading that says something like, "Clubface open 2 degrees, swing path inside out." Sometimes the swing path will be "very" inside out or outside in. Based on screen shots on the DD website, the reading used to give degrees of inside out or outside in. I've sent some emails to DD trying to find out how inside out "inside out" is, i.e. at what degree of inside out does a reading become "very inside out," but I've gotten no response. I suspect it's pretty significant however, based on some testing on my own, so this wasn't that big a deal. If you get "very outside in" it's either a dead pull or a banana into the next fairway. Any swing path less severe than that is likely to turn out okay based on my experience with "carryover" onto the real range after hitting on the sim.
I've also seen some complaints about lighting having to be perfect to get accurate readings. I haven't had that problem either. I have it in a large front room with just a lamp on and it works fine. No problems with shadows, needing overhead fluorescent light, etc. The foam balls they give you do bounce off stuff. I bought a $30 net from Izzo to catch them and it works great. Finally, the device itself sits 1.5 inches off the ground. They sell a mat on the DD site but it's as expensive as the device itself. I had some spare carpet that was 1/2 inch and just folded it over three times and it works fine. But be aware that you'll need something to stand on when you hit.
I really think this is an excellent product. I didn't give it five stars because it wasn't perfect, but for much of an improvement over it you have to spend $700 more, and for the best sims around you will drop tens of thousands of dollars. If money's no object get a custom job and drop the $50K. If you just want to be able to hit balls when it rains and have some idea what your swing is doing, this is your huckleberry. |
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