Why Two Launch Monitors Read the Same Swing Differently
This is the question we get more than any other on a first visit. The short answer: the two technologies aren't measuring the same moment in the swing.
A radar-based unit tracks the ball's actual flight through the air for a set distance after impact, then works backward mathematically to estimate launch conditions. A camera-based unit photographs the clubhead and ball in the fraction of a second immediately around contact and calculates from that freeze-frame data. Both approaches are legitimate. Both have a specific situation where they're more likely to be wrong.
Where Radar Tends to Struggle
Radar systems need a clean flight path to track. Shots hit low and hard, especially indoors or in a tight bay with limited flight distance before the ball hits a net, give the unit less clean data to extrapolate from. The math still produces a confident-looking number — it just has less real flight to base that number on.
Where Camera Systems Tend to Struggle
Camera-based units depend on catching a clean image of the ball leaving the face. A low, extremely fast strike, or a strike that kicks up debris or turf between the camera and the ball, can throw off the calculation in the other direction. Like the radar case, the output still looks precise — it's just built on a compromised input.
Neither Failure Announces Itself
This is the actual problem, and it's the reason a single-monitor session can quietly hand a player a wrong number with total confidence. Neither technology flags its own bad read. The number simply appears on the screen looking exactly as trustworthy as every other number that session.
Why Running Both Closes the Gap
The situations that make a radar unit's read shaky are largely unrelated to the situations that make a camera unit's read shaky. Running both on every swing means the two failure modes rarely overlap on the same strike. When they agree, that agreement is meaningful. When they don't, that disagreement is the signal to re-swing before the number goes anywhere near a build sheet.
The Takeaway
Neither monitor is more "correct" in general — each is more reliable in different conditions. The fix isn't picking the better technology. It's not trusting either one alone.
Watch Both Units Confirm a Number
Every session captures each swing on both technologies at once, logged side by side.