The Full Swing tech that powers TGL? Here’s how to make some of it your own

The TGL wrapped up its inaugural season Tuesday night with the Atlanta Drive pulling off a dramatic victory over the New York Golf Club to win the SoFi Cup.

While we have to wait nine months to see what will be in store for TGL’s Season 2, you can pass the time by investing in some of the same tech (see below) that powers the TGL’s massive SoFi Center.

GOLF’s Johnny Wunder recently chatted with TGL Chief Technology Officer Andrew McCaulay to break down how the league uses the Full Swing Kit personal launch monitor and TopTracer technology to accurately simulate outdoor golf.

Gear

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By: Johnny Wunder

“The premise was that we want to be able to hit golf shots from any lie, anywhere,” McCaulay said.

The sequence starts when a player hits a shot, which is tracked by TopTracer cameras over the 35 yards between the hitting area and TGL’s massive 53′ by 64′ screen.

“They track everything about that flight path until it hits the screen, and then TopTracer extrapolates where that would have gone if the screen wasn’t there to stop it,” McCaulay said.

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That’s when the moment-of-impact data from 18 Full Swing Kit launch monitors positioned throughout the SoFi Center is added to the gaming software to predict and accurately reflect how that ball would behave on the ground.

The 35-yard number was strategically picked to give TopTracer enough data to calculate accurate ball flights.

McCaulay also revealed that the TGL system has the aerodynamic properties of each of the golf balls the pros play, which allows the sim to process data for each player’s ball of choice.

“With that focus on trying to be as accurate and detailed as possible simulating the outdoor version of the game, we took the knowledge of which golf ball is being hit into the tracking equation,” McCaulay said. “We know the aerodynamic properties of that golf ball, whether that’s a Pro V1x or TP5, they fly differently. 
We know both the aerodynamic properties of how that flies and the unique radar signature of that ball. And so we programmed everything in to say, ‘OK, it’s this player hitting this ball, use those properties when we extrapolate where that ball would have gone.'”

While you probably won’t be able to get that same level of detail at home (at least not yet!), you can get your own Full Swing Kit and take advantage of some of the same tech the pros use in the TGL.