Overview
The Launch Monitor Wizard will walk you through a series of questions designed to find the best launch monitors for your unique purpose. It will then provide a list of the best golf launch monitors that fit your requirements and price range.
It is hard to understand all of the models & options available on the marketplace. It is even tougher to know which launch monitor is best for how you want to use it. The wizard was designed to simplify the process so you can narrow down your search to the best launch monitor for you.
Give it a try and start over at any time if you make an incorrect selection.
See Frequently Asked Questions below for more details.
Frequently asked questions
Our site focuses on premium and luxury golf equipment. Occasionally, we will cover products that may not fit in those categories, but in the case of launch monitors we specifically exclude entry-level products.
The reason is that the accuracy & consistency of entry-level golf launch monitors is not good enough to warrant us recommending any of those products. That is not to say that some golfers do not see decent results (there are some that do).
However, for the vast majority of golfers, the data will not be accurate enough to use in order to improve their game. In the case of golf launch monitors, it costs more to get an acceptable level of precision.
Radar launch monitors are incredibly accurate & convenient when used in the proper environment—outdoors. If you mainly are using your launch monitor outdoors, radar is the way to go.
Indoors, photometric (aka camera-based) launch monitors are more accurate and consistent. Since most people are purchasing a launch monitor to use indoors with golf simulator software, you will see photometric launch monitors being recommended.
That is not to say a radar-based launch monitor will not work. There are tons of golfers who get them working indoors. However, it is much harder to do and goes against what radar is best designed for.
Radar launch monitors are built to follow the entire flight of the ball all the way to landing. This is what can make them so accurate outdoors. Once you confine them to a limited space, all sorts of problems can occur.
Photometric launch monitors are the opposite. They only need to see ball/club data through a small window to calculate metrics. This makes them great for indoor use (and also outdoors).
For photometric launch monitors, space doesn’t really matter at all (assuming you have enough room to swing). That is because they take high-speed pictures of the golf ball during impact to calculate ball flight and metrics.
For radar launch monitors, they are built to track the entire ball flight to determine metrics. Anytime you do not allow a radar launch monitor to do this, there will be tradeoffs.
Indoors, a radar launch monitor sits behind the ball & golfer facing down the target line. The launch monitor needs a minimum of 9′ behind the ball and at least 10-12′ after the ball to track the flight.
Even with these minimums, the accuracy still will not be as good as a photometric launch monitor indoors. Or, it will work great sometimes and then not work other times.
If you are primarily using your launch monitor indoors, buy a photometric unit. Other than SkyTrak, all of the photometric launch monitors can also be used outdoors.
As mentioned above, due to their design, photometric launch monitors need very little space to produce metrics. The use a series of high-speed cameras to capture images of the ball as it is struck, and then analyze these images to extract the ball data.
When a golfer hits a ball, the photometric launch monitor captures a series of images of the ball in flight. These images are then analyzed by the device’s software to determine the ball’s trajectory, speed, and spin rate. The software uses algorithms to track the ball’s position and calculate these parameters, based on the information provided by the images.
In addition to analyzing the ball’s flight, some photometric launch monitors can also track the clubhead as it strikes the ball. This allows the device to provide additional information about the golfer’s swing, such as clubhead speed, angle of attack, and impact location.
If you do not require a portable launch monitor, or you have right & left-handed golfers using the launch monitor, a mounted unit is perfect!
This means you never have to pull a portable unit out & calibrate it before playing. Or you don’t have to physically move the portable unit in between shots for left vs right-handed players.
You can walk into your golf sim, turn the launch monitor on and just start playing. In addition, it is less likely to be damaged due to its location above the golfer vs on the ground.
Radar-based launch monitors can be great choices as long as you are using them in the right set of conditions. Outdoors, with unlimited space you will likely see more consistent readings on a radar unit that a photometric unit. But they can actually be really close in precision.
Radar units are easier to use with multiple golfers (left & right-handed) and don’t require a precise placement of the ball before hitting.
In addition, you don’t need to worry about the launch monitor from being damaged by a hosel-rocket or ricochet since it is setup behind you.
In general though, if you will be using a golf launch monitor indoors you will want to purchase a photometric launch monitor.