What your numbers actually mean.
Every shot puts a wall of figures on the screen. Most of them you can ignore. Here's what each one is telling you, and the two or three worth actually working on.
Three numbers do the work.
If you only ever look at three, make them carry, smash factor and spin rate. Carry tells you how far the club actually goes, so you stop guessing your yardages. Smash factor tells you whether you found the middle of the face. Spin rate tells you whether the ball is holding its height or ballooning and falling out of the sky. Everything else on the screen is context for those three.
The rest of this page goes through them one at a time, in plain English, with the rough numbers a club golfer should expect. Nobody needs to memorise this. It's here so the screen stops looking like a cockpit.
Ball numbers: what the ball did.
These come off every shot in every bay. They describe the flight after impact, which is what decides where the ball ends up.
Ball speed
How fast the ball leaves the face, in mph. It's the single biggest driver of distance. A club golfer might see 130–150 mph with a driver; tour players are up near 170. You raise it by swinging faster or by striking the middle more often, and the second one is cheaper.
Smash factor
Ball speed divided by club speed — how much of your swing actually reached the ball. About 1.50 is the practical ceiling with a driver, and 1.45 is a good day. If it's sitting at 1.35, you're missing the middle, and no amount of extra effort fixes that. This is the number that tells you to slow down and find the centre.
Launch angle
The angle the ball leaves the ground. Driver wants roughly 12–15 degrees for most amateurs; wedges climb into the 30s. Too low and you lose carry, too high and it stalls. It works together with spin — neither means much on its own.
Spin rate
Backspin in rpm. Driver ideally sits around 2000–2800; a 7-iron runs near 7000. Too much driver spin and the ball climbs then drops short. Too little and it falls out of the air with no carry. High spin usually means too steep an angle into the ball, not a bad club.
Carry vs total
Carry is how far it flies before it lands. Total adds the roll. Carry is the one to write down, because it's the number that decides whether you clear the bunker. Most people quote their total and then come up short all summer.
Side and curve
How far offline it finished and how much it bent getting there. Useful for one reason above all: it separates a straight shot that started left from a genuine hook. Those are different problems with different fixes.
Club numbers: what you did.
These describe the club through impact rather than the ball afterwards, so they explain why a shot did what it did. They're the reason a golfer books the TrackMan bay rather than any bay.
Club speed
How fast the head is moving at impact. Worth knowing mostly as the other half of smash factor: speed without a centre strike doesn't travel.
Attack angle
Whether you're hitting up on the ball or down into it. Up a couple of degrees with a driver is free distance. Down a few degrees with an iron is what makes it compress and hold a green. Most amateurs have these the wrong way round.
Club path and face angle
Path is the direction the head is travelling; face angle is where it's pointing. The ball starts roughly where the face points and curves away from the path. Between them they explain every slice and hook you've ever hit, which is why guessing from ball flight alone is so unreliable.
Face to path
The gap between the two above, and the number that actually predicts the curve. Face open to the path bends it right, closed bends it left. Get this near zero and the ball flies straight, whatever else is going on.
Dynamic loft and spin loft
Dynamic loft is the real loft delivered at impact, which is rarely what's stamped on the club. Spin loft is the gap between that and your attack angle, and it's the main thing setting how much the ball spins. Big spin loft equals high, short and spinny.
Low point
Where the club reaches the bottom of its arc, relative to the ball. In front of the ball means ball-then-turf, which is what good iron striking feels like. Behind it means fat. This is the number that finally explains the shots that go nowhere.
How to actually use them.
Get your carry yardages down. Hit five or six balls with each club, throw away the worst one, and write down the average carry. Not the best one. The average. That single hour is the most useful thing most golfers ever do indoors, and it's why people start hitting greens in spring.
Chase one number at a time. Pick smash factor, or low point, or face to path, and leave the rest alone for a session. Numbers move when you give them attention and stay put when you split it six ways.
Don't chase the readout. The screen rewards a flush strike, and a flush strike is the point. If you find yourself swinging differently to make a figure go up, you're practising the screen rather than the game.
If any of this is confusing on the day, ask. Working out what someone's numbers are telling them is genuinely the best part of the job, and it costs nothing. If you've not been in before, the first visit guide covers how a session runs, and the FAQ has the practical bits — clubs, kids, parking.
Keep reading.
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Whether the numbers you've just read about can be trusted, and how indoor tracking compares to the real thing. Read the guide →
Simulator vs driving range
Which is the better way to practise, honestly compared — data, weather, cost and course play. Read the guide →
Practising through winter
Memberships give up to three hours a day, which works out cheaper than a range habit if you play through the dark months. See memberships →