Getting Started
Welcome to Golf Insights!
The reason Golf Insights was developed is to fill a gap in the information that Garmin provides for its golf products. It addresses a few specific areas.
- How far do you hit each club?
- Are you improving or getting worse across the areas that matter most?
- How are you doing relative to others at your level?
- What areas should you focus on to improve your scoring?
The way Golf Insights works is simple. Create an account. Upload your Garmin golf and simulator data (helpful but not required). Review the recommendations and detailed charts, graphs, and tables.
More details are below.
1. Initial Setup
To begin, you must create a profile and import your historical performance data collected by your Garmin golf watch and simulator. Golf Insights leverages Garmin golf data to analyze your golf game and provide you with personalized recommendations.
- Garmin Data: For detailed steps on requesting, downloading, and uploading your data folder, please refer to the FAQ section.
- Data Maintenance: To ensure your recommendations remain accurate, upload your latest Garmin often. Golf Insights will remind you if it has been more than 30 days since your last update.
- Index Tracking: Keep your Handicap Index current in your Profile; our peer-benchmarking algorithms use this to compare your performance to your peers and provide recommendations.
2. Using Recommendations
The Recommendations page is where you should start.
It provides a trend in your performance and compares you to your peer group (based on index, sex, and age as appropriate).
This information is critical in understanding whether you are gaining or losing strokes compared to your peers, helping you to determine where to focus your effors in improving your game.
Start with the areas marked as "Develop". These are your biggest opportunities for improvement. Don't forget to continue working on your strengths, marked as "Maintain".
Prioritizing based on your Ability
- High Handicap: Focus primarily on Driving Accuracy and 3-Putt Avoidance. Eliminating penalty strokes and three-putts provides the most immediate reduction in score.
- Mid-to-Low Handicap: Shift focus toward Greens in Regulation (GIR) and Scrambling. At this level, scoring depends on proximity to the hole and the ability to save par when greens are missed.
3. Understanding Your Game via Charts
Once you identify a weakness in your recommendations, use the visual tools to diagnose the cause.
Golf Charts
- Club Distance by Lie: Use this to understand how much yardage you lose when hitting from the rough compared to the fairway.
- Approach Shot Comparison: This chart reveals your "miss tendency." Determine if you are consistently missing short (requiring more club) or have a directional bias.
Simulator Charts
- Metric Trends: Monitor changes in your ball speed, launch angle, and spin over time to verify that swing changes are producing the intended data results.
- Optimization: Use simulator data to identify the ideal launch conditions for your specific clubhead speed.