If you're new to launch monitors, watch four things: carry distance, how far offline the ball finishes, where it starts, and face to path. Those tell you how far each club really goes and why the ball curves. Add strike quality (smash factor, or just a bit of foot powder on the face) and you have more than enough to work with. Everything else can wait until those make sense.
The screen on a launch monitor can look like a cockpit. Spin axis, dynamic loft, descent angle, low point. All useful to someone. Most of it will just confuse you in your first few months.
Carry distance
This is the number to learn first. Carry is how far the ball flies in the air before it lands. Total distance adds the roll, and indoors the roll is only a model of a fairway that might be soft, firm or uphill.
Hit ten balls with each club and note the typical carry, ignoring the odd flushed one and the duff. That gives you your real yardages. A lot of club golfers find they hit each iron shorter than they thought, and that one discovery alone helps on the course because they stop coming up short of every front pin.
Watch the gaps too. If your 7-iron and 6-iron carry about the same, one of them is doing nothing for you.
Offline and dispersion
How far left or right of your target the ball finishes. One shot doesn't tell you much. A spread of ten does.
Beginners often fixate on the best shot. A better habit is to look at the shape of the whole group. Is it all right of the target? Spread both sides? Mostly fine with one big miss? That tells you what to work on.
Start direction
Sometimes called launch direction or horizontal launch. It's where the ball sets off relative to your target line.
The simple rule that most coaches use now is that start direction comes mostly from where the clubface points at impact, and curve comes mostly from the face compared with the path. So if your ball keeps starting right, look at your face first, before you start rebuilding your swing path.
Face to path
This is the most useful club number for a beginner, if your launch monitor measures it.
For a right-hander:
- Face closed compared with the path: the ball curves left (draw or hook).
- Face open compared with the path: the ball curves right (fade or slice).
- Face matching the path: the ball goes fairly straight along its start line.
The bigger the gap, the more it curves. Different makers use different plus and minus conventions, so check how yours displays it before you read too much into the sign. Once you've got the hang of it, face to path explains your slice far better than any tip from your mate on the range.
Strike and smash factor
Smash factor is ball speed divided by club speed. A higher number means you've transferred more of the club's speed into the ball, which usually means you've found the middle of the face. With a driver the theoretical ceiling sits around 1.5. Irons run lower, because of the extra loft.
You don't need to chase a perfect number. Just watch for drops. If your smash factor falls away on a few shots, those were off-centre, even if they went straight. Pair it with a strike spray on the face for a few sessions and you'll quickly learn where your misses come from.
Attack angle, if you want one more
Attack angle tells you whether the club was moving down, level or up at impact. With irons, good players hit down on the ball, so the number is negative. With a driver teed up, many players hit level or slightly up to get more carry.
If your irons show a positive attack angle, you're probably trying to scoop the ball into the air. That shows up on the course as thin and fat shots, and it's worth sorting before you worry about spin.
Numbers to ignore for now
Spin axis, dynamic loft, spin loft, descent angle, peak height. They matter, and a coach will use them. On your own, early on, they mostly create things to worry about. Learn the four basics first and the rest start to make sense later.
A caution about flat lies
Your launch monitor numbers are only as true as the lie you hit from. On a flat mat, your face, path and start line come from a level stance. On a slope they all change. For a right-hander, the ball above your feet tends to go left, below your feet tends to go right, uphill tends to launch higher and fly shorter, downhill lower and to the right. If you want to see why, read why slopes change ball flight.
The good news is that the same four numbers are exactly the ones that show you what a slope is doing to your shot. Our guide to using a launch monitor to learn uneven lies shows how. If you haven't set your space up yet, start with home golf simulator setup, and when you have, pick a simulator practice plan so the numbers lead somewhere.
Quick answers
What's the most important launch monitor number? Carry distance, because it gives you true yardages for every club.
What causes a slice on a launch monitor? For a right-hander, a face that's open compared with the path.
Should beginners use a launch monitor? Yes, if you keep it to a few numbers. Too many at once just becomes noise.
Libro is a portable platform that tilts to recreate uphill, downhill and sidehill lies, and it works with any launch monitor. Set a sidehill lie, hit ten balls, and watch your start line and face to path move compared with flat ground. Engraved height lines let you set the same lie again next week and compare. Reserve one for £10, fully refundable.