Testing for accuracy, the Carl's Place team compared real-life data at the driving range with numbers from the FlightScope Mevo+ launch monitor.
One big advantage of a golf simulator launch monitor such as the Flightscope Mevo+ is the fact that it is easily portable.
Visiting a friend who only has a net to hit into? Bring it along. Need to move your golf simulator enclosure from your garage to your basement? Easy peasy.
Want to take it to the driving range and see how it performs when you’re hitting off real grass? The Carl’s Place team already did that for you.
“We wanted to test the accuracy of the yardage on the Mevo+ versus what we saw in real life,” said Tim, the Carl’s Place product specialist. “When we hit indoors, it seemed like it was doing a good job of registering distances, but we had no way to know for sure.”
We visited the driving range at Oak Ridge Golf Course in Milton, Wis., to see how the Mevo+ performed.
Tim, a product specialist at Carl’s Place, got the Mevo+ set up properly by placing it on a level surface 8 feet behind his hitting area. In the FS Golf App, he made sure all the weather settings matched the current conditions we were experiencing in real life, which felt like a steam room. It was about 88 degrees fahrenheit, quite humid and not much of a breeze.
“We had some long grass to contend with, so we were having issues making sure everything was level. A piece of scrap plywood did the trick,” Tim said. “It helped keep the Mevo+ elevated above the grass and made it easy to make adjustments. We had a set target that we were aiming at, so I made sure to line the Mevo+ up so the ball was directly between it and the target (the 200-yard post on the range). Lining everything up is important to minimize misreads.”
We went into the range test with the goal to compare the carry distance only as there were too many factors that affected data such as total distance.
“Since our main goal was to gauge flight distance of the shots, I didn’t pay a ton of attention to how accurate the Mevo+ was showing the correct ball path left or right,” Tim said. “There were a few times where I really sliced a ball and looked, and the Mevo+ picked up on it. When I noticed that, my slice was more extreme in real life than the Mevo+ was showing.”
Tim hit 20 different shots with three different clubs that range significantly in club speed and typical carry distance: pitching wedge, 6 iron and driver. Mike, our content writer, was out in the field marking the real-life carry distance with an actual flag stick so Tim could use a rangefinder to get that distance. We had other members of our team keeping track of the data and capturing video proof of our experience.
We've also tested these other launch monitors at the range:
PITCHING WEDGE
Tim started the test session with his pitching wedge. As you can see, the data from the launch monitor was, on average, only about 2.67 yards off, or 2.68%.
The largest difference was 8.5 yards, which seems significant as the difference between clubs is normally around 10 yards, but that seemed to be an outlier as the rest of the shots were within 5.5 yards, and some of the data matched perfectly.
“I don’t think we had any instances of the Mevo+ missing a shot with the wedge, which was nice,” Tim said. “This club had the most accurate distance readings overall.”
|
Shot
|
Real Life Carry Distance
|
Simulator Carry Distance
|
Yardage Difference
|
Percentage Difference
|
|
Shot 1
|
100
|
97
|
3
|
3%
|
|
Shot 2
|
95
|
95
|
0
|
0%
|
|
Shot 3
|
93
|
95.8
|
2.8
|
3.01%
|
|
Shot 4
|
103
|
103
|
0
|
0%
|
|
Shot 5
|
91
|
91
|
0
|
0%
|
|
Shot 6
|
103
|
106
|
3
|
2.91%
|
|
Shot 7
|
105
|
105
|
0
|
0%
|
|
Shot 8
|
80
|
83
|
3
|
3.75%
|
|
Shot 9
|
101
|
102.6
|
1.6
|
1.58%
|
|
Shot 10
|
78
|
78
|
0
|
0%
|
|
Shot 11
|
107
|
103.5
|
3.5
|
3.27%
|
|
Shot 12
|
108
|
102.5
|
5.5
|
5.09%
|
|
Shot 13
|
96
|
93.5
|
2.5
|
2.60%
|
|
Shot 14
|
96
|
104.5
|
8.5
|
8.85%
|
|
Shot 15
|
97
|
94
|
3
|
3.09%
|
|
Shot 16
|
112
|
108
|
4
|
3.57%
|
|
Shot 17
|
99
|
103.4
|
4.4
|
4.44%
|
|
Shot 18
|
108
|
109
|
1
|
0.93%
|
|
Shot 19
|
103
|
98.5
|
4.5
|
4.37%
|
|
Shot 20
|
94
|
91
|
3
|
3.19%
|
| |
|
Average
|
2.665
|
2.68%
|
6 IRON
Tim then hit his 6 iron, and again, the real-life data and Mevo+ data were very close. There was an average difference of just more than 3 yards, which was a smaller percentage difference (1.98%) than the wedge.
Out of 20 shots, the largest difference was 10 yards. Again, that seemed like an outlier, though, as the rest of the shots were within 5 yards.
With this club, we had just a couple shots that were exactly the same between real-life and Mevo+.
|
Shot
|
Real Life Carry Distance
|
Simulator Carry Distance
|
Yardage Difference
|
Percentage Difference
|
|
Shot 1
|
102
|
103
|
1
|
0.98%
|
|
Shot 2
|
170
|
167
|
3
|
1.76%
|
|
Shot 3
|
174
|
172
|
2
|
1.15%
|
|
Shot 4
|
157
|
156.7
|
0.3
|
0.19%
|
|
Shot 5
|
179
|
177.8
|
1.2
|
0.67%
|
|
Shot 6
|
170
|
170
|
0
|
0%
|
|
Shot 7
|
144
|
148
|
4
|
2.78%
|
|
Shot 8
|
175
|
177
|
2
|
1.14%
|
|
Shot 9
|
168
|
168
|
0
|
0%
|
|
Shot 10
|
180
|
175
|
5
|
2.78%
|
|
Shot 11
|
166
|
164
|
2
|
1.2%
|
|
Shot 12
|
159
|
160
|
1
|
0.63%
|
|
Shot 13
|
152
|
150.6
|
1.4
|
0.92%
|
|
Shot 14
|
133
|
143
|
10
|
7.52%
|
|
Shot 15
|
168
|
166
|
2
|
1.19%
|
|
Shot 16
|
170
|
160
|
10
|
5.88%
|
|
Shot 17
|
166
|
161
|
5
|
3.01%
|
|
Shot 18
|
143
|
147
|
4
|
2.8%
|
|
Shot 19
|
162
|
159
|
3
|
1.85%
|
|
Shot 20
|
161
|
156
|
5
|
3.11%
|
| |
|
Average
|
3.095
|
1.98%
|
DRIVER
The driver, as we expected, was a little less accurate with yardage difference, averaging 4.5 yards, but still around 2% difference overall. The difference never exceeded more than 8 yards, but only one shot matched exactly.
“My driver is very inconsistent. It seemed like it had more of a problem picking up my driver than any other club, but it still got a majority of the shots I was expecting the Mevo+ to not read,” Tim said.
|
Shot
|
Real Life Carry Distance
|
Simulator Carry Distance
|
Yardage Difference
|
Percentage Difference
|
|
Shot 1
|
234
|
232
|
2
|
0.85%
|
|
Shot 2
|
217
|
217
|
0
|
0%
|
|
Shot 3
|
193
|
190
|
3
|
1.55%
|
|
Shot 4
|
203
|
195
|
8
|
3.94%
|
|
Shot 5
|
175
|
170
|
5
|
2.86%
|
|
Shot 6
|
195
|
192
|
3
|
1.54%
|
|
Shot 7
|
229
|
223
|
6
|
2.62%
|
|
Shot 8
|
228
|
220
|
8
|
3.51%
|
|
Shot 9
|
224
|
216
|
8
|
3.57%
|
|
Shot 10
|
240
|
238
|
2
|
0.83%
|
|
Shot 11
|
225
|
223
|
2
|
0.89%
|
|
Shot 12
|
242
|
235
|
7
|
2.89%
|
|
Shot 13
|
243
|
241
|
2
|
0.82%
|
|
Shot 14
|
200
|
207
|
7
|
3.5%
|
|
Shot 15
|
201
|
198
|
3
|
1.49%
|
|
Shot 16
|
213
|
209
|
4
|
1.88%
|
|
Shot 17
|
250
|
244
|
6
|
2.4%
|
|
Shot 18
|
227
|
233
|
6
|
2.64%
|
|
Shot 19
|
200
|
207
|
7
|
3.5%
|
|
Shot 20
|
229
|
228
|
1
|
0.44%
|
| |
|
Average
|
4.5
|
2.09%
|
MEVO+ OVERALL
Combining the data of the 60 shots between the three clubs, the average difference was 3.42 yards, or 2.25%. Remember that there is some human error involved as Mike’s mark in the field could have been a yard or two off sometimes.
We did notice that after fully charging the Mevo+ battery, it would shut down on us after about 2 hours.
“That might be enough for a typical day at the range, but with us waiting between a lot of the shots to record data and get the cameras and audio set up, it got a bit frustrating,” Tim said. “If you’re using it indoors, you can just leave it plugged in and not have to worry about battery life!”
Overall, the Carl’s Place team was very impressed by the performance of the Mevo+ golf simulator.
“A question we get all the time is, ‘How accurate are the launch monitors?’” Tim said. “Now we can say with certainty that the Mevo+ is an accurate, budget friendly option for your golf simulator.”
