GCQuad Review - A Real Outdoor Field Test

Hardly a week goes by that Carl isn't asked to do another launch monitor review, so in true Carl’s Place fashion, we tested the Foresight Sports GCQuad at the driving range to see how it performed compared to real life numbers measured by a Bushnell rangefinder.

We’ve done this type of outdoor field test with several other launch monitors, including:

• SkyTrak

• SkyTrak+

• FlightScope Mevo+ - Original

• FlightScope Mevo+ 2023

• Garmin R10

• Full Swing KIT

• Uneekor EYE XO

• Uneekor EYE MINI

• Foresight GC3

GCQUAD FIELD TEST SETUP

The GCQuad is a relatively small, photometric launch monitor that sits adjacent to the ball position, making it easy to take to the driving range and set up once there. At the outdoor range, we made sure the GCQuad was on as level of a surface as we could find and did not have sunlight shining directly on the cameras to try to get the most accurate data.

Tim, a product specialist at Carl’s Place, took 20 swings each with a pitching wedge, 6 iron and driver. Mike, a content writer (and the guy who won the first matchup in the Tim vs. Mike Challenge Series on our YouTube channel), was out in the field tracking the ball. Mike marked the carry distance, then Tim used the rangefinder to measure that distance. Jon, videographer and all around good guy, was behind the camera recording all the action.

Disclaimer for the naysayers (we know you’re out there): Of course, there are factors that come into play in an uncontrolled outdoor environment, such as wind, tee box elevation and human error marking the ball out in the field. Keep those factors in mind when you check out the data.

GCQUAD FIELD TEST RESULTS

PITCHING WEDGE

Overall, the GCQuad was quite accurate reading the pitching wedge with 16 of the 20 shots being within 5 yards of the actual range finder distance.

The average difference and percentage were a little inflated due to a couple of large outliers that were pretty big misses.

“Although we only had a couple shots perfectly accurate, most of the pitching wedge shots were quite close to actual numbers,” Tim said. “I felt pretty good about the Quad’s performance with the roller coaster of numbers from my pitching wedge.”

6 IRON

We were very impressed by the data the GCQuad read from the 6 iron. The first shot was the only one that was more than 10 yards off. Otherwise the GCQuad tracked 18 of the 20 shots within 7 yards of the actual distance measured by the rangefinder.

In fact, the percentage difference improved, which is not something you see all the time as you start hitting longer distanced clubs.

“Seeing the improvement compared to the pitching wedge was a pleasant surprise that we’ve rarely seen before in other tests,” Tim said.

DRIVER

And even more interesting was that the GCQuad’s data for driver percentage difference improved even more over the 6 iron and pitching wedge.

It’s not easy for launch monitors to measure or calculate these longer numbers, especially with Tim’s inconsistent slice, because the margin of error is significantly more, but only three shots ended up being 10 or more yards different.

It even got 9 shots within 5 yards, and two exactly right. 

“The GCQuad just kept getting better as I hit longer clubs,” Tim said. “I couldn't believe it. That has not been the norm for other launch monitors we’ve tested.”

CONCLUSION

The data accuracy from the GCQuad was impressive, especially with how it kept improving as we moved to the longer distance clubs. But is it worth the price tag? Let’s compare it to the similarly priced Uneekor EYE XO. 

Let us know in the comments what you think about the GCQuad.