Exploring the Spin: Titleist’s Overly Dramatic Take on Indoor Golf Ball Tracking

Titleist has spun a cool story about tracking the spin rate of a golf ball using indoor golf launch monitors.

A number of readers have sent us this video, but we’ve only just gotten around to watching Titleist’s take on the story behind their RCT golf balls.

These RCT golf balls are supposedly the only ones that can reliably track spin rates, particularly with Trackman indoor launch monitors.

Titleist has documented the story of solving the problem of tracking spin rates indoors in a sleek, short video. However, the video lacks depth, particularly in explaining why tracking spin rates indoors is more challenging than outdoors. Why is it so difficult in the first place? The video seems to feature a lot of trial and error that resembles a high school science project more than a cutting-edge research effort.

While there’s no denying the cool science involved, the production feels overly dramatic for the subject matter. It wouldn’t be surprising if it turned out to have been produced by Christopher Nolan.

From the video description on YouTube:

“The challenge was issued… how do we capture accurate spin rates indoors with golf balls when there is only limited ball flight? So, our Titleist Golf Ball R&D engineers got to work and embarked on a journey to solve this problem and introduce a new technology to the game. The end result? Titleist golf balls with Radar Capture Technology (RCT). This is the story of how we went searching for spin and ultimately developed a new golf ball innovation designed to enhance the data capture of launch conditions in an indoor environment and deliver the most accurate information possible.”