Dual-Radar and Camera Tracking, Explained Simply
Two very different technologies are watching every swing in the bay. Here's what each one is actually good at, and why we run both together.
Most fitting facilities run one tracking system: either Doppler radar or a high-speed camera array. Both work well most of the time. The problem is that each has a specific, predictable blind spot, and a golfer has no way of knowing when they've hit into one.
What Radar Does Well
Doppler radar tracks the ball's actual flight path through the air, which makes it very accurate for carry distance, total distance, and descent angle on a clean strike. Its weak spot is early ball flight data on shots close to the radar unit or on severe mishits, where the ball's initial path can be harder to lock onto cleanly.
What Camera Tracking Does Well
High-speed camera systems photograph the club and ball in the first few inches after impact, which makes them very strong on clubhead data — attack angle, face angle, path, and dynamic loft. Their weak spot is downstream ball flight in low light or against certain backgrounds, where the camera can lose the ball earlier than radar would.
Why One System Isn't Enough
A radar-only setup can occasionally report a wildly wrong carry number on a mishit without any obvious warning sign in the data. A camera-only setup can do the same thing with spin rate on certain strikes. Neither system tells you when it's guessing — the number just comes out, and if you're not comparing it against a second source, you have no way to know it's off.
Running both systems on every swing means we're not trusting either sensor blindly — we're trusting the two of them agreeing.
How Reconciliation Works in the Bay
Every swing in a Tour Bay Golf bay is captured by both systems simultaneously. When the two readings land within a small tolerance of each other, the number gets logged. When they disagree by more than that tolerance, the swing gets flagged and we take another one rather than recording a number neither system is confident in.
See Reconciled Data on Your Own Swing
Every session runs on dual-tracking hardware, cross-checked in real time.