A focused launch monitor practice session.

A launch monitor can give you a lot to look at after every swing. The harder part is deciding which number deserves your attention. A useful practice session begins before the first shot, with a question small enough to answer.

That might be “Can I keep my 8 iron around the same carry distance?” or “Does the cue from my last lesson change my usual miss?” The point is to finish with an observation you can use, instead of a screen full of unrelated numbers.

1. Choose one question.

Pick a club, a target, and a single focus. If you have a lesson note from your instructor, use that as the starting point. Keep the technical cue the same while you observe what the ball does.

For example, you could practice your normal 8 iron and compare the left-to-right spread of two groups. You are asking whether a change is worth exploring, not trying to prove that one swing thought fixes your game.

2. Make the comparison fair.

Keep the target, club, ball type, and launch monitor position consistent. Follow the manufacturer’s setup instructions. Changing the alignment between groups makes it harder to tell whether a different pattern came from your swing or from the setup.

Warm up before collecting the shots you plan to compare. Choose the number of shots in each group in advance. Ten shots per group is a practical example for this exercise, not a threshold that establishes statistical certainty.

3. Keep the ordinary shots.

Your longest shot is interesting, but so are the short ones and the shots that finish away from your target. Keeping only the best strikes changes the question from “What does my practice look like?” to “What can I do when everything goes well?”

If a capture is clearly invalid or belongs to the wrong club, note that separately. Decide how to handle it consistently. Avoid removing a real miss just because it makes the group look worse.

4. Compare a pattern, not a highlight.

Start with the outcome that matches your question. For distance consistency, compare the front-to-back spread of carry distances. For a directional question, inspect where shots finished relative to the target line. Read our guide to golf shot dispersion for a simple way to separate those two patterns.

Check whether you are comparing measured or simulated values. Recenter models flight and range distances from incoming shot data. Keep the environment and input source consistent, and avoid treating a simulated rollout as a guaranteed on-course result.

5. Write the next step.

Finish with a short note: what you worked on, what you observed, and what you want to revisit. “My second group was less spread out left to right, but I lost some carry” is more useful than “The new swing works.”

Small groups can vary. Revisit an observation in another session before treating it as a settled change. Bring the pattern and your notes to your instructor if the result is confusing.

Where Recenter fits.

With your Garmin R10 connected to Recenter, you can see shot flight and dispersion, ask the AI coach about your practice, and save the session for review. Your lesson notes give that conversation a starting point beyond the latest shot.

Use coaching as another perspective on the data. Recenter cannot see your swing, and AI feedback can be wrong. Keep your instructor’s guidance and your own observations in the loop.