Zach Steffen makes contact with the golf ball and, while finishing his follow-through, an array of statistics appears instantaneously on ISU men’s golf coach Andrew Tank’s iPad.

If the focus were on Steffen’s swing alone, the small orange box propped up behind him might go unnoticed.

This box is there for a reason. It is the Trackman, a device currently used by hundreds of PGA and LPGA tour players around the world.

“It’s like a Doppler radar technology,” Tank said. “It gives us numbers on what the golf ball is doing in terms of launch direction, launch angle and launch spin. It also tells you what the club is doing, what direction it’s going, how fast, etc.”

These statistics can then be accessed and filed immediately with a laptop or mobile device.

At the advent of the team’s new practice facility in the summer, the Trackman has been one of the amenities the team has begun to utilize.

“I’m probably using it three to four days a week, and the guys are probably getting on it once or twice a week,” Tank said.

The device is portable for outdoor and indoor use and can be used to track a variety of shots, from full swings to wedge shots.

“One of the main things I’ve used it on so far is the wedge test through different yardages, giving you random yardages,” said Steffen, senior for the Cyclones. “It really tests you on different shots that you’ll need [in competition].”

The wedge test is a practice competition dictated by Tank that assigns a player an allotted yardage range and a number of shots to hit from that range. The Trackman can assign a score to each shot, dictated by how far the shot was from its target.

“It’s another way to make practice more like competition where there’s a score, there’s an outcome, there’s some pressure involved,” Tank said.

The Trackman’s ability to provide instant mathematical feedback on a player’s swing can be of high use for a golfer, though Tank is weary of overwhelming the players with the dozens of numbers generated with each swing.

For this, he has made it a point to communicate the statistics in a way the players can easily grasp and translate to their swing.

“This can be a great tool, but at the same time, if the players are only trying to ‘find that perfect number,’ then it’s not really doing what I think it’s supposed to, which would be giving them the feedback on what they need to feel in their swing,” Tank said. “Once they understand that feel, they should just go on their feelings versus just trying to chase a number.”

In the winter months, the device will be brought to Iowa State’s video room to provide statistics with the team’s golf simulator, which allows the team to play virtual golf courses by hitting into a net with their ball flight projected in animation on a screen.

Golf course simulators and video analysis have been available for years, but the Trackman has provided the team with deeper statistical information and has altered how the team practices.

“It really helped me focus on where the areas are I need to improve on,” Steffen said. “When you’re taking video, you can obviously see what you need to work on, but it’s nice to have the feedback from the numbers.”

The Trackman technology is becoming more common in the college ranks, with upward of 100 programs subscribing to it.

“We’re just so fortunate to be able to have this technology,” Tank said. “This is what the best players in the world are using, and it’s really becoming a standard.”