Trackman Talks: The winning edge

There’s a moment in every player’s development when improvement stops being about effort and starts being about clarity. Not clarity of intent or motivation, but clarity of evidence — what is actually happening, round after round, shot after shot.

In this episode of Trackman Talks, recent PGA Tour winner Michael Brennan describes reaching that moment twice. Once as a college player experimenting with performance data, and again as a young professional realizing that intuition alone wasn’t enough to guide improvement. What followed wasn’t a wholesale reinvention of his game, but something far more subtle and powerful: the gradual construction of a feedback loop.

This conversation isn’t about chasing perfect numbers. It’s about how disciplined data habits — built around Trackman and Upgame — shape practice decisions, sharpen tournament strategy, and ultimately allow aggression to be informed rather than reckless.

What you'll learn from this episode

• How elite players turn data into habit, using disciplined tracking to replace uncertainty with clarity over a full season

• How practice becomes more effective when numbers guide focus, from putting speed to wedge decision-making

• How dispersion-based strategy creates confident aggression, aligning player, coach, and caddie around smarter tournament decisions

Trackman Talks, hosted by Niklas Bergdahl, connects the most forward-thinking minds in golf to share coaching, training and technology insights that you, listeners and readers, can apply to your own game. Watch the full episode with Michael Brennan below.

Using data to reshape practice

One of the most revealing sections of the conversation centers on putting. Brennan was not putting poorly, but he was misunderstanding how he was missing.

Upgame showed that his issue wasn’t line in isolation, nor touch in isolation, but speed variability that produced a specific miss pattern: low-side misses paired with inconsistent rollouts. That distinction matters. “Bad putting” is unsolvable. “Speed inconsistency on mid-range putts” is not.

Once the problem was defined, practice became precise. Speed drills replaced vague repetition. Mid-range putts (10–20 feet) took precedence over low-return work. Even short putts were reframed, with attention paid to holing speed rather than survival.

This is where Trackman enters the picture as an execution tool rather than a diagnostic one. Upgame identified the problem. Trackman helped refine the solution. Together, they prevented overcorrection — a trap that ruins more improvement plans than lack of effort ever does.

Trackman Talks: Turning data into smarter practice

Short game decisions become clearer with difficulty context

One of the quieter but more profound insights comes from Brennan’s short game analysis. By categorizing chips as easy, medium, or hard, and comparing their proximities to wedge shots from specific yardages, he uncovered something counterintuitive: Certain “go-for-it” scenarios produced worse outcomes than laying back to preferred distances.

The implications were practical and immediate:

• Difficulty matters more than distance: A hard chip can be statistically worse than a 70-yard wedge.

• “Going for it” isn’t binary: Decisions became conditional, not ideological.

• Strategy shifted from feel to probability: Outcomes were evaluated over averages, not highlights.

This reframed par-five and drivable par-four decisions as probability problems rather than identity statements. The question stopped being “am I aggressive or conservative?” and became “which miss produces the better average result?”

Trackman builds decision making, not just mechanics

Trackman supports the execution layer of what Upgame reveals.

When Brennan talks about using Trackman in his practice environment, he discourages trying to optimize a situation. Instead, he emphasizes realism. Randomized wedge practice. Variable pin locations. Shot selection that mirrors tournament demands rather than range symmetry.

Trackman, in his routine, serves as a simulator of uncertainty. It reinforces adaptability, not mechanical rigidity. Warm-ups include scenario-based wedges. Practice sessions force decision-making under imperfect conditions.

This is a crucial distinction. Technology doesn’t make practice effective. Intent does. Trackman simply makes intent measurable.

Start small, align often, iterate patiently

If there’s a single message Brennan repeats, it’s this: Don’t try to fix everything at once.

• Coach-player alignment is non-negotiable: Shared dashboards create shared understanding.

• One focus beats ten metrics: Start with a single area, then expand gradually.

• Improvement is iterative: Review, adjust, repeat — over months, not days.

The real competitive edge doesn’t come from access to numbers. It comes from agreement between player, coach, and caddie about what those numbers mean and how they shape the next decision.

That alignment is quiet. Unremarkable. And, over time, decisive.

Want to master the mental side of long-term improvement? Check out the Trackman Talks miniseries The Mental Game Big Three