News

50 Million Swings Later, The Stack Finally Ships to Android

The Stack System says golfers have logged 50 million recorded swings, and speed training is finally on Android via web app after years of iOS exclusivity.

The Stack System: Speed Training Image: The Golf Wire

What Happened With The Stack System?

The Stack System announced more than 50 million recorded swings and, quietly, Android availability via web app after years of iOS exclusivity. The swing count matters because the data is collected under controlled conditions: one patented club, 30 weight configurations, prescribed protocols, radar on every rep. The Android fix is distribution, and distribution is what moves brands.

Overspeed training went mainstream in golf around 2015 on the back of a fixed protocol: three sticks, three weights, the same rep scheme for a 15-handicap and a tour winner. SuperSpeed sold enormous volume on that simplicity, and the simplicity was always the weak point. The Stack System was built as the rebuttal, and the number it announced this week is the argument.

The Scottsdale company says golfers have now logged more than 50 million recorded swings on the platform, a figure it is pairing with the quieter and arguably more consequential news at the bottom of the release: speed training is finally available on Android, via web app, after years of iOS exclusivity.

What Makes The Stack's 50 Million Swings Data Different?

Start with the 50 million, because the number is being marketed as scale and its actual value is control. Arccos has hundreds of millions of shots in its database, but they were struck with different clubs, in different wind, off different lies, by golfers with wildly different intent. That data is useful for describing golfers. It is difficult to use for prescribing anything. The Stack's dataset is collected under a narrow set of conditions: one patented club, 30 known weight configurations, prescribed protocols, baseline testing before programming, radar capture on every rep. Sasho MacKenzie spent two decades doing biomechanics work at St. Francis Xavier before this, and the design choice here is a lab choice, not a marketing one. Standardized inputs are what let you run inference on outputs. Fifty million uncontrolled swings would be a press release. Fifty million controlled ones are a moat.

The hardware half of that moat deserves a note too. Marty Jertson is Director of Product Development at PING and co-founded a training company that PING does not sell, which is an unusual arrangement in an industry where OEMs typically absorb or license this kind of IP. Nobody in the big five has shipped a credible speed trainer, and the reason is structural: a training aid is a one-time $350 purchase with a service layer attached, which does not fit a product cycle built on annual driver refreshes. That gap is why the category still belongs to independents.

Why Did the Stack System Android App Take So Long?

Which makes the Android delay the more revealing detail. The Stack launched in 2020 and has spent most of its life addressable only to iPhone owners. Android holds roughly a quarter of the US smartphone market and the clear majority globally, and the company's read on its customer, affluent, American, iOS, was probably correct for the first several years. It is a worse assumption for a brand that now cites college programs and national teams among its users, particularly outside North America. That the fix arrives as a web app rather than a native build is its own signal. It is the cheap version of the fix, and it suggests Android is being served rather than courted.

The brand's flat position near the bottom third of the global index, ranked 164th of 215 with no month-over-month movement, is less a verdict on The Stack than on the category it sits in. Training aids get covered when a tour player is spotted with one and ignored the rest of the year. Milestone announcements do not move brand equity. Distribution does, and Android is distribution.

What Options Does The Stack System Have for Its Data?

What to watch is whether The Stack turns the dataset outward. A company sitting on the largest standardized speed-training archive in golf has a licensing story, an OEM fitting story, and a published-research story available to it, and so far it has mostly used the data internally to refine its own programming. That is the responsible use. It is not the growth use. The next twelve months will show whether The Stack wants to be a training product with good science behind it, or the speed-data layer that everyone else builds on top of.

The Scorecard · Newsletter

Want Golf's Brand Desk in Your Inbox?

The Stack System is one of 215 brands we track across 10 markets. The Scorecard covers the month's biggest moves and why they happened.

Free · sent when it's worth sending · unsubscribe anytime

One of our favorite X accounts... deeply researched and very well written.
Country Club Confidential
DORMIED INDEX View Brand →
Global Rank#161
DI Score0.2
M/M Change+0.0%
3M Trend-30.4%
12M Trend-31.6%

What Else Do Golfers Ask About The Stack System?

Is The Stack System available on Android?

Yes. The company announced that speed training is now available on Android via web app, after years of iOS exclusivity since its 2020 launch.

Why does The Stack's 50 million swing figure matter?

Because the swings were collected under narrow, standardized conditions: one patented club, 30 known weight configurations, prescribed protocols, baseline testing and radar capture on every rep. Standardized inputs are what allow inference on outputs.

How is The Stack's data different from Arccos data?

Arccos has hundreds of millions of shots, but they were struck with different clubs, in different wind, off different lies, by golfers with different intent. That data describes golfers well but is difficult to use for prescribing anything.

Who is behind The Stack System?

Sasho MacKenzie, who spent two decades doing biomechanics work at St. Francis Xavier, and Marty Jertson, Director of Product Development at PING, who co-founded the training company. PING does not sell the product.

Why haven't the big equipment makers built speed trainers?

The reason is structural. A training aid is a one-time $350 purchase with a service layer attached, which does not fit a product cycle built on annual driver refreshes, so the category still belongs to independents.

Latest

Trending