Foresight Sports QuadMax Launch Monitor Review: The New Gold Standard?

When your job is testing the latest and greatest golf equipment, capturing accurate data is non-negotiable for compiling the most thorough reviews. For years, Foresight Sports has been the gold standard for elite professionals and fitters alike for capturing club and ball data, but the arrival of the new QuadMax aims to take things up a notch.

I wanted to put it to the test and see if it takes the throne as the best launch monitor on the market.

Foresight Sports has been the technology we trust when conducting our club reviews and putting gear through its paces in the Golf Monthly Performance Lab for a while now, but the addition of the QuadMax launch monitor will really take our written and video reviews to another level thanks to all of the clever technology on offer.

My first impression upon taking the QuadMax out of the box was just how premium it looks and feels. While it utilises the same four-camera photometric capture system that made its predecessor famous, the QuadMax weighs in 15 percent lighter than the GCQuad.

The weight saving alongside a new, wider handle makes the QuadMax extremely easy to carry if you happen to be moving it from the range to the short game area, or you’re carrying it around on the golf course.

It also comes with a very padded and stylish carry case, which is ideal when I’m transporting it from the Performance Lab and the golf course, and it comes with a reflective alignment stick and space to house the charger, balls, and reflective club stickers - yes, these are as fiddly as ever to apply.

Sitting flush on the top of the robust but light device is a touch screen with a few buttons for power and to access the home screen. It’s extremely simple to navigate through menus, adjust settings, and review your numbers with a simple swipe, and the responsiveness is seriously impressive.

This brings me to my absolute favourite new feature on the QuadMax - MyTiles. This functionality allows you to customise exactly which data points are shown on the unit's display, letting you save up to six parameters as personal presets.

If I'm doing a driver review, I can set my tiles to display ball speed, launch angle, spin rate, and carry. If I'm working on my iron striking, I can easily switch my profile to look at angle of attack, club path, and impact location. It’s really simple and easy to change these and having all of this on a clear, visible screen, saves the need for a tablet or phone to connect to when looking at reviewing data.

Foresight has also expanded the data set itself. On top of the impressive ball and club data we are used to seeing, the QuadMax now measures ball apex, descent angle, and ball offline directly on the device.

Having such quick access to this amount of data is invaluable and ideal for those using the device for fittings, coaches trying to help a student golf, or myself and the equipment team at Golf Monthly, when testing new equipment as and when it arrives on our doorstep.

One of my favourite additions on the QuadMax is the new Speed Training mode. As improving club and ball speed continues to not only grow in popularity but also become a necessity (if you compete at a very high level), Foresight has smartly included a dedicated mode that measures your clubhead speed without the need to actually strike a golf ball.

You can use your driver or a dedicated speed training aid by simply applying one of the reflective Foresight dots on your apparatus of choice and swing away. Overspeed and underspeed training is widely respected as a way of improving clubhead speed, and this way you can monitor each and every swing to see your improvement.

At the other end of the bag, you also have a putter function, which allows you to capture data such as launch, skid, time-to-full-roll, and face-to-path. All of which are going to be really useful for me as someone who tests putters and will hopefully give you (the reader) a few metrics which can help you identify which putters may be best for your game.

Finally, I have to mention the battery, because I’ve now completed many serious practice sessions and then taken the QuadMax on the course for 18 holes of on-course data, and the field-swappable battery easily yields 7 to 9 hours of life. While I’d always recommend charging up between uses, the likelihood is you can probably use the device for multiple sessions before worrying about the charge.

All in all, my experience with the QuadMax has been near flawless. Combining the device with the new Foresight Premier+ software, which enables you to see all of your practice data, play courses, and practice under pressure with a whole host of games, It’s clear to see the QuadMax is the pinnacle of launch monitors.

Starting at $19,999, there's no denying it's a sizeable financial investment. But for professionals, dedicated coaches, and serious golfers building the ultimate indoor simulator, you get what you pay for.

Foresight hasn't reinvented the wheel here, but they have taken the most trusted launch monitor in golf and made it even more useful and portable.