Guest: Coleman Rollins
Instagram: @colemangolfs
In this episode of Linked By Golf, Ross chats with Coleman Rollins, a software engineer and golfer documenting his journey building a DIY open-source golf launch monitor from scratch.
Coleman shares how curiosity about expensive commercial launch monitors turned into a hands-on engineering project combining radar technology, Raspberry Pi computing, and open-source software — all documented publicly on Instagram so others can learn alongside him.
The conversation covers everything from caddying in Minnesota to testing radar data in a garage in Seattle, plus what it takes to turn raw motion data into meaningful golf metrics like clubhead speed, ball speed, launch angle, and spin.
At its core, the project is about making golf technology more accessible and showing that innovation in golf doesn’t always have to come from big companies.
Coleman’s tagline says it best:
“I built a launch monitor at home so you can too.”
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Growing up in Minnesota golf culture
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Moving from curiosity to building a launch monitor
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Radar vs camera launch monitor technology
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Using a Raspberry Pi as the “brain” of the system
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Trial-and-error testing at the driving range
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Building a custom enclosure for the device
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Making the project open source
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The role of community learning in golf technology
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What comes next: simulator integration and data analysis tools
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Puetz Golf
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Gerry Gubash — Radar engineering guidance
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Peter Michels — Enclosure design and fabrication
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OpenFlight GitHub Repository
Open-source project:
https://github.com/jewbetcha/openflight
Follow Coleman’s build journey:
Instagram — @colemangolfs
Follow the podcast:
@linkedbygolf2024
In this episodePeople and projects supporting Coleman’s journeyLinks