AI & Golf: Could it work?

AI is hot right now. It’s everywhere.

I even got emails this year about a few AI softwares predicting the March Madness tournament.

GPT-3 technology is being utilized by more and more companies to predict, analyze, and digest data in ways we haven’t seen before.

You may ask, why AI? Isn’t the idea of AI a bit scary? Kind of, when you think about it in a Terminator sense, but not so when you think about it in a really really good data analyst sense.

In my day job, AI can be used to analyze customer behavior from a dataset of all previous customers and can identify key attributes, behaviors, and signals of potential churn. It can then be used to create a model that can predict/identify at -risk customers, on-the-fly. Pretty cool huh?

It can even be done without having an ounce of coding/tech skills. That’s the fun part. If you have a spreadsheet of data, you can build an AI model from it.

At this point, you’re likely wondering where golf comes in to play, but think of it this way. Golf is a sport full of data. Scores, shots, putts, FIRs, GIRs, etc.

Yes, I know, mainly only at the Professional level is data that available, but go with me on this.

Let’s say you track your scores and data just a bit better on a round-to-round basis. You take the extra couple of minutes after each 9 or 18-hole outing and throw ’em into a Google Sheet. What if a tool could analyze your round and give you actionable, precise feedback? Doesn’t sounds too bad.

Here’s my thinking. I’m on a mission this year to document golf a bit more than I have in the past. I’m tracking scores, how many fairways I hit, how many Greens I hit, putts, etc. The goal is to have enough data to build an AI model that can help identify areas that most significantly affect my scoring.

Seems simple, but it could really help. I spend all my time thinking how if I could just make a few more putts, I’d be a way better player. What if the model says that actually just hitting a couple more greens will do that instead? What if just simply playing it safe on No. 5 would save me >1 stroke a round? What if my chipping is actually the area holding me back? I now know that instead of the hour at the driving range, it should be an hour at the chipping green.

I will be using a tool from Akkio.com. If it works, I’ll build a spreadsheet template and AI model for anyone to use. Follow along to see if AI can help the recreational golfer be just that much better, or not!