Golf & sports analytics
The yardage book, turned into a data product
Every shot a player used to write down by hand — club, lie, number on the card — captured as structured data, modelled into hole-by-hole game plans, and updated live against tournament feeds while the round is still being played.
Client
A competitive golf performance company
Live
tournament feeds driving in-round strategy
The challenge
What was in the way
A player and caddie already record the most decision-relevant data in the game, by hand, in a yardage book: club, lie, pin position, wind, what the shot actually did. It informs the next shot and then it stops informing anything.
Across a season that is thousands of shots on paper. None of it is queryable, so preparation for a tournament leans on memory and instinct rather than on what the player’s own record says about how they really play a hole.
The analysis that elite teams pay for — strokes gained, dispersion, scrambling conversion — was out of reach for everyone who could not staff an analyst.
The solution
What we built
Capture first, modelled the way the game is actually scored: round, hole, shot — each shot carrying club, distance, lie, intended line and actual outcome. It is logged in the rhythm of play rather than as a form to fill in afterwards, because anything slower does not survive a competitive round.
On that record we built the course-management analytics: gained-and-lost breakdowns by club and by hole, dispersion patterns off the tee, proximity to the hole on approach, and scrambling and up-and-down conversion — computed from the player’s own shots rather than from field averages.
From there, game plans. Given a course and a pin sheet, the system recommends the hole-by-hole strategy: which tee shot this player actually converts, where to leave the approach, which pins are worth attacking and which are a two-putt from the fat of the green.
A live layer connects to tournament scoring and streaming data, so during play the model updates against the real field — how the hole is playing that day, conditions, position relative to the cut — and revises probabilities and recommended strategy in the round instead of in the debrief.
Delivered on iOS, Android and the web, because the yardage book has to be in a pocket on the tee and on a screen in the team room, over one record.
Key technologies
- Apps
- iOS and Android alongside the web application
- Shot model
- Round, hole and shot level capture — club, lie, distance, outcome
- Analytics
- Gained-and-lost by club and hole, dispersion, scrambling conversion
- Live data
- Tournament scoring and streaming feeds, in-round probability updates
Impact & results
A season of shots became queryable
The record that used to end at the back of a yardage book now answers questions.
Strategy from the player’s own game
Recommendations built on how this player plays the hole, not on how the field does.
In the round, not after it
Live feeds move the analysis from the post-round debrief to the next tee.
One record, pocket to team room
iOS, Android and web over the same shot data.
Start here
Start with a problem, not a brief.
Tell us what is slow, what is manual, what is stalled, or what nobody understands any more. We will tell you honestly whether it is worth building.