You Say Data, I Say Dayta

Viewing Golf Through the Lens of Data

September 05, 2023 Joe Forish Season 3 Episode 9
You Say Data, I Say Dayta
Viewing Golf Through the Lens of Data
Show Notes Chapter Markers

Analytics is changing everything - even golf! Don't believe it, listen to this episode!

If you are not a golf fan and have never picked up a club in your life, that doesn't matter. This edition will give you perspective on how the sport can be systematized and analyzed with statistics and Python.

In the latest installment, I chat with co-founders and brothers, Matt and Will Courchene about their site, data golf, that is transforming the sport!

Matt and Will Courchene grew up just outside Ottawa, Canada spending their winters playing hockey and their summers playing golf. 

They were both studying Economics in graduate school when they began applying their statistics skillset to PGA Tour data for fun. 

At first they posted the occasional blog post to a simple wordpress site, but it has since evolved into the data-driven golf analytics website known as datagolf.com.

Idea to Start Data Golf
How the site works for predicting outcomes of golf tournaments
Details on how the data is crunched
Modeling how a player feels pressure
Sports gaming and its impact
Ranking players skills
Pro golfers use the site for feedback!
As a sport, golf is more random than other sports
Golf is not a repeatable sport
Comparing athletes with data modeling and adjusted performances
AI and ChatGPT don’t apply because the predictions are so specific