Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ron Galen from Longmanow, Massachusetts and I play
Speaker 1: at long Winow Country Club.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Golf Smarter.
Speaker 3: Hi. This is Susannah McGhee from Sarasota, Florida. I play
Speaker 3: golf at the Preserve Golf Club at Tara in Bradenton.
Speaker 3: And this is Golf Smarter Number Oney twenty. Welcome.
Speaker 2: An average golfer isn't using a yardage book, probably doesn't
Speaker 2: know how to read the contour lines and the elevations.
Speaker 2: Our goal is to provide them a prescriptive answer that says,
Speaker 2: before you hit this t shot. Here's the aim point,
Speaker 2: not to say replace yardage books, maybe a different use case.
Speaker 2: And then what we've heard through a lot of folks
Speaker 2: is building intuition to play smart is really difficult in golf.
Speaker 2: If you don't play with a lot of really good players.
Speaker 2: If you're a fifteen handicap and you don't play with
Speaker 2: a lot of great golfers, how do you know you
Speaker 2: shouldn't shortside yourself? How do you know maybe you should
Speaker 2: take this different line? You just don't. And so people
Speaker 2: have used shot sense and have seen okay, it keeps
Speaker 2: angling me over here. Why is that like Okay, there's
Speaker 2: water over here. I need to shift over this way
Speaker 2: the pins over here? Why is it keep saying aim
Speaker 2: towards the fat part of the green? Now I'm better
Speaker 2: understanding this. One thing we get really comfortable with is
Speaker 2: the rangefinder of zapping the pin. It's one sixty two
Speaker 2: and you're like, all right, Like maybe I'll take a
Speaker 2: yard off and a yard to the left. We can
Speaker 2: do better than that now that we have all of this.
Speaker 1: Data, understanding and optimizing strategy for every shot using the
Speaker 1: shot Sense app. Featuring Brent Neville. This is Golf Smarter,
Speaker 1: sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to
Speaker 1: help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 2: Here's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Brent, Thanks Fred, happy
Speaker 1: to be here, Glad to have you on here. Let's
Speaker 1: get the mouth and first thing. On a Monday morning,
Speaker 1: we're recording this, so there's a lot of competition out there, right,
Speaker 1: there's like in what you're doing and we haven't even
Speaker 1: talked about what you're doing yet. But like when I
Speaker 1: started this podcast, there were two or three golf podcasts,
Speaker 1: it was easy to stand out and be on top.
Speaker 1: Here we are twenty years later in the podcast world,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of podcasts. A couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, apps started coming out for your phone so
Speaker 1: that you have a GPS on your phone, and it
Speaker 1: was just a GPS. But it's getting crowded in that
Speaker 1: space too. There's a lot of apps there, and you've
Speaker 1: come up with something unique. And I know that your
Speaker 1: fingers are crossed that you are unique compared to everybody else,
Speaker 1: but I think you have a lot of reasons why
Speaker 1: it is. Let's talk about the shot sense app.
Speaker 2: Yeah, grab, yeah, thank you. Yeah. Definitely a crowded marketplace.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll I think a step back and think about
Speaker 2: you know, how we view the golf landscape of like
Speaker 2: getting better lowering your scores. We think about it very
Speaker 2: simply as you can either hit the ball physically better
Speaker 2: or you can play smarter. Lots of innovation in the
Speaker 2: ability to physically hit it. New clubs, new swing AI,
Speaker 2: swing analyzer, launch monitors, simulators, all the golf specific fitness programs,
Speaker 2: Lots going on there, and then I think for a
Speaker 2: while that the playing smarter hadn't had as much innovation.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of golf GPS apps out there that
Speaker 2: maybe show you the satellite view and you can move
Speaker 2: a cursor around rangefinders really despite their price going up
Speaker 2: quite a bit in the last you know, five years
Speaker 2: or so, technology that's over twenty years old, and then
Speaker 2: you have some you know, larger course management let's like
Speaker 2: teach you how to think about it, or if you
Speaker 2: were to go to some clinic they can teach it.
Speaker 2: We kind of look at that and say, well, now
Speaker 2: that we have modern computing, now that we have a
Speaker 2: better understanding of how the analytics look, how can we
Speaker 2: leverage the supercomputer in your pocket to provide you the
Speaker 2: optimal strategy for every shot, for every course tailored to you.
Speaker 2: And that's really what we think. So you'll hear me
Speaker 2: say this quite a few times of de averaging these
Speaker 2: large data sets that were historically used to provide things.
Speaker 2: Good example is Strokes gained very very super helpful, very novel,
Speaker 2: but based on a very large average data set. That
Speaker 2: is what Brody had to do ten years ago when
Speaker 2: we didn't have all of this modern computing. So that's
Speaker 2: kind of where we're excited to go forward. Just that
Speaker 2: the capabilities that we have today that just frankly didn't
Speaker 2: exist two five, ten years ago.
Speaker 1: So you talk about Brody, you're talking about the Strokes Strokes,
Speaker 1: Strokes gained elements of the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So so Brody came out with his book.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Mark Brody. Sorry, that's okay. In about I
Speaker 2: think it was like twenty fourteen's about eleven years ago,
Speaker 2: you know, super novel research and all that. But but
Speaker 2: there are limitations to Strokes gained. Many of those he
Speaker 2: wasn't able to solve back then, and now with you know, computing,
Speaker 2: we can do that, and so a lot of what
Speaker 2: we do is just kind of trying to figure out
Speaker 2: instead of you know, a great example is seventeen at
Speaker 2: Sawgrass from the t one hundred and thirty yards strokes
Speaker 2: gained estimate I think is two point nine to eight.
Speaker 2: If you put that at one hundred and thirty yard
Speaker 2: part three at your local course, I'd argue that you
Speaker 2: know strokes Skain is going to say those are the
Speaker 2: exact same statistical you know score. I venture to say
Speaker 2: seventeen at Sawgrass is a little bit more difficult, and
Speaker 2: that's because of the unique playout of the green. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the hazards everywhere, and so that's a limitation of strokes
Speaker 2: stained is that it can't de average for your specific
Speaker 2: shot that's upcoming.
Speaker 1: I get it, I get it. So what was it
Speaker 1: that you decided this is where we need to create
Speaker 1: something that you know and you got it. You've got
Speaker 1: to believe I love the playing smart smarter part you've
Speaker 1: been talking about for for twenty years now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So started playing a lot of golf, played
Speaker 2: about I think close to two hundred rounds over two
Speaker 2: and a half years, and all at almost the same place.
Speaker 2: Went from an eight to a one and a half.
Speaker 2: Didn't change my swing, didn't change my clubs. You're obviously
Speaker 2: playing a lot, you're you're putting a lot, and you're
Speaker 2: you're very familiar. But but what it really was is
Speaker 2: I knew every play on every shot very rarely, you
Speaker 2: know golf. The magic thing with golf and going new
Speaker 2: courses that every you know lie is different or every
Speaker 2: pin position. If you play a course two hundred times,
Speaker 2: you've you haven't seen everything, but you've seen a lot
Speaker 2: of it. And so from you know, my background kind
Speaker 2: of engineering, there's a couple holes where I didn't know
Speaker 2: the right play. Even after all of that first hold
Speaker 2: is a great example. Ob right and a bunch of
Speaker 2: trees left? Is it? Driver? But aimed towards the trees?
Speaker 2: You obviously what you know, don't want to hit? Ob
Speaker 2: But how far into the trees do I want to aim?
Speaker 2: Or do I hit a three wood? Obviously with three
Speaker 2: wood you're gonna lose some distance and have a longer approach,
Speaker 2: like you know, how does that all work? And you
Speaker 2: can start trying to do strokes gain but it's a
Speaker 2: little tricky. And so that kind of started the quest
Speaker 2: to say, is there a way to mathematically model this
Speaker 2: out and go for you know, our goal of saying,
Speaker 2: can we provide the optimal strategy for every player on
Speaker 2: every course, for every shot? And so that's where shots
Speaker 2: since golf was born.
Speaker 1: How did you figure that out?
Speaker 2: Uh? Lots of lots lots of math and problem solving.
Speaker 2: So my background is engineering and a lot of what
Speaker 2: I'll call it frontier technology, satellites, autonomous vehicles, UH, GEO,
Speaker 2: spatial analysis, augmented reality UH. And so at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, those are all so new that you
Speaker 2: may think you're going to solve something, but you end
Speaker 2: up having to solve quite a few different problems along
Speaker 2: the way before you can actually get to it. And
Speaker 2: that's really what what we faced here is, Okay, you
Speaker 2: want to do this one thing and you're like, oh man,
Speaker 2: these these trees like trees end up impacting strategy quite
Speaker 2: a bit. Or you know, how do I get the
Speaker 2: data source for every hole to be accurate? Okay, that's
Speaker 2: pretty tough, but you know, if we give the users
Speaker 2: the ability to draw out of bounce or to adjust
Speaker 2: the trees, that can can help. And so it was
Speaker 2: all those we'll say like micro problem solvings that laddered
Speaker 2: up to to help us do that, and so ultimately
Speaker 2: our patent pending kind of core you know differentiator is
Speaker 2: what we call our shot Sense decision engine, and that's
Speaker 2: what helps, you know, tell the users the optimal strategy.
Speaker 2: And so there's four main inputs to that. One. The
Speaker 2: first is your club characteristics. That's how far you carry it,
Speaker 2: the total if there's a rollout, your dispersion length with rotation,
Speaker 2: and then ultimately shot shape you know, big fade or
Speaker 2: small draw something like that or you know maybe if
Speaker 2: you hit a straight ball you're one of the lucky few.
Speaker 2: And you know, so that's everything about your your shot.
Speaker 1: Then let me let me stop you there before you
Speaker 1: get to number two. There's four of them, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: So how does it know your club characteristics?
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah. So when you start or when you join
Speaker 2: the app or download it, the first thing you'll be
Speaker 2: taken through is our interactive onboarding and the first portion
Speaker 2: of that is where we figure out what's in your bag.
Speaker 2: So ask you. I think it's about seven to ten questions,
Speaker 2: and we trained a machine learning model to predict your
Speaker 2: club distances, your dispersion, and then shot shape. We've trained
Speaker 2: that on tens of thousands of shots. And dispersion is
Speaker 2: this wildly fascinating topic that I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people may not understand all of the nuances there. And
Speaker 2: so what we found in early research is one of
Speaker 2: the quickest ways people get their dispersion is they do
Speaker 2: the track Man combine. Super fun, super helpful, but it's
Speaker 2: six shots at one location with one club. Statistically speaking,
Speaker 2: if you want to get closer to like a ninetieth
Speaker 2: percentile confidence, give it one hundred and forty shots. No
Speaker 2: one's going to the simulator and hitting one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty seven irons. And so what you find is there's
Speaker 2: somewhere in between of we hit six shots from TrackMan
Speaker 2: combine and we get this estimate on our dispersion that's
Speaker 2: clearly not good enough, and then one hundred and forty
Speaker 2: No one's going to do that. And so this is
Speaker 2: a perfect use case of machine learning is to say, okay,
Speaker 2: how far do you estimate you hit your driver and
Speaker 2: seven iron? What's your handicap? Where do you typically miss?
Speaker 2: And using all the trained data of people that have
Speaker 2: a similar characteristic of you, here's what we project it.
Speaker 2: So that's where we start. However, if you actually know
Speaker 2: your data, if you have a launch monitor or if
Speaker 2: you're a you know, a college golfer or pro, you
Speaker 2: obvious are going to know that data so you can
Speaker 2: manually edit all of that and that really gets kind
Speaker 2: of what is the truth about your clubs if you
Speaker 2: do know that.
Speaker 1: So when I started using the app myself, I went
Speaker 1: through some of the onboarding. I didn't complete it. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I need to do more. I kind of got stuck
Speaker 1: because I'd carry a five hybrid and it didn't allow
Speaker 1: me to put that in there. You have five iron
Speaker 1: and four hybrid, Now what do I do? I'm stuck?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have different labels. I think we have woods, hybrids, irons,
Speaker 2: and wedges. Yeah, so you can go you can put
Speaker 2: a four hybrid and then you can change the name
Speaker 2: of it to a five hybrid and then they carry both.
Speaker 2: So then you can select like two hybrid and three
Speaker 2: hybrid and four hybrid. And then if you or you're saying,
Speaker 2: do you carry like a two, three, four and five hybrid?
Speaker 1: No, I carry a four and five hybrid, A three
Speaker 1: and five.
Speaker 2: Wood, gotcha. Yeah, so I think you can do driver,
Speaker 2: three wood, five wood, and then I'd recommend you do
Speaker 2: like a three hybrid and a four hybrid, and then
Speaker 2: you can change the names of those to you know,
Speaker 2: reflect what you actually have. So it's it's a good
Speaker 2: point of feedback, you know, easy to add additional names there.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so raypious feedback.
Speaker 1: Oh you're welcome.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 1: All right, So we got club character you said there
Speaker 1: were four four elements. Yeah, and the first one was
Speaker 1: club characteristic, which was fascinating in itself. Where are we
Speaker 1: going next?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, so now we know, you know, to simplify
Speaker 2: the clubs, we know how you hit the ball uniquely
Speaker 2: to you. The next one, obviously with golf and the
Speaker 2: piece that's really I think when you think about the averaging,
Speaker 2: stuff is missed is every hole is unique, and so
Speaker 2: you have to have some understanding. We'll call it the
Speaker 2: geospatial analysis. Where's the tee, where's the fairway, where are
Speaker 2: the same traps, But then more so like what's the
Speaker 2: shape of the grain, what's the shape of the fairway,
Speaker 2: where are the trees, where are the trees in you know,
Speaker 2: comparison to the t shot, And so that's really you know,
Speaker 2: the second bucket is you need to know everything about
Speaker 2: the layout of the hole. And then we also give
Speaker 2: the users. We kind of give everyone a head start
Speaker 2: with some data to say, here's where we think the
Speaker 2: trees are, here's you know, the fairway, but if the
Speaker 2: trees have changed or there's things like out of bounds,
Speaker 2: we give the user the ability to draw their own,
Speaker 2: you know, course representations, and so you can provide that
Speaker 2: very accurate representation of the whole you're about to go play.
Speaker 1: So all this stuff really is it's not generic information.
Speaker 1: It's very specific information for the person who's looking for details.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's the starting point of what we have.
Speaker 2: So there's two different flows. One is you are, you know,
Speaker 2: a high handicapper, not super tech advance, and so you'll
Speaker 2: type in the things during the onboarding, it'll give you
Speaker 2: the clubs. You probably don't know your club distances or
Speaker 2: your dispersion, and then you'll start the round and everything
Speaker 2: that we have already labeled. Where the trees are, where
Speaker 2: the fairwies are are a really good start, and so
Speaker 2: you just have to hit the shot sense button, which
Speaker 2: which we'll get into, and there you go and you
Speaker 2: have the answer. However, we can ramp that up to
Speaker 2: say you can, you know, as we talked about Taylor,
Speaker 2: your clubs as much as you want, and then or
Speaker 2: a specific course, you could detail it to it, you know,
Speaker 2: to whatever nth degree if you really want to spend
Speaker 2: the time or if you're a very competitive golfer. There
Speaker 2: so that there is you know, maybe an easy mode
Speaker 2: and then you know, as advanced as you'd like.
Speaker 1: Are you trying to replace like the yardage books that
Speaker 1: people carry and take all those notes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean replace. I think the when you're implement
Speaker 2: is the word complement. Then when you're in a tournament setting,
Speaker 2: I think the yardage books are are really great. Phones
Speaker 2: and electronic devices during a tournament are a tough sell
Speaker 2: just because there's a lot going on there. So I
Speaker 2: think yardage books serve that purpose of saying, you know,
Speaker 2: here's this competitive round. I think when we think about
Speaker 2: the average golfer, an average golfer isn't using a yardage book,
Speaker 2: probably doesn't know how to read the contour lines or
Speaker 2: the elevations. Our goal is to provide them a prescriptive
Speaker 2: answer that says, before you hit this t shot, here's
Speaker 2: the aim point. As you hit this approach into the green,
Speaker 2: aim at the pin, aim over here and all that
Speaker 2: is your statistically optimal answer. And so that's really what
Speaker 2: we're trying to do. So I think, you know, not
Speaker 2: to say replace charage books, maybe a different use case.
Speaker 2: And then what we've heard from a lot of folks
Speaker 2: is building intuition to play smart is really difficult in golf.
Speaker 2: If you don't play with a lot of really good players.
Speaker 2: If you're a fifteen handicap and you don't play with
Speaker 2: a lot of great golfers, how do you know you
Speaker 2: shouldn't short side yourself. How do you know maybe you
Speaker 2: should take this different line? You just don't, And so
Speaker 2: people have used shot sense and have seen Okay, it
Speaker 2: keeps angling me over here? Why is that like okay,
Speaker 2: there's water over here, Okay, I need to shift it
Speaker 2: over this way. Okay, the pins over here? Why is
Speaker 2: it keep saying aim towards the fat part of the green?
Speaker 2: Like okay, now in better understanding this? And you know,
Speaker 2: one thing we get really comfortab with is the rangefinder
Speaker 2: of zapping the pin. It's one sixty two and you're
Speaker 2: all right, like, maybe I'll take a yard off and
Speaker 2: a yard to the left, Like we can do better
Speaker 2: than that now that we have all of this data.
Speaker 1: So are you saying that the shot Sense app is
Speaker 1: to replace the fact that you may not be playing
Speaker 1: with much better players, but you're playing with guys who
Speaker 1: you've been playing with for a while and you're all
Speaker 1: around the same handicap and this is like having a
Speaker 1: pro with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we call it the world's most advanced
Speaker 2: or intelligent digital caddy, and we think, because there's golf
Speaker 2: is incredibly complex, almost infinitely complex, we'll call it. I
Speaker 2: think what we're going for is we have all this
Speaker 2: data flowing in and given all of these inputs, here's
Speaker 2: the recommendation and the output, and that gives you your
Speaker 2: optimal strategy. That's something that without a true caddy next
Speaker 2: to you, really difficult for you to build that intuition
Speaker 2: or you know, I'm just aiming for the fairway. Well, no,
Speaker 2: based on everything you've given us, based on the course,
Speaker 2: we can say you're actually gonna aim one yard left
Speaker 2: into the rough because that gives you the statistically optimal
Speaker 2: shot and you know, way to finish the whole. And
Speaker 2: so that's really what we're saying. So yeah, in a sense,
Speaker 2: you know, anyone who you know, average golfer, even the
Speaker 2: more advanced players, it's giving you that caddy, whether you
Speaker 2: you know, implicitly trust it because you don't know a
Speaker 2: right answer, or what we've heard from a lot of
Speaker 2: elite players is it makes me think through it more.
Speaker 2: You know. I think all of those are good conversations
Speaker 2: to have and things that we've heard from from users.
Speaker 1: Fascinating. All right, So the the second part was the
Speaker 1: geospatial analysis.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, uh third on the list, yep third one.
Speaker 2: A little bit related to that is elevation. Obviously, elevation
Speaker 2: is very important on a golf course, but when you're
Speaker 2: running a true optimization. We like to have people think
Speaker 2: about Google Maps, and essentially what we've done is created
Speaker 2: Google Maps for golf. Google Maps is routing you from
Speaker 2: point A to point by these complex algorithms. Dankstras is
Speaker 2: one of them, and they need to know every bit
Speaker 2: of information, how many lanes, what's the speed limit for
Speaker 2: every single road, to quantify it's seventeen minutes from you
Speaker 2: to go to this point to that one. It's eighteen
Speaker 2: if you were to take a left here. And so
Speaker 2: what we've done is we quantify all of these different routes.
Speaker 2: We say is it driver seven iron or is it
Speaker 2: driver eight iron sand wedge? And doing so, elevation we
Speaker 2: need at every single point on the golf course. We
Speaker 2: can't just do the tee and the pin. We have
Speaker 2: to know what the topography looks like. And so that's
Speaker 2: that last one. So that's kind of why it's carved
Speaker 2: into its own third bucket is to say, it's really
Speaker 2: important to know all the different elevation on ole and is.
Speaker 1: That information provided by users or is that the one
Speaker 1: you're getting from like Google Maps.
Speaker 2: And it's a proprietary data set that we have.
Speaker 1: So we have for forty thousand courses. How do you
Speaker 1: get all that?
Speaker 2: So we only have it for US courses right now,
Speaker 2: but uh, well we're working on the other the other countries.
Speaker 2: How I mean, how do you do it? Yeah? Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know it's.
Speaker 1: A proprietary and I'm and I'm digging in because I'm
Speaker 1: going to steal it. No, I'm like, I don't get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think with my background, you know, with geospatial analysis,
Speaker 2: like there's there's a lot of tools and ways to
Speaker 2: do that. Extracting it can be pretty tricky. But this
Speaker 2: is where as I was talking about earlier, all these
Speaker 2: micro challenges, we had a version that didn't have elevation,
Speaker 2: and every shot I had gave us the wrong answer.
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, this is totally worthless, right, Like,
Speaker 2: like who's going to use it? If you really are
Speaker 2: going to tell somebody here is the optimal answer and
Speaker 2: then you caveat it with but then manually factor in
Speaker 2: all the elevation, Well that that's not really helpful. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, here's the Google Maps thing. We just don't
Speaker 2: know exactly when you'll get there, but like plus or
Speaker 2: mind is fifteen minutes. And so that's what was like Okay,
Speaker 2: like we have to solve this at at scale.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And so that was you know, a fun endeavor.
Speaker 1: All right, Before we get to the fourth element that
Speaker 1: helps you create shot sense app let me ask you
Speaker 1: this is this for every golfer?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a good question. So I think of
Speaker 2: this again like Google Maps, where you know, Google Maps
Speaker 2: helps me and you route from A to B. But
Speaker 2: Google Maps also powers door dash. It also powers Comcast
Speaker 2: technicians going from point A to point B. Because we've
Speaker 2: focused on the map layer, it can serve the higher
Speaker 2: hand caps. That's really where we think we'll see a
Speaker 2: lot of traction of folks that just they don't really
Speaker 2: know how to play smarter out there and they're not
Speaker 2: going to hire okay or whatnot. So this will be
Speaker 2: something with the press of one button, you get the answer.
Speaker 2: Aim over here. That's that's great. So we're really excited
Speaker 2: to you know, for that market. But because we've spent
Speaker 2: so much time and energy having these precise, complex mathematical models,
Speaker 2: it can serve the advanced golfers as well. Good example
Speaker 2: is determining Q school regional had somebody to eighty carry
Speaker 2: hit a cut and so with the round planner feature
Speaker 2: because we are able to quantify all these routes for
Speaker 2: a whole one given these dimensions and your club characteristics,
Speaker 2: your expected score is four point one eight And so
Speaker 2: they can go through and say, okay, if I hit
Speaker 2: it too eighty and a cut, is this course best
Speaker 2: or is it this other regional And maybe the sand
Speaker 2: traps are a little shorter or a little longer. And
Speaker 2: so maybe a long way to say, we think we
Speaker 2: can serve everyone in the market, but do think that
Speaker 2: the average golfers will see, you know, the most scorer
Speaker 2: or the most strokes shaved off from their handicap.
Speaker 1: Well as we've been advocating for years about you know,
Speaker 1: becoming a better, smarter golfer and getting that information to
Speaker 1: do that strategic information. And I think that's where the
Speaker 1: problem is for so many golfers. I know, for myself,
Speaker 1: if I look over a scorecard from my last round
Speaker 1: and I see holes that have numbers that I'm not
Speaker 1: comfortable seeing on my scorecard, it's mainly because I make
Speaker 1: bad decisions.
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, And I think there's there's some fascinating things
Speaker 2: with once you get real comfortable with the math model
Speaker 2: and understanding expected scores. You look on a scorecard and
Speaker 2: the handicap of all the par threes are, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe say that the four highest. Well, well, if you
Speaker 2: look at it, that's more of a I'm not an
Speaker 2: expert on you know, course rating and handicapping and things
Speaker 2: like that, but but I think there's something there about,
Speaker 2: you know, why they're ranked so high. But if you
Speaker 2: have a par three that's one hundred and eighty yards,
Speaker 2: your expected score on that is going to be pretty
Speaker 2: high compared to a par four that is, let's say
Speaker 2: three hundred and seventy yards. You know, obviously depending what
Speaker 2: you what you you know, how far you driving, things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: But are par three that's one hundred and twenty yards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Like one hundred and eighty yard par three
Speaker 2: is a difficult hole. But if it's seventeen handicap, you
Speaker 2: look at yourself and you're like, ah, like you know
Speaker 2: this is tough or you know, I you know, no
Speaker 2: one gets strokes on that one. That's a tricky shot,
Speaker 2: and so the you you have to kind of look
Speaker 2: at it from all this math perspective to say that's
Speaker 2: taking the unique layout of the green, that's taking your
Speaker 2: dispersion at whatever club you hit one eighty or you know,
Speaker 2: maybe it's one seventy or one, and figuring out kind
Speaker 2: of how all that works running the math to say, yeah,
Speaker 2: we think you're probably closer to, you know, a five handicap.
Speaker 2: Now for me, it's probably closer to a three point
Speaker 2: six or something like that on that hole, And it
Speaker 2: gives you some expectation that you're like, you're right, that
Speaker 2: is a little bit of a tricky hole, you know,
Speaker 2: whereas maybe I'll make up the shots when it's three
Speaker 2: seventy and maybe I'll have you know, one hundred yards
Speaker 2: into the flag or something like that, and so that's
Speaker 2: where you're able to see some of the difference in that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of like when you see somebody get
Speaker 1: upset with themselves because they miss a ten foot putt,
Speaker 1: which we all do, but then you remind them that,
Speaker 1: you know, on the PGA Tour they're at fifty percent
Speaker 1: from ten feet, so there's no reason to get upset
Speaker 1: with yourself. So if you're saying, you know, this is
Speaker 1: a part three, I'm expecting to part this hole, Yet
Speaker 1: the average score in this hole is higher than secially
Speaker 1: if it's one hundred and eighty yards for most of us.
Speaker 1: If it's higher like that, it's like, Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: have to beat myself up if I get a bogie
Speaker 1: on this hole when the average score is really on
Speaker 1: a par three four point four or something like that.
Speaker 1: So it kind of helps you get comfortable and relax
Speaker 1: a bit more about that playing that hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And it's all goes back to kind
Speaker 2: of the expectations piece of you know, if the expected
Speaker 2: value is going to be three point six and you
Speaker 2: do get a par, you've essentially gained point six strokes
Speaker 2: for yourself. And therefore, if you have you know it's
Speaker 2: a par four and your expected values four point two
Speaker 2: and you have a bogie, like, oh okay, you lost
Speaker 2: some there. But like, all in all, it's just you know,
Speaker 2: better understanding your expectation. And really the only thing you
Speaker 2: can do is what we really emphasize to folks is
Speaker 2: like we'll handle all the complex math. We'll tell you
Speaker 2: where to aim, and then you get to go up
Speaker 2: there and execute. There's obviously the huge piece of this
Speaker 2: one of your physically hitting the ball is typically pretty important,
Speaker 2: and so if we can help solve all the strategy piece.
Speaker 2: Then you get to go focus on go hit that shot,
Speaker 2: have a lot of confidence and conviction. You're an aim
Speaker 2: to the left side of the green and hit this
Speaker 2: shot and then hopefully you know, over time you're able
Speaker 2: to build you know, the ability to strike the ball
Speaker 2: out of the dire.
Speaker 1: There there's so many things that other apps you're that
Speaker 1: you're competing with the offer that you may not and
Speaker 1: you're clearly offering a lot more than a lot of
Speaker 1: other apps. That's becoming really obvious.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: Is there a social element to it as well that
Speaker 1: you can play against or keep track of what your
Speaker 1: friends are doing. You're playing partners.
Speaker 2: No, we haven't focused on that one. That seems to
Speaker 2: be maybe in the last year, there's there's quite a
Speaker 2: few I see a lot of people you know deeving
Speaker 2: themselves as like the Strava of golf or trying to
Speaker 2: go down that route. So we we been given the
Speaker 2: complexities of the decision engine. That's where all the you know,
Speaker 2: time and energy has gone. And so I would say
Speaker 2: our real focus is from a you know, optimal strategy.
Speaker 2: Let's get you the right answer. There's a lot more
Speaker 2: we can do there, and so kind of social kind
Speaker 2: of hasn't bubbled up to the top for us.
Speaker 1: That's fine, that's I was just curious about that. Let's
Speaker 1: go ahead to the fourth element.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the fourth element is what we'll call golf intelligence.
Speaker 2: And so we'll start with trees. You can't hit through trees.
Speaker 2: Fun fact and wait wait what Yeah, I don't love
Speaker 2: you hear this? And so you know a great example
Speaker 2: is was it fourteen at tpc? Like that that tree
Speaker 2: has impact? Like how do you factor that in or whatnot?
Speaker 2: Or you know, lots of different different holes and so
Speaker 2: you know, the first one there is trees have impact.
Speaker 2: How do we figure that out from a strategy perspective?
Speaker 2: The next one is that, you know, short signing yourself
Speaker 2: not a good thing to do up to a half
Speaker 2: stroke penalty based on your angle and severity. And then lastly,
Speaker 2: you know, golf isn't just a what's my next optimal shot?
Speaker 2: It really gets to that route like we were talking
Speaker 2: with Google, if you know you're going to take a highway,
Speaker 2: but then it's you know, one mile per hour for
Speaker 2: the last ten minutes, Well there's probably some side street
Speaker 2: that you can just go thirty five the whole time.
Speaker 2: And so for golf that means, you know, let's say
Speaker 2: there's a tree that's blocking the right side of the green,
Speaker 2: you should be coming in from the left. And so
Speaker 2: when we think about your t shot, we have to
Speaker 2: be thinking about the second shot to figure out where
Speaker 2: to hit your first shot. And so that's what we'll
Speaker 2: call multi shot optimization. And that's, you know, the last
Speaker 2: piece of golf intelligence. So those are you know, it's
Speaker 2: kind of all bucketed together, but it's very golf specific
Speaker 2: stuff that we factor in. And so all of that
Speaker 2: then is combined in the shot Sense Decision Engine, and
Speaker 2: then the output of that is your optimal strategy for
Speaker 2: every shot, every hole on any course.
Speaker 1: The way you're describing this, mister Engineer, and the way
Speaker 1: I'm absorbing it, it sounds like this app is making
Speaker 1: golf and I think this is awesome, but it's turning
Speaker 1: it into a chess match.
Speaker 2: I think there's a few things. So at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, any of these we'll call the place
Speaker 2: smarter tools from the rangefinders. So the GPS apps are
Speaker 2: all just that tools we're never you know, some folks
Speaker 2: are getting better at like when for a specific hole
Speaker 2: or you know the undulation if your ball hits on
Speaker 2: the downslope where it's going to go. So golf is
Speaker 2: always going to have these very uh, kind of unique characteristics.
Speaker 2: And also where there's kind of the human element and
Speaker 2: decision making. For example, we don't factor in wind because
Speaker 2: there's no good source of wind for every hole. I
Speaker 2: think there's a couple of companies starting to do that,
Speaker 2: you know, not in every course, but you know that's
Speaker 2: we don't want to bake that into an optimization if
Speaker 2: we don't know if it's it's correct. And so I
Speaker 2: think you're right in that it's it's a chess match
Speaker 2: in that you should you know, there is a mathematical
Speaker 2: right answer. It is very unique for every player and
Speaker 2: every situation. Chess maybe not so much because it's a
Speaker 2: set board. Now there's obviously, you know, probably trillions of
Speaker 2: combinations on that board of what it could be, but
Speaker 2: there are a finite number where golf is is you know,
Speaker 2: not finite uh. And so so you know chess match
Speaker 2: and that there's a mathematical best approach to every shot
Speaker 2: you take. But do we think everyone's going to know
Speaker 2: that all the time? No? And so what we're out
Speaker 2: thinking is that let's help you build your intuition slowly.
Speaker 2: If you're a high handap cap golfer, any of this
Speaker 2: is good knowledge to start. If you start to be
Speaker 2: a single digit or an elite player, okay, like when
Speaker 2: you're in a tournament, you're not using these tools. So
Speaker 2: then it's really how do you use all of those
Speaker 2: tools to the best of your ability out there? And
Speaker 2: so I think yes to the chess piece. And then
Speaker 2: where you really get to prove it is when it's
Speaker 2: internment play. What have you learned from the playing smarter perspective?
Speaker 2: And then go execute it. Our goal is really if
Speaker 2: you had say, like a stroke stained strategy metric, we
Speaker 2: think every golfer should be able to have a perfect
Speaker 2: stroke skain strategy because it's really just what should I do,
Speaker 2: not your physical ability and things like that. And so
Speaker 2: that's where you know, we're excited that as people build
Speaker 2: that intuition, I think people will have more fun and
Speaker 2: you'll I think by having more fun, you either shoot
Speaker 2: lower and that's why you have more you know, more fun,
Speaker 2: or you have more fun in the shoe loower. Not
Speaker 2: sure which one goes first, but yeah, that's the help here.
Speaker 1: That's really good. I am not a person. I'm a
Speaker 1: total technique. I love this stuff. And when I talk
Speaker 1: about you know, apps, electronics and rangefinders and all the
Speaker 1: different ways of checking your distances whatnot. But I'm not
Speaker 1: I don't like pulling out. I don't think of pulling
Speaker 1: out my phone.
Speaker 2: All the time.
Speaker 1: You know. I wear a watch and found that any
Speaker 1: of the apps that connect to my watch kill the
Speaker 1: battery on my watch. So by the time I get
Speaker 1: to the twelfth hole, it's like your battery is at
Speaker 1: two percent on my watch. It's an Apple watch. And
Speaker 1: then I have a shot Scope watch that I use
Speaker 1: just for front, middle back type thing. Scoring there's this
Speaker 1: does not connect to uh watch app at all. It's
Speaker 1: it's just standalone on a phone.
Speaker 2: Yep, just the phone. We get asked about to watch
Speaker 2: a lot. So it's a product roadmap.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And so you know something, Uh we're hoping maybe it
Speaker 2: early summer, we'll have that out. But yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: very fair point about you know, golf cell phone usage
Speaker 2: on a golf course. Yeah, some people that just they're
Speaker 2: they're there to take a break. They don't want to
Speaker 2: be tempted by the emails. And the text messages. Uh,
Speaker 2: and then courses.
Speaker 1: That don't allow it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and so yeah, we so there's you know
Speaker 2: that that's a group that that's going to be tough
Speaker 2: to crack, and so the the group that uses encores.
Speaker 2: What we've specifically made product decisions around is how to
Speaker 2: make this intuitive and easy to use on every whole
Speaker 2: with the least amount of interaction. And so what that
Speaker 2: is is instead of, you know, some apps, you have
Speaker 2: to move the cursor around and you're having to engage
Speaker 2: with your phone for a substantial amount of time, our
Speaker 2: approach is you're you know what, we assume you're going
Speaker 2: to be on the tee. If you're not, you can
Speaker 2: move it. But with the tap of one button, here's
Speaker 2: the aim point. Put your phone away, go execute. Phones
Speaker 2: in your pocket, walk up to your next one, take
Speaker 2: your phone out. It's going to know where you are.
Speaker 2: Press the button, the shot suns button gives you the
Speaker 2: optimal aim point left center of the green. It'll give
Speaker 2: you your plays like distance you know, club execute and
Speaker 2: then go to the end of the hole. If you
Speaker 2: want to type in your score at the end, great,
Speaker 2: If you want to use a shot tracking at the
Speaker 2: end also great, but that was only two button presses
Speaker 2: to get the aim point. And therefore you go. And
Speaker 2: so we think that the value of what we've done
Speaker 2: is it's all about prescriptive action. And so right now,
Speaker 2: all all the other apps that they don't really get
Speaker 2: that you're here it is. It's the whole move the
Speaker 2: cursor around, what do I want to do? Okay, sure
Speaker 2: that could be helpful for some folks sandtraps over here,
Speaker 2: but with one button press, here's some value. This is
Speaker 2: the statistically best aim point. Go do it, phone and pocket,
Speaker 2: go do that. And so that's that's the flow on course.
Speaker 2: The other piece, and we see this a lot with
Speaker 2: some of the elite players, is the round planner. Do
Speaker 2: all this beforehand. But you know, so we have something
Speaker 2: that's not you know, on the course. But before you
Speaker 2: go to a course, figure out for every hole, kind
Speaker 2: of do a dry run. What's your aim line on
Speaker 2: every t shot? You're you may know where the pins are,
Speaker 2: especially if it's a tough, you know, tournament, let's call
Speaker 2: it like Sunday pins. You're gonna know where those are.
Speaker 2: Map it out or do some scenarios. And therefore, before
Speaker 2: you go there, you've done this dry round with all
Speaker 2: of the unique characteristics of your shots and the unique
Speaker 2: hole layout and figure out what that looks like. And
Speaker 2: so we also have a bunch of average golfers going
Speaker 2: to resort courses or nice country clubs that they love
Speaker 2: doing this because they don't want to go to a
Speaker 2: country club they've never seen before, and so this one
Speaker 2: gives them a little bit of ease walking up to
Speaker 2: that first t. And so that's you know, our hope
Speaker 2: is that you know, there's going to be encourse users,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be off course users, and so you know,
Speaker 2: but there are folks that you don't want to use
Speaker 2: phones or whatnot. So you totally get that, and that's
Speaker 2: a market that we're thinking about in the future.
Speaker 1: Wow, all right, let's do this here. Let's wrap this
Speaker 1: with this. Uh walk me through. We're about to play
Speaker 1: number six at mythical golf course. Yeah, okay, and number
Speaker 1: six is a dog leg par four. Yeap, walk me
Speaker 1: through t to putting in the hole. How you're going
Speaker 1: to use the app for every shot on this par four.
Speaker 1: So let's say you're going to par the hole, you know,
Speaker 1: but walk me through using shots since app how to
Speaker 1: play that hole with yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we'll say dog leg left and you hit
Speaker 2: a fade, and so you know you already have all
Speaker 2: we already have all that information in there. So when
Speaker 2: you go to the next so you're coming off whole
Speaker 2: number five, you'll click next hole. And so we'll place
Speaker 2: the starting point at the tees you selected. So we'll
Speaker 2: say you're playing the blue teas and so you know,
Speaker 2: let's say you're in the cart, so you can first
Speaker 2: look to see is the layout of the hole and
Speaker 2: we call them polygons. You'll see there's these colored polygons.
Speaker 2: Are the trees represented accurately? Is the fairway in the
Speaker 2: right spot and in the green do we have to
Speaker 2: drop out of bounce? And so we'll assume that you've
Speaker 2: done this before in round planner and everything is mapped
Speaker 2: out correctly. And so you'll be in your cart and
Speaker 2: you'll press the shot sense button. Takes between one to
Speaker 2: three seconds, and then it will give you where your
Speaker 2: dispersion oval is and then a blinking red dot that
Speaker 2: says your optimal aim point. And we talked about it's
Speaker 2: a dog leg left and you hit a fade. Well,
Speaker 2: this isn't a great hole. For us, And so it's
Speaker 2: going to try and figure out what's the best spot
Speaker 2: given you know, and let's assume there's trees, you know,
Speaker 2: for the dog leg, and it's not just that you
Speaker 2: cut through. If there's trees on the left, we obviously
Speaker 2: can't go through those trees. So we're gonna try and
Speaker 2: find that optimal spot that given your fade, where there's
Speaker 2: some comfortable margin. Then we're gonna put the dispersion oval
Speaker 2: there trying to figure it out. And it may say
Speaker 2: three wood one or two thirty five and give you
Speaker 2: the blinking dot which is going to say, you know,
Speaker 2: right center of the fairway, which is your aim point.
Speaker 2: You're then going to go grab your three wood. You'll
Speaker 2: put your phone in your pocket or in the cart,
Speaker 2: wherever you want to do that. You'll go hit the shot.
Speaker 2: Hopefully you hit it close to where you're going. You'll
Speaker 2: get up to the next one. You'll then if you
Speaker 2: have a pin sheet you can move it because of that,
Speaker 2: or if you know where the pin is you can
Speaker 2: move it. You take your phone out, move the pin
Speaker 2: to that location. Then you press the shot sense button
Speaker 2: again and it's going to say bam, you're one forty three.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a nine iron, and your specific
Speaker 2: aim point with the pin on the right and given
Speaker 2: its shape is going to be maybe center of the
Speaker 2: green or left center of the green. And then you're
Speaker 2: going to put your phone in your pocket. You're going
Speaker 2: to execute that shot Putting, we don't do anything, and
Speaker 2: so after the hole is when you do scorecards. We
Speaker 2: track your your GPS breadcrumbs is what we call them,
Speaker 2: to show you where you went or walked. And then
Speaker 2: if you want to do shot tracking afterwards, you know
Speaker 2: you can place the pins and we age you because
Speaker 2: we know where you pressed the shot sense button. We
Speaker 2: can tell you like, here's where you were. Just confirm this,
Speaker 2: and so that's kind of the flow of a hole
Speaker 2: at the t press the shot sense button, get the
Speaker 2: optimal strategy, Execute, go to your next shot, press the
Speaker 2: shot Sense button, execute, and then you know, finish the
Speaker 2: hole and walk away with our car.
Speaker 1: And if when you review the round afterwards, there's all
Speaker 1: this data, can you walk through every hole and say, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't hit that club there, I hit it from
Speaker 1: over here with this can you edit and make changes
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: So after each hole you can place the pins to
Speaker 2: say this is where I was.
Speaker 1: Can you do a post round, post a post.
Speaker 2: Shot post round. You you could do a workerund and
Speaker 2: do a post round, but maybe, as you're thinking about it,
Speaker 2: not like a full feature, to say, the round is done,
Speaker 2: here's my scorecard, let's do it afterwards. What you could
Speaker 2: do is fill out all of your scores for each
Speaker 2: hole and then at the very end place it. But
Speaker 2: not exactly kind of how you're thinking about it, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because sometimes I just forget to pull out my phone. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm just not accustomed to it to the point where,
Speaker 1: you know, I walk the golf course and I now
Speaker 1: use an electric caddy to carry my bag. Right the
Speaker 1: last couple of rounds, I get into a conversation with
Speaker 1: one of them. We're playing partners, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's like, where's my car?
Speaker 2: I found it?
Speaker 1: I found it three inches deep in the mud. The
Speaker 1: other day it's like all the way on the other
Speaker 1: side of the green. It's like, oh my god, it
Speaker 1: took us a while. Of fine, it was terrible, But
Speaker 1: I don't always My point is, I don't always remember
Speaker 1: to enter and I would like to be able to,
Speaker 1: you know, like when I'm sitting at home after the round. Go, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to make these adjustments here and
Speaker 1: then look at all my statistics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not available at this point, not available, but good,
Speaker 2: good feedback point. Not not super difficult to do.
Speaker 1: Oh great, great, available for iOS and Android, just for iOS,
Speaker 1: just for iOS at this point.
Speaker 2: Free, Yep, it's free.
Speaker 1: Any in app charges, Nope.
Speaker 2: No in app charges. We have some some big things
Speaker 2: in the works now, and that's kind of where the
Speaker 2: monetization strategy comes from. That's right. Gee, how'd you know? That?
Speaker 1: Was my next question. If you're giving it away for
Speaker 1: free and there's no in app charges, what's your revenue
Speaker 1: stream on this?
Speaker 2: How are you going to sustain this one? Because it's
Speaker 2: a great idea. Yeah, yeah, so so right now totally free.
Speaker 2: What we're building next, we're pretty excited about.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And that's where kind of the monestation piece comes from.
Speaker 2: And we you know, for for an in app GPS
Speaker 2: like what we have right now, we think you know
Speaker 2: that the average golfers playing what three times a month,
Speaker 2: you know, to charge seven eight dollars for a plays
Speaker 2: like distance and here's the wind direction. We just don't
Speaker 2: we just don't think that's super helpful. We think there's
Speaker 2: different ways and more sustainable ways to deliver value to them,
Speaker 2: and therefore, you know we'll be able to you know,
Speaker 2: get some return from that perspective. So yeah, free version
Speaker 2: one free and then as we you know, build everything
Speaker 2: out coming up, that's where we focus on the monetization.
Speaker 1: And people can learn more online at.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, at shotsnscolf dot com or Instagram. I think
Speaker 2: our handle is shot suns Golf as well.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Well, I'm fascinated. I appreciate you reaching out and
Speaker 1: sharing this with me. Strokes gained strategy. I love that concept.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's like, get this in your
Speaker 1: head that you know there's ways to play golf smarter.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I really just say that. You know
Speaker 1: it's supposed to get you to say that. So anyway, Brent,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for sharing this with us, and
Speaker 1: good luck with this one.
Speaker 2: Yep, thanks much, Fred