0 like 0 dislike
0 like 0 dislike
Hi! I thought that this would be a perfect place to discuss about my current project I'm thinking of doing. I have the chance to explore Trackman data, (trackman is a device which tracks golf shots and measures spin, speed, angle, distance etc) and I wanna find out which club made by who performs the best.

Here are some things to consider: the dataset contains many players with different swings and better players might pick certain type of club, which lead to bias. Carry distance and dispersion would ultimately tell me how the shot was but I'm not clear on how I could normalize the data and do analysis by clubs. HLM might be the go but wanted to see what people think. I would appreciate any inputs or ideas, thank you!

1 Answer

0 like 0 dislike
0 like 0 dislike
First, Trackman does not capture carry distance, total distance, etc. directly. It estimates those variables from the what it does measure directly-- clubhead speed, ball speed, angle of attack, face to path, spin rate, spin axis, etc.

Second, "best", "longest", and "least dispersion" are not likely to all be the same thing. For a driver, sure it makes plenty of sense to look at longest and for many people that may mean best. But I think to approach anything resembling "best" you would need to define a proxy variable similar to strokes gained. MyGolfSpy already does this with the majority of their testing. I would check out how they have defined those things. Even least dispersion is not necessarily as simple as it sounds. If a club has a tendency to miss left then it's a non-starter in my bag, even if it's overall low dispersion. My ability to navigate a difficult course depends on keeping my misses in check which means managing where they go (i.e. right of the target, not left of the target). So I don't care if a club is low dispersion if it misses left-- it's not going in my bag.

Third, are the golfers in this test dataset properly fitted with the clubs? For example, the "best" head for an individual golfer depends on a proper shaft fit and vice versa. If they are not, you would need to account for this.

Lastly, you need to think about confounding variables such as swing speed (and/or handicap) for this analysis for the conclusions to make any sense. The "best" ball for example is much different for me than a 75 year old woman who needs lots of distance help. For me, the best ball is likely some prov1 variant, chrome soft, TP5, etc. In general, I have plenty of distance so I need something which minimizes dispersion and has good greenside spin control. For our hypothetical 75 year old woman it's going to be the ball that goes the furthest, since she doesn't generate enough clubhead speed for greenside spin control anyway.

Source; PhD statistician and <5 handicap golfer.

Related questions

0 like 0 dislike
0 like 0 dislike
0 answers
MorganHoover_ asked Jun 21, 2022
"Previous comparison of change in CAPS score between sertraline and placebo showed effect sizes of 0.31 and 0.37 (ref. 16). Similarly, comparison of change in CAPS score ...
MorganHoover_ asked Jun 21, 2022
0 like 0 dislike
0 like 0 dislike
1 answer
TylerReddick asked Jun 21, 2022
Hello Stats, I am trying to model frequency of an event, and I am looking for the best way to do this. My response variable is frequency, and I am fitting it with Poisson...
TylerReddick asked Jun 21, 2022
0 like 0 dislike
0 like 0 dislike
3 answers
BeefGolf asked Jun 21, 2022
What is everyone using to study for FAM-S in October?
BeefGolf asked Jun 21, 2022
0 like 0 dislike
0 like 0 dislike
3 answers
ericdanetz asked Jun 21, 2022
Health to Life switchers, could you tell me some reasons why you switched and what makes you more interested in Life compared to Health?
ericdanetz asked Jun 21, 2022
0 like 0 dislike
0 like 0 dislike
6 answers
lkreitzman asked Jun 21, 2022
Is it possible to pass SRM with minimal preparation ( 2 months w/ a full time job) if you are already knowledgeable in statistical modeling?
lkreitzman asked Jun 21, 2022

33.4k questions

135k answers

0 comments

33.7k users

OhhAskMe is a math solving hub where high school and university students ask and answer loads of math questions, discuss the latest in math, and share their knowledge. It’s 100% free!