Playability:
the ease and forgiveness a course or club offers players, allowing them to recover from less-than-perfect shots and still have a reasonable chance of making a good score. It essentially means that a course or club has features that make it easier to stay in play, even with some errors. (AI quote)
Playability and the Golfer Experience
Golf is a sport and leisure activity where players of all ages and abilities participate around the World, key to growing Golf is ensuring all have an enjoyable experience, which is where playability comes in, ensuring the design of the course supports the enjoyment of golf.
Understanding current golfer profiles is key to creating and delivering a good on course experience now and in the future, ensuring enjoyment of golf continues. There are a number of components of golfer profiles which will impact the course design, age, gender and ability.
Age: When looking at the current golfer profile, in the UK the average golfer is older than in other countries, this can be seen when comparing England statistics with those of the US in the table below:
Gender and Ability: recognising that there is a lot of data around mens golf, Kari Haug, Golf Course Architect and Sue Shapcott, Head of Data and Insights at Gather Golf and Director of Golf Change Golf Instruction carried out a exploratory research project in 2020, to gather and analyse female golfer statistics which can be used in the design of golf courses and player equipment.
The research was carried out on 500 female golfers, between 11 and 84, with an average age of 58, and encompassed a wide range of statistics, including but not limited to:
•Total distance
•Carry distance
•Swing speed
•Spin rate
•Launch angle
•Landing angle
•Total height
•Smash factor
•Ball speed
•Attack angle
•Club path
•Face to path
•Curve
•Side
Click HERE for the full research paper USA Women’s Golf Study: Golf Shot Metrics Among a Nationwide Cross-Section of Amateur American Women Golfers. There are 2 key outcomes from this research which can be used to improve golfer experiences:
-
Course designers can leverage this data to improve the playability of courses
-
Equipment manufacturers can leverage this data in the design of golf clubs
Playability and Handicaps
Playability is becoming a key topic in golf, the introduction of the World Handicap System, which is a global, transferrable handicap system, which combines the 6 handicap systems which were used around the World.
The objective of the World Handicap Systems is to provide players with the flexibility and knowledge that wherever they are in the World, they can play with a standard handicap which can be adjusted locally, based on the relative difficulty of a course and their own ability.