Performance analysis in golf using the ISOPAR method

Performance analysis in golf has been hindered by a lack of valid performance indicators available. This paper presents an application of the ISOPAR method (Stöckl et al., 2011) to performance analysis in golf for two tournaments at the Golfclub Augsburg in Germany. The method involves characterising golf holes using ball locations and the number of shots required to hole out from each respective ball location. Using these data, ISOPAR maps can be created to visualise the difficulty of the hole. Areas on the greens which provide putts with the least difficulty were shown on the ISOPAR maps. Shots played to hole locations on elevated areas of the green may be considered more influential in the outcome (score) of the hole. A new performance indicator Shot Quality is also demonstrated in this paper. The quality of individual shots was highly correlated (Rd 1, ρ = -0.749; Rd 2, ρ = -0.441; Rd 3, ρ = -0.429) with hole score yet showed almost no relationship with round score. The correlation with tournament ranking was higher than expected (ρ = 0.221) considering the lack of correlation with Shot Quality and round score. In this study, only putting data were collected but future research will extend the method to include entire holes.