Closing The Loop: The Missing Piece In Golf’s Evolving Technology Ecosystem

Let me ask you some questions.

How many golf apps do you have on your phone or tablet?

Between launch monitors, swing trainers, rangefinders, etc., how many pieces of digital golf hardware do you own?

Last question.

How many of those apps and digital toys communicate with each other?

I’m guessing it’s not many. Welcome to the dark side of golf’s ever-expanding digital hellscape.

I got 99 apps, but communication between none.

We’re creeping closer to partial solutions. What we have now is a bit like collecting individual pieces of a puzzle without the connecting edges. Despite thousands of development hours and millions in venture capital, golf’s digital space is a technological Tower of Babel where our tools and the apps that power them might as well be speaking different languages because most can’t communicate with each other.

The solution to date has been a series of one-off partnerships. For example, at the enterprise level, Foresight has a partnership with Swing Catalyst but, more often than not, any given piece of golf tech we own exists in isolation from the rest.

For consumers, the lack of interconnectivity is a way of life.

Does your Rapsodo talk to your Bal.on digital insoles? Does your Hack Motion have any insight into your Shot Scope data? Can you order DoorDash from your Stack app?

That last one probably isn’t important but my point is we’ve been given a technological universe where our data is trapped in silos that never cross-pollinate. And yeah, I know that’s a mixed metaphor, which is the perfect kind of metaphor to further illustrate the fundamental disconnect between our golf data systems.

An enterprise-grade failure

Several years ago at the PGA Show, there was a company … I can’t remember its name but I promise you it doesn’t matter because there’s no chance they’re still in business.

Their product promised to serve as the great technology aggregator, a tool to connect, maybe even unite disparate golf technologies into a single system. A solid idea but the demo never worked and that was that.

At that time, golf tech was in its comparative infancy. Digital swing analyzers had mostly faded, Arccos and Shot Scope were relatively new and personal launch monitors like FlightScope Mevo, Bushnell Launch Pro and Rapsodo didn’t exist.

So, while I suppose the lack of interactivity was frustrating for those who had to deal with it, it wasn’t something most golfers had ever thought about.

The dawning of golf’s digital age

Fast-forward to now and many golfers are feeling the headaches.

If you’ve got a launch monitor, you no doubt have a ton of data. There’s a digital record of what you do with every club in the bag. Good or bad, the system knows.

Great?

On-course tools have grown in popularity as well. Because of OEM partnerships, a significant number of golfers have had the opportunity to take shot tracking for a spin. Shot Scope has a large audience as well. Cumulatively, it’s fair to say that while not every golfer is interested, there’s a growing audience for detailed on-course analysis as well.

Here’s the challenge.

There’s next to nothing that connects what happens in your personal hitting bay with what happens on the golf course and, to my knowledge, there’s absolutely nothing that completes the circle: bringing what happens on course back to your home practice environment.

Several degrees short of a circle

To be sure, the market is evolving, and rapidly.

In early January, Foresight and Bushnell released Link-Enabled technology. Link allows for shot data collected on your Bushnell or Foresight Launch monitor to be synchronized to your Bushnell Launch rangefinder where it’s used to make real-time, weather-adjusted club recommendations for every shot you hit on the golf course.

Just in time for the PGA Show, FlightScope launched the i4 rangefinder which performs a similar function within the FlightScope ecosystem. Notable, I suppose, the i4 is FlightScope’s first bit of kit outside of the launch monitor category and the included Smart Gapping tool allows you to get personalized recommendations even if you don’t have a launch monitor.

These new offerings bridge the gap between the hitting bay and the golf course. They bring us closer to unified technology.

Now, to be sure, I’m not entirely sure how much demand there is for this level of data continuity. Some I’ve spoken with believe these expanding technologies represent solutions in search of a problem. If that’s true, the ceiling might be low.

I’m more bullish. I love this stuff.

For me, both technologies bring golfers a step forward to what I call closing the loop. It’s a circle-of-life type of idea where your personal launch monitor data informs on-course decisions in real time.

We’ve extended our lines but we still haven’t closed the loop.

What’s next?

The next step is taking those informed on-course results and turning them into actionable insights that can be leveraged in the hitting bay with the goal of improving on-course outcomes.

Round and round we go as we digitally spiral towards a fully interconnected and ultimately better golf game. Or at least a more informed one.

Temper your expectations

With so many – literal hundreds – of companies in the golf technology space, it’s unrealistic to think that all of our toys will be able to communicate with each other.

That said, with size often comes opportunity. Larger brands, especially those whose product catalog spans multiple categories, should be well … or at least better … positioned to unify the technology allowing you to bring your data from the hitting bay to the golf course and back again with tailored insights.

The first company that closes the loop will have my undivided attention.

What about you?

Do tools like Foresight/Bushnell Link and FlightScope i4 excite you? What are your golf-related digital pain points?

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