Words by Clippd
Clippd has created two performance metrics, Shot and Player Quality, which present a compelling new way to understand and measure golfing skill — both overall and in each area of the game.
These powerful metrics gives golfers and golf coaches a more precise and immediate way to appreciate how good a particular shot was and how good a player is at a given point in time.
Shot Quality and Player Quality build on the advances made by Strokes Gained, but factor in additional layers of all-important context. The additional layers of context Clippd factors in are course difficulty, weather conditions, course conditions, temperature and altitude/elevation.
Shot Quality
Shot Quality is the foundation, measuring each individual shot – both on and off the course. Shot Quality takes into account distance, lie, end result and other factors that impact the difficulty of each shot.
Shot Quality is represented as a number between 0 and 200, with 100 being the quality expected of a shot by a typical tour player and 200 representing “statistical perfection”, such as a hole-in-one or a hole out from the fairway.
Player Quality
Player Quality works on the same scale and is created via a proprietary Clippd Algorithm that rolls up all of the shots a player hits. Based on those shots, the algorithm predicts how well the golfer will play the next time they step up to hit a ball.
Like Shot Quality, Player Quality is represented as a number between 0 and 200, with 100 representing male tour standard and 108 being an approximation for a top-25 player on the Tour.
As a guide, a male golfer playing off a plus-handicap is likely to have a Player Quality in the low 90s. A scratch player will be high-80s, while a 10-handicapper will be mid-70s. A female scratch handicapper will be mid-80s, while an LPGA top-25 player will be high 90s. Players can choose which Player Ability Comparisons they want to see in Clippd by clicking on Settings and selecting Display Preferences.
Player Quality is dynamic and more sensitive to current form than handicap. It can be viewed overall, but also broken down to the specific parts of the game such as Off The Tee (OTT) or Putting (PUTT). We use Machine Learning to then measure what happens and see how accurate we were.
Over time the machine gets smarter and more tailored to the individual, giving a truly unique insight into the golfer's playing ability.
