Golf Analytics – Syndication Server

Arccos Link Pro is a massive step forward in data collection for amateur golfers

Arccos Link Pro silently and accurately gathers data about your golf game.

When Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and Tony Finau walk to the first tee to play in a PGA Tour event, the best data-collecting system in golf, ShotLink, follows their progress and records every imaginable thing about their rounds. The players don’t have to do anything, wear anything or think about data production. An army of volunteers and a pair of 18-wheelers parked on-site gather the data and crunch it, then send each player a sophisticated package of statistics and information after each tournament.

With the release of the new Link Pro, Arccos – the Stamford, Connecticut-based company that recently became the Official Game Tracker of the PGA Tour – has taken the most significant step in the company’s history in replicating the ShotLink experience for recreational golfers.

For more than a decade, Arccos has allowed golfers to track what club they use, how far each shot goes and more by wirelessly connecting tiny sensors on their clubs to their smartphone and an Arccos app.

In the beginning, golfers had to play with their phones in their pockets, but a few years ago Arccos released the first generation of Link, a matchbook-size device that clips to a players’ clothes or can be worn on a belt. Link acted like a tether and allowed golfers to keep their phones in the cart or a golf bag. Now Link Pro goes one step further on more than 40,000 courses.

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On the first tee, after a player removes the unit from its charging case and turns it on, Link Pro connects to a smartphone and the Arccos App. After selecting the course about to be played and setting Link Pro as the shot-tracking method, all a player has to do is put the Link Pro in one of the front pockets of their pants, skirt or dress and play. That’s it – there is nothing else to do. Yes, for extra accuracy golfers can press a small button on the side of the unit after they take the ball out of the hole to indicate to the system exactly where the hole is located, but they can do that without taking Link Pro out of their pocket. Players can forget Link Pro until they walk off the 18th green.

Link Pro allows golfers to leave their phone in their golf bag, in the clubhouse or even in their car. After finishing play, when Link Pro gets close enough to your phone while the Arccos app is open, the data from your round will automatically upload into the Arccos system. The only time when you will need to use your phone is when you are selecting the course you are about to play, selecting the Link Pro as your data-gathering method and starting your round.

Link Pro makes the process of gathering data about a player’s game as unobtrusive as ShotLink, which is a massive step forward because the more players have to think about devices they are wearing or using, the more it takes away from playing the game. Link Pro, which costs $224.99, makes a ShotLink-style experience possible for golfers in their Thursday evening league or weekend matches.

This is all possible because Link Pro has improved microphones that allow the system to “hear” shots more easily. An upgraded GPS chip also allows Link Pro to connect and lock with satellites more quickly. The Link Pro charging case holds enough energy for 12 rounds before the case has to be recharged.

Arccos Caddie Strokes Gained Analytics provides a very detailed look at performance on the course. (Arccos)

In addition to tracking shots, Arccos provides players with a virtual rangefinder that uses artificial intelligence to provide yardages while accounting for things such as slope, wind, humidity and altitude. Arccos also uses the data it collects to provide Strokes Gained insights that reveal not only strengths and weaknesses but also tendencies and how a player stacks up against other players of different ability levels. This is really helpful because it allows golfers to concentrate on the specific areas of their game that are holding them back.

The Arccos Smart Sensors required to make Link Pro work are sold separately. With the purchase of the sensors, golfers get a one-year subscription to the Arccos app, with subsequent years costing $155.88 per year.

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Arccos raises $20 million in funding from PGA Tour and equipment makers

The funding will allow Arccos to accelerate the release of products and data-driven services for recreational golfers.

Golfers on the PGA Tour have nearly all their shots tracked by ShotLink, which uses a sophisticated system of laser measuring devices, radar and an army of volunteers. You don’t have access to that technology, but Arccos has been enabling recreational golfers to track their shots and collect data on their game since 2012, and on Monday, the company announced that as a part of a $20 million Series C fundraising, it had become the “Official Game Tracker” of the PGA Tour.

Along with the investment by the Tour, other investors include Ping, TaylorMade, Cobra Puma Golf and Topgolf Callaway Brands.

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Arccos, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut, is a shot-tracking system that uses a series of small screw-in tags to tether a golfer’s clubs to a smartphone app, which then uses GPS to track the location of every shot a player hits, along with information on the club used and the location of the bullet hit (fairway, sand, rough, the green). Using that data, Arccos develops ShotLink-style stat packages that can reveal information about player tendencies, strengths and weaknesses, along with suggestions on what to practice. The Arccos Caddie app can also use that data to provide caddy-style club recommendations too.

“This investment shows that data is here to stay and that it is going to help everybody,” said Sal Syed, Arccos Golf’s CEO and co-founder in an exclusive interview with Golfweek. “Whether you are a player looking to improve or an instructor looking to teach better, a fitter looking to be smarter or even a manufacturer looking to make better tools for golfers, this data is going to help every aspect of the industry. That’s why you are seeing the industry kind of coalescing behind Arccos. It’s going to help everybody.”

To date, Arccos members have used the system to track more than 750 million shots during over 16 million rounds in 162 countries. That database provides the foundation for the power of the system.

Asked what Arccos plans to do with the capital it has raised, Syed said the infusion of money will allow the company to accelerate its product roadmap.

“We can invest more in data science, make the system more accurate, easier to use and more available to a wider array of golfers.”

Players on the Tour now create strategies for how they will play specific holes using data collected by ShotLink, and many modify their schedules to include courses that data shows match their game especially well. In some cases, they skip tournaments where data shows they might struggle. Syed hopes that as Arccos grows, recreational golfers will be able to make data-based decisions like the pros.

“Every decision that is made in golf should be based on your on-course, real performance,” he said. “Eventually, we want to be able to show, using data, which putter is better for you, what shoes you should play with. Today, no one is basing those kinds of decisions on actual performance data. What we have touched is not even the tip of the iceberg.”

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Arccos limited-edition Smoke Smart Sensors Gen3+ system

Arccos continues to roll out new hardware designed collect shot information and reveal how players can improve their game.

For the past few years, Arccos has concentrated on improving the software and the algorithms it uses to give golfers deeper analytics and more information about how they can improve their games. And in 2022 the Stamford, Connecticut-based company has rolled out new hardware.

Last month Arccos introduced the Gen3+ sensors, which help the system do a better job of detecting shots, ignoring practice swings and locating you on the course. Two weeks later it released the second edition of the Arccos Link, a small device that clips to your belt or a pocket and allows players to use Arccos without keeping their smartphone in a pocket. Now comes the limited-edition Gen3+ Smoke sensors, a black version of the newest screw-in sensors that help power the shot-tracking system.

Like the standard black and green Gen3+ sensors, 13 Smoke tags come in the box alongside a smaller 14th sensor designed for your putter. After installing them and going through a one-time pairing process that takes about two minutes, the Arccos smartphone app recognizes which clubs you use on every shot and can overlay that information on over 40,000 courses around the world.

By connecting one shot to another using the GPS in your smartphone, Arccos can determine how far each of your shots goes, whether it lands in the fairway, sand or on the green, then compile detailed stats and analytics that reveal your strengths, weaknesses and areas you should practice.

The batteries in the Smoke Smart Sensors should last about two years with normal use.

The Smoke edition of the Arccos Smart Sensors Gen3+ costs $224.99 and comes with a one-year subscription to the Arccos Caddie app.

Our readers can get a 15% discount by using the code GOLFWEEK on any Arccos product.

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Arccos Gen3+ sensors make shot tracking and golf analytics more accurate

Arccos’s newest sensors do a better job detecting shots and increase the accuracy of your golf data and statistics.

Gear: Arccos Smart Sensors Gen3+

Price: $199.99

Specs: 13 full-swing, screw-in sensors and one screw-in putter sensor

Who it’s for: Golfers who want a statistical look at their game and receive guidance on strengths, weaknesses, what to practice and which shots to hit on the course.

The Skinny: Arccos’s newest sensors are smaller and lighter, have a two-year battery life and allow the company’s best-in-class software to track your shots, create tour-level statistics about your game and use data to reveal how to shoot lower scores.

The Deep Dive: No one thinks about it this way, but when you begin every round of golf, the starter hands you a spreadsheet. We call it a scorecard, but the empty boxes under each hole number are there for you to fill in with data. Most golfers just write down how many shots they need to get the ball into the hole – their score – but sometimes there are dots indicating when you are given a stroke based on handicap, and circles or squares around the numbers indicate birdies and bogeys. Some teaching pros encourage students to note whether they hit the fairway off the tee, hit the green in regulation and how many putts they needed on the hole.

For about a decade, Arccos has tried to help golfers collect more data more easily, then make that data useful. With the release of its third generation of Smart Sensors, the company has refined its hardware and continued to improve the ways it uses analytics to help golfers understand what they do on the course, how they can improve and what they need to do as they play to shoot lower scores.

The Gen3+ sensors are small devices that easily screw into the grips of your clubs. There are 13 full-swing sensors in the kit, along with an updated, extra-small 14th sensor designed to fit especially well at the top of a putter grip.

After installing Arccos’s smartphone app and pairing the sensors to the app (which is only required before you use them for the first time), all you have to do is play and allow the system to work in the background. Using the GPS in your smartphone, Arccos can detect which clubs you use for every shot and where you hit them on more than 40,000 courses.

The new sensors do a better job of accurately detecting shots, which helps the software track your game with a higher level of accuracy. The company said Gen3+ sensors and Arccos’s constantly updated smartphone app can capture more than 98 percent of all the shots you hit and do a better job of filtering out things like practice swings, but you can still edit shots and data in the app.

The Arccos system uses the information it collects about your game and creates statistics that can reveal things you might otherwise never know, such as:

How far do you hit each club in your bag
The difference in your putting performance from different distance ranges
Your approach game performance from 50-100, 100-150, 150-200 and over 200 yards.

One of the most useful aspects of the Arccos system is that it allows you to compare your game, statistically, to other players of any handicap level. This is possible because Arccos has tracked more than 500 million shots hit by players in 194 countries. So if you are a 12-handicap player and want to compare yourself to a 9, Arccos can reveal specific areas where those players are better than you. This allows you to practice smarter, because you might discover things such as your short game or putting are already at the level of a 9-handicap player, but you are giving away strokes on approach shots or off the tee.

The Gen3+ sensors work with the Arccos Caddie Link wearable device, which allows players to track shots and collect data without keeping their smartphones in their pockets. The purchase of the Gen3+ sensors also comes with a one-year subscription to the Arccos app. After that, the app costs $12.99 per month

Masters: Jordan Spieth’s comeback has a ways to go according to the stats

The 2015 Masters champ has turned things around, but is he close to the level of play that helped him win at Augusta National?

Golfers who are in a slump rarely find lightning in a bottle, suddenly contending after missing cuts, but Jordan Spieth found something on the way to Arizona this winter. After missing the cut in three of his previous six tournaments before the Waste Management Phoenix Open in early February, he was in the mix on Sunday and tied for fourth.

Spieth backed up that performance at TPC Scottsdale with T-3 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a T-15 at the Genesis Invitational and a T-4 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Suddenly, after a three-year slump, it felt like the old Jordan was back.

Then, on Sunday, he won the Valero Texas Open, notching his first title since the 2017 British Open at Royal Birkdale.

Now, heading to the Masters fresh off his first win in more than three years, how close is today’s Jordan Spieth to being the player who won at Augusta National, then won the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay two months later?

Spieth’s performance in San Antonio last week, from a statistical standpoint, was certainly reminiscent of his level of play from 2015 and 2016. He finished third in strokes gained tee-to-green and sixth in strokes gained putting, a lethal combination for his competition.

However, as you can see in the chart below, which shows Spieth’s season-ending strokes gained total averages since 2013, heading into last week’s Valero Texas Open there was still a big difference between today’s Jordan Spieth and peak Jordan Spieth.

Strokes gained total is the average of how much better (or worse) a player performed than the field average over 18 holes, measured in strokes. So, for example, if a player has a strokes gained total average of 0.5, he would typically shoot a half-shot better than the field average over an 18-hole round. That may not seem like much, but over 72 holes, that’s two shots, and that can make a big difference.

In 2015, Spieth ranked second in strokes gained total with an average of 2.154, a massive number that means he was more than two shots better than the average player over 18 holes that season. He ranked in the top five in the stats the next two seasons, but his average dropped in 2018 and again in 2019. Last season Spieth ranked 99th in strokes gained total and was barely above the Tour average.

Through the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, Spieth’s strokes gained total average for 2021 was up to 0.768 (45th on the PGA Tour). Obviously, he’s playing at a higher level than last season, but he is still almost one-and-a-half-shots worse than he was at the end of his Masters-wining 2015 season.

So where is Spieth losing those shots? As you can see in the chart below, Jordan’s putting struggled in 2019 and 2020, and his ballstriking numbers, reflected in strokes gained approach the green, also dipped significantly after 2017. This season, those numbers are both improving.

Winning on the PGA Tour is hard, especially against power players like Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm. But Spieth is certainly trending in the right direction and starting to blend improved ballstriking and better putting. Now, after a win, he should have extra confidence.

“This sport can take you a lot of different directions,” Spieth said on Sunday evening after being asked about the climb back from his slump. “So I think it’s just most important to embrace when I have moments like this and just really appreciate them. (I need to) keep my head down, keep the process that I’m doing. Obviously, things are starting to work without feeling like I quite have it all, so that’s a really good sign. (I’ll) take some confidence into next week as well.”

The stats say Spieth’s comeback has a ways to go, but that doesn’t mean he can’t contend this week at Augusta National.

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TaylorMade teams with Arccos to make you a smarter player and save money

Golfers who purchase TaylorMade irons and subscribe to Arccos Caddie for a year can get 14 free Arccos sensors starting November 1.

TaylorMade and Arccos Golf announced that they have entered a partnership that could help you understand your game better, shoot lower scores and save some money.

Starting on November 1, golfers who buy a new set (six clubs or more) of TaylorMade P-790, P-770, P-7MC, P-7MB, SIM or other qualifying irons will be able also to purchase a one-year subscription to Arccos Caddie for $99.99. That is the typical subscription price, but buying it with your TaylorMade irons will entitle you to a free set of 14 Arccos smart sensors. The sensors screw into each of your clubs, pair with your smartphone and help to power the Arccos Caddie features. Purchased alone on Arccos’ website, that pack of 14 sensors would cost you $179.99.

The Arccos 360 system uses screw-in tags that communicate with your smartphone using Bluetooth. (Arccos)

If you bought a new set of TaylorMade irons in September or October, fear not; the offer is being extended to you too.

Arccos uses the GPS in a golfer’s smartphone to track every shot hit during a round of golf on over 40,000 courses. It not only reveals to golfers how far they hit each of their clubs, but it also shows players where they tend to miss and provides detailed statistical breakdowns of a players game. The Arccos Caddie Strokes Gained Analytics feature allows players to compare various aspects of their game to players ranging from PGA Tour level to a 20-handicapper.

The Arccos Caddie feature uses artificial intelligence to compare a player’s tendencies to a database of over 300 million shots, then considers things like elevation changes and wind direction to make club and strategy recommendations in real-time.

Smart Fitting: Arccos and Club Champion partner to enhance the fitting process

By allowing Club Champion fitters to see a player’s on-course Arccos data, the fitting process can improve.

Working with a well-qualified custom fitter is the best way to ensure that the golf equipment you buy is ideally suited to your swing and the needs of your game.

Golfweek has been hammering that point home for years, and more and more golfers are listening. While most players immediately see the rewards of custom-fit clubs when they play, there can be an adjustment period and questions for others. Will a slice-fighting driver work on the course? Is the lie of a new set of irons just right? Does a player’s sand wedge have enough bounce?

Arccos and Club Champion announced a unique partnership on Monday, and it could make questions like those a thing of the past.

Arccos, based in Stamford, Connecticut, makes tiny sensors that screw into the grip of your clubs. The company also offers grips that already hold the sensors. Once the sensors are linked to Arccos’s smartphone app, the system can use the GPS feature in your phone to track every shot you hit using every club in your bag. Overlaying that data on maps of the holes and courses you play, Arccos creates data-rich stats that can reveal things like your average distance with each club, where you tend to miss and which aspects of your game are strong and which need some work.

Club Champion, based in Chicago, is one of the biggest and most reputable club fitting companies in the United States. It has 74 stores around the country and is brand agnostic, carrying equipment from every major company and several smaller manufacturers too. Thanks to a unique hosel system, Club Champion fitters can attach any shaft to any club head, allowing golfers and fitters to try scores of combinations. Using TrackMan launch monitors, Club Champion fitters can show clients exactly how different combinations of components work with the player’s swing.

Now, thanks to the partnership, Club Champion will not only sell Arccos sensors and Arccos-enabled grips, but the company’s fitters will also be able to track and see how a client’s gear performs on the course.

After golfers give permission for their Club Champion fitter to monitor their play, Arccos will provide data that lets fitters better understand the player’s game and track their performance after the fitting. The fitters have all trained and certified as experts in the Arccos Caddie platform and the Arccos Dashboard. The dashboard lets fitters see insights, visualizations and shot-by-shot history of a player’s round. They can also see club distance averages, gapping, clubs used, dispersion patterns, miss tendencies and more.

“Having access to our clients’ Arccos on-course shot data allows us to fully understand each player’s unique golf DNA,” said Nick Sherburne, the founder of Club Champion and one of the company’s master fitters. “The data is golden. It helps golfers and our fitters better track performance while gaining an unbiased understanding of where they excel and what they need to improve.”

While some golfers may see an element of Big Brother in this, golfers who get an Arccos system at Club Champion are not obligated to take part in the program. However, the benefits to the player could make it worthwhile.

For example, if a player who used to slice is now hooking the ball using his new driver, the fitter will be able to see the issue, reach out to the player and make suggestions that could solve the problem. Some players also hit shots differently in an indoor fitting studio than they do on the course. Allowing a Club Champion fitter to access Across data could reveal those differences too.

“With Arccos Caddie, every Club Champion fitter can get a contextualized picture of their clients’ games,” said Sal Syed, the CEO and co-founder of Arccos. “This can be a huge positive for the fitter-client relationship before, during and after each studio session.”

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