Golf Stat Lab

New Comparison and Membership Options

GolfStatLab released some new features today. One is some new comparison stats we've been working on for quite a while, and the other is the way multiplayer accounts work. We've also added another stat for strokes gained called "Strokes Gained PGA".

New "Strokes Gained PGA" stats

We heard from our members a lot about our strokes gained stats - some people liked that we adjusted it to each player's performance, some wished we showed it only based on PGA tour averages. Well, we think both have their place, so we now have both.

Strokes Gained PGA is, as its name suggest, the strokes gained calculation based on PGA tour averages only - unadjusted for the player. This is a good stat for comparing a player against another player or to track improvement over time; however, to identify opportunities for improvement we still suggest using the Performance DNA and player adjusted strokes gained (labeled "strokes gained" in the reports section). If a player cannot reliably and consistently drive distances like a PGA Tour player, then trying to bring down the Driving Strokes Gained PGA stat may not be a good use of energy - that's why the adjusted numbers are a better indicator of what to work on.

If your Strokes Gained stats and the Strokes Gained PGA are the same, don't worry - it's not a calculation error. It just means based on your past performance, no adjustments are needed and the PGA numbers are the best standard for you. 

New Multiplayer Memberships

We have changed the way multiplayer memberships work to make it more flexible. We used to have a 5 player membership and a 10 player membership (etc...), each with a different price. But what happens when you have 11 members? You'd need to upgrade to the 15 member package and not use 4 of your player seats. That was fine because at 15 players you'd receive a bigger per-player discount, but it always felt there were players that were getting for that didn't need to be. So we changed it.

Now we only have one paid membership and anyone can add any number of players to it. If you need one more player, you can just add one more player. You can now scale your membership up or down as you need to, and we even prorate the charges to what you actually used. Adding a player mid-month means you only pay half a month for that player. You'll never pay for a player seat you're not using.

What about the discounts? Don't worry, they are still there. When you get to your fifth player the first discount kicks in. Then when you need a sixth player, just add them and it will be at the same discounted rate. When you hit 10 players, a bigger discount shows up and so on. No need to get a 15 player account for 11 players - just add 11 players to your membership and get them all at the right discounted rate.

All multiplayer accounts have been transitioned to this new set up, so feel free to scale yours up or down as needed. 

Increased Membership Rate

You may have also noticed with this update the annual membership for GolfStatLab went from $59.95 a year to $89.95 a year. This is the first price increase we've ever had, and it's time. We now track over a million shots and have upgraded the servers we use many times to keep the service reliable and able to handle the calculations on all those shots, holes and rounds. 

The good news is that this increase is for new accounts only. Anyone who has a current active membership with GolfStatLab has the current price locked in. As long as your account stays active, it will remain at the $59.95 a year rate. Multiplayer accounts will also stay at this base rate with the appropriate volume discounts applied and will stay that way for as long as the account is active. It's our way of saying thanks for helping us get to where we are. 

New Features and more stats

Groups, Golf Course features, more trend charts, new stats and better filtering in reports.

Golf Stat Lab released some new features today. Most of these updates are customer requests, like groups - one of the most requested features.

To help you find insights, we have also redone the way the reporting filters work and added some stats (Tactx). We've also released many new trend charts to the reporting section. Everyone likes data visualization, right?

We also reworked the golf course management part of the app. The biggest change here was the addition of mapping and Point of Interest searching. This should help add and manage golf courses faster.

We also re-organized the site to make it easier to find what you're looking for.

Groups

Under the new "Players & Groups" tab in the app, you will find the new Groups feature. Groups are probably what you imagine, a group of players in Golf Stat Lab. You can have as many groups as you want. Players you coach, friends you play with - how you organize your groups is up to you.

Anyone you add to one of your groups can see the group and its members. But only the people you allow can manage it (rename it or add and remove members). After adding members, each group will rank it's group members according to a set of stats. The rankings are based on the most recent rounds from each member and include stats like Scoring Average to Par, Strokes Gained, Shot Accuracy, Hole Score Results, our new Tactx stats and Putting performance.

Golf Course Management

The first thing you'll notice is that you can now add a golf course to Golf Stat Lab by finding it on a map. Just go to where the golf course is located, click on its pin and select "Add Course". We will import the information about that course and instantly, it's available. This assumes that the course you want is in the Google Point of Interest database, but most are.

We've also added maps to the edit a course page. If you go to edit a course and it doesn't have all the information (address, website, etc) we'll try to locate it on a map using what info we do have. If a result is found, it's shown on the map. You can now update the courses information by clicking on the map pin and selecting "Set to this map place".

Finally, we have added total fields to the bottom of the hole distance table in the Tee Locations. Not a big feature, but it should help to verify that the information entered matches the score card. Another great customer suggestion.

More Trend Charts

We have added loads more trend charts in the reporting section. Now you can see the historical data with trend information for many more stats. Averages and total are great, but now you can see the data that produced them. Just look for the chart icon in the report section.

Tactx Stats

How risky of a player are you? How confidently do you play the game? Now you know with the new Tactx stats. You can find the Tactx Stats under the Approach section of the Reports tab. This group of stats will show you how often you are shooting for the long side (fat side) or short side (thin side) of the green. Shooting to the long side indicates you play safe and conservative. Continually hitting the short side shows more confidence and risk tolerance. It doesn't always make sense to shoot for the short side (it depends on the hole) but if you never do you may be playing it too safe. You may be able to shave off a few points by going for the short side more often.

New Report Filtering

First the old. In the middle of last year, we changed the way reports are filtered. Instead of only being able to include one dimension of each filter (one player, one weather condition, etc) you can now add multiple. The combinations of what you can look at are now greater than ever. Want to see how you did on rounds where the course condition was both easy AND normal? Now you can. Want to see Morning AND Midday tee times? Go for it.

Now the new. The groups mentioned earlier are now a filter. By setting a group to the filters you can see how the group as a whole is performing. This is particularly handy if you use the "side by side" reporting feature. You can filter one report to a group and the other to a player and see how one person compares to a group. We also added another filter - golf courses. Now you can see how a player (or group of players) performs on the same course over time.

Golf Stat Lab gets an Update

Faster speed, distance select and a few other new features

Golf Stat Lab got a big update this weekend, and it's all about speed. We had a lot of growth this last year (particularly in Europe and Australia) and when we got over 500,000 shots entered into the system, well, it got a bit slow. No one likes slow, so we went back and rewrote nearly all of the reporting code to make it faster. No more waiting for valuable data. It's not quite Google fast, but its much better than it was.

We also moved to a new bigger server to help with speed, but over the next few days while everything moves over, you may experience some delays. Don't worry, this will get better.

We also addressed a few requests we have received from you, our valued members. What follows is a few of those new features.

Yards or Meters - whatever you want

The number one request this year was from our European and Australian members - distances in meters. Done - meters are in. We redid the way distance is stored in our databases so it does't matter how you enter it, yards or meters, you can see it however you want. Conversion happens immediately so no page reloads are needed to switch between them. If a player enters their shot information in yards, their coach can see it in meters or vise-versa without changing anything. Putts are still measured in feet as requested.

Home is where your Home Course is

Another highly requested feature was the ability to set a "home course". You can now do just that by clicking on the button "Set as my Home Course" on the new round page. Whatever golf course is selected above the button becomes your home course, so the next time you go to enter a round it defaults to that course. 

If you don't a home course set yet, the new round page will load up the courses that match your address (from your profile). If you didn't enter an address, then it does what it used to - so set your address on your profile page and set a home course.

New and Improved Strokes Gained

One of our most popular statistics is Strokes Gained (and Performance DNA). Not to toot our own horn, but we were one of first (if not the first) stat system to implement Strokes Gained. We have heard from quite a few of you that Strokes Gained is one of the reasons you choose us over the other stat programs - so we made it even better.

Strokes Gained is calculated based on how many strokes the average PGA Tour player holes out from a particular distance and shot type. It's a great metric to be sure, but not everyone can hit as far as a PGA Tour player. We have taken that into account by adjusting the Tee and Approach Shot calculations of Strokes Gained based on the history of each player. If you hit, on average, 80% of the distance of the average PGA Tour player, your strokes gained is adjusted accordingly. This has always been true for Performance DNA, but now this adjustment is available to all strokes gained calculations throughout the system. As you improve, your adjustment will change ensuring that you are always given an appropriate goal.

We have also added a new chart to the round entry page showing the strokes gained for each shot type by hole. With this new chart, you can see how performance changes throughout a single round.