Detailed shot tracking is used by the very best players on the PGA Tour to improve their understanding of their game. Strokes gained data often appears on the television coverage to help the viewer know where a player excels and where they can get better.
Sal Syed was an avid golfer growing up, yet it was during his time at Yale University, Connecticut, where he began tracking his statistics in their simplest form. He wanted a better understanding of how he could track and learn from this numerical data he was collecting in order to better his game. He sat down with his now co-founders, who were in the same position at the time, and eventually Arccos was born and is now widely considered one of the best golf shot tracking systems and best golf gadgets around. It has been nine years since the first Arccos system was launched and after the news that the company had secured investment of multiple major OEMs, we sat down with Sal to gain a better understanding of the past, present and future of Arccos.
Where did the idea of Arccos initially stem from?
"So the idea came from where I was playing golf at Yale and manually tracking my stats. You know, like, I was talking about this pre-strokes gained. So I was tracking how many fairways I'm hitting and how many putts I'm having. Eventually, I was with a couple of my co-founders and we were like, you know, there's something more that needs to happen there. They were at the same time, really sputtering around with figuring out what to do with this data, or what data to capture honestly and how to fully understand what happens on the golf course.
I came across a survey by the National Golf Foundation where it said around 84 per cent of golfers play golf to get better at golf. And that made me realize a couple of things. One, I wasn't unique, in that I'm trying to get better. And then the second thing was that getting better at golf happens on the golf course. And so if we could deconstruct that score, like when you shoot an 80 versus 90 or 100, or 110, or higher, or even 65. If you could deconstruct how that happened, then we would find answers that golfers have been looking for for the past four or 500 years. So this exam was kind of like the fundamental thesis behind Arccos and defeating deconstructing your score and to do that we need to capture as much as we can on what's actually happening on the golf course. And that's really what even to this day what we're doing, our belief is the most important data in golf is your actual on course performance data."
How much data has been collected by Arccos users so far?
"I mean, obviously, the number keeps going up every second, but we have tracked north of 750 million shots. We've had tracking since what would be the end of 2014, early 2015, and so it was then we really started sharing our product with people outside the company. And so it's been in the market for close to eight and a half to nine years. That’s since our first generation product. It’s interesting to see what insights we're going to get from this data, as we find that as we increase our ability to research this data, we're gonna find more impactful and more powerful things for the golfers in terms of how they can get better faster."
I hear you’re a pretty handy golfer yourself and won your club championship a few years back. How much of your success do you attribute to Arccos?
"That’s right! I won my club championship a few years ago and then there's an organisation called YPO (Young Presidents organisation), which has like 30,000 members globally, and we put on like, a scratch tournament for that, which I won last year, so Arccos has been helping me immensely. I can’t imagine playing without it.
When I started Arccos, I was a seven handicap. And honestly, I probably played more golf before that, like in business, school and stuff. It’s always been a huge passion for me and Arccos has just made me smarter. Like in terms of when I say 15 to 20 minutes before the round, instead of wasting it, I can focus on where I am losing strokes. And just that little bit of knowledge is immensely powerful. That kind of focus, that kind of insight isn't available unless you're capturing your data and looking at it to see what you're actually doing on the course."
Arccos has just announced investment from the likes of Callaway, TaylorMade and Ping as well as a partnership with the PGA Tour. What will this mean for the consumer and how will the investment be spent?
"So firstly it's a testament to the team and the work that we're doing that is unique and that the golf industry is getting behind this technology. I think it’s raising a message to the industry and to show golfers that on course data is very, very important. I think it shows you the most important piece of data that you should be capturing to help you derive more enjoyment, satisfaction and pleasure out of golf. Adding the PGA Tour, that's a huge testament to what we're building and where we're going and what the future of our space looks like. In terms of how it impacts the consumer, I think this investment allows us to accelerate some of the key road map items that we have, but now would be premature to announce what we're going to be building, but it does allow us to build stuff on our road map fast to get it out to users even faster. So the things we were talking about offer more, better, deeper insights, a smoother data capture experience, more depth of data, all those things. It allows us to do things that otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do and it should be exciting for all golfers."
How will the PGA Tour Benefit Arccos and Arccos users?
"The PGA Tour is probably the biggest name in golf, the most well known brand in golf. And so for them to invest in Arccos, to partner with us, it shows a sign of what they believe Arccos can be and so I think by association it will show golfers, that if they’re not thinking about data and stats they really should start thinking about them now. We want them to think as they’re going to start thinking about it, Arccos should be at the top of their mind as the product to select, as the company to engage with to start learning about their game. So I think it helps us further differentiate ourselves and break through the market."
Are there any examples you’re aware of how Arccos has potentially helped shape club design with major manufactures?
"Awesome question, you know they'll all be utilizing data for R&D. Ping absolutely, they’re certainly doing this in a big way. The only thing I'll say is I can’t be sharing too much because it’s a big competitive advantage but I can say that there's no doubt Arccos is affecting and impacting positively from a design standpoint."
Arccos has come such a long way, do you ever sit back and admire how far it has come?
"I would say probably not. Only because in my mind, my work isn't complete until capturing, understanding and analysing your data becomes as important to the golfers as having a putter in the bag. I only view this as like the beginning of the journey."
Sensors can get lost or damaged over time, is there the possibility of sensorless shot tracking from Arccos in the future?
"You know, I won't say yes right now. What we are already doing is we're building AI tools. So right now, if the sensor for some reason misses a shot, we are adding five layers of redundancy, which will then trigger in, using AI and all the 750 million shots tracked, we can surmise where the shot was taken. We actually already do this, we can already add the shot. So I wouldn't say yes to that just yet. But I will say, because of all the shots we've captured, our system is becoming way more resilient, so that if there is a sensor failure, we were able to recover from it. There are then also a few other things we do, which is we will apprise users of these issues and on subscription renewal, we send you new sensors, as your most used sensors are getting used with thousands of drives so maybe every two years, you might need to replace the driver sensor, or the most used ones."
Finally, what can we expect from Arccos going forward?
"Overall, I would say I want Arccos to be an essential tool in a golfer's bag, as important as the putter, where you can't imagine going and playing a round without one. We want to get Arccos close to that point. That it really should be a fundamental piece of your golfing experience. In the short term, I think there's going to be a few more announcements coming as we get certain about breakthroughs we've had and we actually feel like we can share it and stand behind it. We will be celebrating some of the product road map items and some of them are very, very exciting."
