Is AI (artificial intelligence) Helping or Hurting Golf?

Wow! Now that is a loaded question. We use AI in so many career areas today but it is fairly new in the game of golf. We first started to see it on the Research and Development Side of golf clubs and now it is used for golf balls and doppler radar (Flightscope, Top Tracer) , GPS on carts, simulated golf and apps used to track and collect play and practice data for example partners of mine CLIPPD and also Arccos. We use AI in a 3D capturing system such as another partner, Sportsbox AI that can take face on, slow motion video capture and turn the player/student into an avatar and read their body motion in 3 dimensional ranges. Incredible! By definition, artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition and machine vision. So we have “real intelligence” to make “artificial intelligence” I was once told. Humans make the computers and the languages and software and programs and the AI does the rest.

I will share from a coaching perspective that AI has been an invaluable tool. I can say one thing to a student but being able to confirm that with the student via an AI tool is quite different. They believe me and then can see the data. I am not so sure Hogan or Snead or Nelson  would trust AI but todays players all do as do their coaches. AI is here to stay and it’ll only get better (if that is possible). Doppler, sensors and apps to measure are here to stay, the question may be how will you grow as it grows?

In summary this author believes AI is helpful to the game and you already use it so keep it going!!!