Like many of my readers, I’m not a professional golfer. I make my living as a marketer working for Microsoft. My current role has me managing a web site for CIOs (if you are a CIO, drop me a line). In order to keep up, I read trade magazines like CIO and InformationWeek.

This month’s issue of CIO has a terrific article on how the PGA does data management. There is a ton of great insights in the article, but the thing that jumped out at me was ShotLink’s accuracy:

ShotLink averages about 27 inches of deviation (i.e. ShotLink is within 27 inches of being exactly right on the fairway). On the green, the deviation is 2 inches. Think about those numbers and then remember that a golf ball is an inch and a quarter wide. That’s amazing! The system manages more than 32,000 shots over a typical 4-day tournament resulting in some errors of course - but the team prefers to have the data flowing as fast as possible.

The article also points out that players have full access to the system and are able to use the data to refine and understand their game.

Separately, while I’m on the CIO/Golf connection, if you are wondering if Golf is good for your career, check this out.