Erika Kikuchi hits her second shot on the 9th hole during the second round of the Daikin Orchid Ladies at the Ryukyu Golf Club in Nanjo, Okinawa A symbol of wealth and social standing in Japan 40 years ago, golf suffered a deep downswing in its popularity after the nation's economic bubble burst in the early 1990s. With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic and a dramatic shift in the lifestyles of many Japanese, the sport is enjoying new-found popularity. The Golf Digest Online course reservation site reported a record number of bookings in calendar 2020, up 12% on the previous year, while the organization for golf course operators announced that player numbers were up 10% in October compared to that of the same month one year earlier, which was before the pandemic struck. Similarly, operators of golf driving ranges and companies selling golfing equipment and specialist clothing for the sport are all reporting incr...
I have already had the opportunity to tell you about Hello Birdie. It is an application, which for the moment can only be installed on iPhone, and which combines several functions that make it a real virtual cadet:
This set of functions is managed by an artificial intelligence (AI) that uses the data declared by the players to enter the shots, the weather data, but also the data provided by the positioning systems (GPS, Galileo and others).
The club choice assistance feature makes Hello Birdie a smart virtual cadet. Intelligent because during the game he takes into account the objective and the more or less aggressive intention set at the beginning and adapts his strategy on a piecemeal basis.
This feature can also confuse some players who are offered, with the choice of recommended clubs, a strategy of the type "save what can still be saved" that they would not necessarily have thought of.
Today Hello Birdie can be used with the Apple Watch which avoids having to handle your smartphone on the course. A simple glance at the watch is enough.
On the Hello Birdie website the use of the watch is well explained. You just have to understand that the term Layup, little used in French, refers to an intermediate area on which the virtual cadet proposes to place the ball.
On these two images the watch proposes to play towards an intermediate zone (Layup).
On the left the screen gives the distances: in white the actual distances, in red the corrected distances of the weather conditions, the difference in altitude, the altitude.
On the right the screen offers a visualization of the hole and locates the intermediate area targeted.
The club recommended to achieve this goal is the Driver (D)
The choice of layup is determined by the orientation of the watch.
During an official competition declared by the player, Hello Birdie adapts to the regulations.
The corrected data disappears as well as the elevation differences, the weather data and the recommended club.
CaddiePlayer by Hello Birdie
Today Hello Birdie offers its users to use the data collected by the AI of its virtual cadet to structure a coaching plan.
To animate this novelty, the Hello Birdie team has joined Stéphane Barras, member of the Swiss PGA, recognized by Golf Digest as one of the "Best International Coaches".
This service is based on the data collected during the golf games and requires the use of the Hello Birdie application on the courses.
Stéphane Barras then analyzes this data thanks to his CaddiePlayer tool and develops for each participant a coaching plan that must lead to a significant drop in his index, up to 5 points guaranteed in the year, according to the starting index (for a player already 6 index, difficult to promise him a progression of 5 points!).
It is an obligation of result that the team has set itself by offering a "satisfied or refunded" guarantee.
Of course this guarantee is subject to conditions and Stéphane Barras particularly insists on one: perseverance.
Each participant will have to return at least 6 cards each month, 3 of which count towards the WHS index. From the analysis of these cards will result a number of recommendations likely to improve his game.
Important detail. If the data collection is 100% automated, the follow-up is 100% personalized and is carried out either in writing or by videoconference directly from Stéphane Barras to the participant.
I spent an hour chatting with Stéphane Barras. His method is based on a sum of statistics collected by analyzing the game of the many professional and amateur golfers to whom he gave his advice. It is on these statistics that he developed CaddiePlayer, a scientific tool widely used in high-level golf.
Hold I give you one of his statistics that amused me: "If you are not able to play regularly -4, or less, on 18 holes, no need to hope to earn a living by becoming a professional golfer! "
Another example. If you are asked between what distances a short putt is for you and if you answer between 0 and 3 m, you can be considered a good putter. If you are below 2 m, this is not very good for you.
If we are to admit that the length of the putt and the perception of the diameter of the hole are one and the same thing, this stat is to be compared to what Jessica Witt, a researcher at Purdue University (Indiana-USA), had measured. See the article "Putting: the hole seems very small? Let's enlarge it! »
By passing to the mill of these statistics the game data provided by Hello Birdie, Stéphane Barras can identify the strengths and weaknesses of each golfer in order to focus efforts on the parts of their game that effectively reduce the score.
What is the price of CaddiePlayer by Hello Birdie coaching? 2 990 € TTC for a year with a conditional "satisfied or refunded" mechanism according to the effective improvement of the Player Index.
The service is also offered on a quarterly basis at a price of €1,490.
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