ATLANTA — Advanced analytics are officially coming to women’s professional golf.
In partnership with accounting firm KPMG, the LPGA Tour announced the rollout of a performance insights and analytics platform at this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. The platform “will provide data insights and advanced performance analytics” for all LPGA events including proximity averages, performance indexing and strokes gained.
“There’s a disparity between what the men enjoy in terms of data and analytics and what the women have,” said KPMG CEO Paul Knopp. “We thought that was not right. We wanted to see a more equitable world when it comes to the game of golf.”
With this inequity in mind, Knopp and the entire team at KPMG decided it was time for change. They began by becoming the title sponsor of the Women’s PGA Championship in 2015 — nearly doubling the purse size in that time — and are now turning their attention to data and analytics.
KPMG took the principles it used providing insights based on data analysis for Fortune 500 companies and applied them to this new platform. The result is top-tier women’s golfers finally having advanced insights into their games.
“We aspired, as a part of our own thinking around diversity and inclusion, to see the professional women in the game of golf be elevated to platforms and levels of success that are similar to what the men enjoy,” Knopp said. “We definitely wanted to do something for women in the game of golf, while also thinking about women in general in the world.”
The LPGA plans to tout the new feature across all their media platforms, including in-broadcast integration and presence in their digital and social platforms.
This platform will not only allow for viewers and media stakeholders a peek at insights typically only seen on the PGA Tour, but it will also transform the way LPGA players view their games.
“It’s hard to put into words what this program will mean to me and all of the players,” said 13-time LPGA Tour winner Stacy Lewis. “The insights, data and statistics will help me improve my performance and the way I approach each shot, round and tournament.”
