The Golf Industry Gets It Wrong

This newsletter is a bit different than normal. Rather than focusing on features, let’s talk about real golf improvement. Let me know if you want more (or less) of this type of content — golf, improvement, and how to actually use TANGENT to get better.

Because the golf industry gets it wrong.

I just got back from the PGA Show. It’s always fun seeing the newest gear and technology, but the last few years I’ve left with the same question:

With all this innovation… why aren’t golfers getting dramatically better?

Golf has always been hard. You’re swinging a club over 100 mph where a few degrees of face angle is the difference between the fairway and reload.

And yet in 30 years, the average male handicap has improved by only about two strokes.

Two.

In that same time we’ve invented smartphones, social media, self-driving cars, and AI that can write poetry in the style of Shakespeare about the slice you bounced off your neighbor’s roof and still made birdie. (Yes, there’s a poem at the end. Stick around.)

Golf has seen massive innovation:

And oddly… that might be part of the problem.

The most important innovation in modern golf isn’t hardware — it’s Mark Broadie’s Strokes Gained in Every Shot Counts. For the first time we could objectively define what good and bad shots actually are.

That matters, because improvement starts with measurement.

And to understand how golfers really improve, we need a quick lesson from artificial intelligence.

The human brain is essentially a prediction engine.

Every experience you have feeds a system that constantly guesses what comes next. You are literally trying to predict the next word in this sentence. The more reps you get, the better the prediction. That’s learning.

Watch a toddler try to catch a ball. The first few times it hits them in the face. Their brain doesn’t yet understand timing or trajectory. After enough attempts — successes and failures — the prediction engine calibrates. Hands slowly go up… and eventually…they learn to catch it.

Modern AI works the same way.

Give the system rules and a reward structure. Reward winning. Penalize losing. Let it experiment. Over time it builds an incredibly accurate prediction model.

Chess computers don’t win because they memorize positions. They win because they’ve simulated more experiences than a human could in a lifetime and learned which decisions lead to success.

That same framework applies to golf.

Every round presents unique situations. The goal is constant: get the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible. Improvement happens along two parallel paths:

Ability — your physical skill
Strategy — your decision-making

Most golfers chase the first and ignore the second.

Worse, the industry has convinced them to focus on something that barely matters.

Golf instruction often treats the swing like a collection of checkpoints:

It’s like trying to win chess by forcing the board into a specific layout instead of optimizing for victory.

If I were training a chess computer, the last thing I’d do is demand a particular piece arrangement mid-game. That’s an arbitrary constraint that adds mental friction without guaranteeing a win.

Yet that’s how golfers are taught to swing.

You can build a prettier swing without building a better one. And if given the choice, every golfer would take effective over pretty.

Bodies differ. Flexibility differs. Strength differs. Two elite players rarely match positions. Jim Furyk made a fortune with a swing no instructor would model. Scottie Scheffler is dominating the tour with an unorthodox move.

Golf isn’t won by copying shapes. It’s won by controlling outcomes.

Instead of chasing positions, train impact.

Break the swing into skills the brain can learn through feedback:

Now give the brain a reward system.

Want better strike? Put a tee or water bottle just outside the toe. Hit it and your brain gets negative feedback. Miss it and strike center — dopamine. Success gets reinforced.

You’re not telling the body how to move. You’re giving it a problem to solve. The brain self-organizes the movement.

That’s how real learning happens.

The bonus: you’re also training adaptability. Start swings from weird positions. Uneven lies. Partial motions. The prediction engine becomes robust, not fragile.

Golf isn’t played in a lab. It’s played on slopes, in wind, under branches, over hazards. A swing that only works in perfect conditions isn’t a skill — it’s a rehearsal.

Great players build systems that solve problems, not poses.

Even after improving ability, most golfers leak strokes through bad decisions.

Strategy is the multiplier.

Imagine walking into a blackjack table without knowing basic strategy. You’d burn money fast. Golfers do the same thing every weekend with course management.

Skill sets your ceiling. Strategy determines how close you get to it.

This is where modern data and game theory matter. Understanding dispersion, risk, and expected outcomes accelerates learning dramatically. You don’t have to rely on anecdotes from last time you tried to cut the corner.

Course management isn’t flashy. It doesn’t sell clubs. But it works.

If I had to choose one way for a 90s golfer to drop 10 strokes:

It’s course management 100 times out of 100.

Not close.

None of this means technology is bad. Launch monitors, cameras, sensors — they’re incredible tools.

But tools must serve outcomes.

Golf improvement isn’t about forcing shapes. It’s about building a better prediction engine:

Break the game into measurable skills.
Create feedback loops.
Reward success.
Let the brain adapt.

That’s how humans learn. That’s how AI learns. That’s how golfers improve.

That philosophy is the foundation of TANGENT: faster feedback, smarter decisions, better outcomes.

Golf is hard. Let’s stop making it harder by chasing the wrong things.

“Upon the verdant fields where golfers roam,
With club in hand, our hero takes his stance.
A swing, a hit, the ball doth swiftly home,
Yet fate plays tricks, and gives a second chance.

Off yonder neighbor's roof, the sphere rebounds,
Back into play, with fortune's kindly nod.
Our golfer gapes, amazed by fortune's rounds,
For such a shot, one might applaud a god.

Now poised again, with birdie in his sights,
He treads the green with hope anew alight.
Each stroke he takes, with skill and grace unites,
And eyes the prize, the hole within his right.

The ball rolls true, and finds its destined end,
A birdie scored, on luck and skill depend.”

Interested in a good book on the brain? Read On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins.

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