Some info for non-golfers: every golf course has a “course rating” and a “slope.” Course rating is essentially the “true par” of the course for a “scratch golfer” (a golfer who normally shoots par). The “slope” is a measure of how much worse less-talented golfers score compared to a scratch golfer. These numbers are used to compute a golfer’s “handicap,” which lets them compete fairly against more- or less-skilled players in tournaments.
Course ratings are currently assigned by people measuring distances from the tee box to various points of trouble and then to the green. This makes course length the dominant factor by far in terms of course rating. If we adopted something like scoofy’s inverse strokes gained metric, course ratings would become far more accurate, and they would become much cheaper (asymptotically approaching free) for courses to obtain. (Currently courses must pay to have their course rated.)
My previous best idea for fixing this was just to use the scores reported by players every day to nudge the rating toward its “true” value. But that would be subject to a lot of conflation that this simulated approach is not.
The point of what I'm doing here is pointing that strokes gained approach at the golf course instead at the player. Ideally, I'd like to continue working on it to build something that can help clubs make minimal, inexpensive changes while maximally improving the strategic interest if the way the course plays.
The maps, importantly, don't tell you how to play the hole. They just show where the hole is easier to play from, if you're already in that location. Whether or not you ought to attempt to reach those areas is the choice the player makes, and it's going to be different based on what the strategy the player uses is. I allude to this in later image of Talking Stick O'odham #2, which has the internal aiming system tuned up to be aggressive (say, for a skins game), and another image where it is tuned down for safety (say, for a derby or defending a lead in a stroke play tournament).
The maps really just kind of "show the idea" behind the strategic design. The best use case would be for helping golf course architects communicate the changes they want to make to potential memberships, who might be hesitant to change they don't understand.
It's very much not a system like Decade, or ones that companies like Arccos can provide to improve performance.
cheers