A Study on Analyzing Golf Data Using Q-learning

Abstract

Golf is a sport played all over the world and many people practice to improve their score. There is an index called Strokes Gained Status that is used in the PGA to analyze golfer's data. This index uses massive detailed golf data and compares them with an individual golfer's data. One of the advantages of this index is that it is possible to find detailled points of improvement of a golfer. However, the problem with this index is that there is a need to collect large number of detailed golf data at specific golf course. In our research, we applied Q-learning to a golf simulation model to obtain expected score of any golfer at any golf course. We showed that using this method, it is possible to analyze golf data with the Strokes Gained Status with any skill or any course.