Don't Always Trust the Outcome

Today I had a meaningful conversation with a junior golf tour about strokes gained and junior player development.

They see first hand that juniors do need help with strokes gained. Most players use the platform their coach recommends, and parents trust that the numbers alone will point them in the right direction. But the tour has noticed something important. Not all summaries are interpreted correctly, and for young players, the conclusions can be confusing or even misleading. The data isn’t the necessarily the problem but summaries and interpretation can.

Strokes gained is powerful, but it is not plug and play. Junior golfers are still developing physically, technically, and mentally. Blanket outcomes, AI generated summaries, and generic comparisons do not always reflect who that player is, where they are in development, or what decisions actually cost them shots.

This is where parents feel stuck. They want to do the right thing. They invest in tools, coaching, and tournaments. And yet they are often left trying to make sense of numbers without a clear framework for how those numbers should guide practice, strategy, and tournament decisions.

The tour expressed a strong desire to work together to help players understand what their strokes gained results actually mean, learn how to apply the information to their own game, and develop better decision making on the course, not just better reports after the fact. That alignment matters to me.

Technology should support development, not replace thinking. Data should inform judgment, not override it. Especially in junior golf, interpretation, context, and education are what turn numbers into lower scores.