Pre-shot strategy selection and scoring performance in golf

Pre-shot strategy selection in golf occurs under relatively low external time pressure, allowing players to become attuned to the affordances of the hole before executing the tee shot. The association between such pre-shot affordance engagement and scoring outcomes has, however, received limited empirical attention. Drawing on ecological dynamics, we conceptualised aggressive versus conservative tee-shot decisions on dogleg holes as differing forms of engagement with the affordance landscape, and examined how scoring outcomes were associated with this engagement both within and between players.

Eighty-one male university (amateur) golfers (mean handicap = 25.99, SD = 9.50) played three dogleg holes on a single regulation course, choosing between an aggressive line that cuts across the corner and a conservative line that follows the fairway. Each player declared their intended strategy verbally before each tee shot; total strokes were recorded per hole and converted to score-to-par. A Bayesian multilevel model with within-between decomposition was applied to 243 observations to separate stable between-player strategic tendencies from situational within-player decision variation.

Within-player deviations toward aggressive decisions were credibly associated with higher scores relative to par [Estimate = 0.51, 95% CrI (0.11, 0.90), p (β > 0) = 0.993], amounting to approximately half a stroke per hole. The between-player effect of stable strategic tendency was inconclusive [Estimate = 0.26, 95% CrI (-0.29, 0.80)]. A random slope model provided exploratory evidence that the decision-performance association varied across individuals, with a positive intercept-slope correlation (r = 0.70) suggesting that players with weaker baseline performance showed larger within-player decision-performance associations; this finding was sensitive to prior specification and should be regarded as preliminary. The within-player association was robust to alternative regression-coefficient priors and to a cumulative ordinal model.

Within the present three-hole single-course design, situational within-player deviations were more informative than coarse player-type classifications. These observational findings support the application of within-between decomposition in sport decision-making research.