Pre-shot strategy selection and scoring performance in golf.

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Motor Control
• Ecological Dynamics

Background:

• Pre-shot strategy selection in golf, influenced by hole affordances, lacks empirical research on its link to scoring outcomes.
• Ecological dynamics offers a framework to understand how golfers engage with the environment during decision-making.
• Aggressive vs. conservative tee-shot decisions on dogleg holes represent different engagements with the affordance landscape.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the association between aggressive versus conservative tee-shot decisions and scoring outcomes in amateur golfers.
• To investigate how scoring outcomes relate to strategy engagement both within and between individual players.
• To apply within-between decomposition to differentiate situational decision-making from stable player tendencies.

Main Methods:

• Eighty-one male university golfers (handicap M=25.99) played three dogleg holes, declaring aggressive or conservative tee-shot strategies.
• Total strokes per hole were recorded and converted to score-to-par.
• A Bayesian multilevel model with within-between decomposition analyzed 243 observations to separate player tendencies from situational variations.

Main Results:

• Within-player deviations toward aggressive decisions were credibly associated with higher scores (approx. 0.5 strokes per hole).
• The between-player effect of stable strategic tendency on scoring was inconclusive.
• Exploratory analysis suggested decision-performance association varied individually, with weaker players showing stronger associations.

Conclusions:

• Situational, within-player decision variations were more informative than broad player-type classifications in this study.
• Findings support the utility of within-between decomposition in analyzing sport decision-making.
• Individualized approach to strategy and performance analysis is warranted in golf.