Will the "walkable" course ever be quantified by using electronics, fitbit etc

[Josh Smith]

Is someone already doing it?

I can remember a bunch of times comparing golf courses in statements like..." it is very walkable, about the same as whatever BLANK course we are both familiar with", IE. telling folks Cal Club and SFGC are pretty much the same walk in my opinion.

I hate to see things across the entire golf platform become so standardized and measured, but in this case, I believe seeing a "calories burned" or "steps taken/time" thing might be something I would like to know.  Even if for no other reason than one more thing to discuss over the 19th hole beverage.  I'm not suggesting it is posted or on the scorecard, just wondering if anyone is or will be doing this.

Thoughts on this?

Josh

[Andy Troeger]

You could measure it using most of the existing gadgets, as long as you were willing to wear the calorie band/watch or a pedometer. The band might be a little annoying to wear for that long, but I've gotten to the point where I don't notice it when working out.

Both measures are somewhat individual though--depending on how straight one hits it, tees played, strokes taken, weather conditions.

[C. Sturges]

Josh,
I bet people are doing this and or will be soon.  Josh, I do not know much about these devices, would it know the difference of 500 steps on a flat course verses 500 steps on a hilly course.  The number of steps is the same, but the effort could be very different.  
Do people that use these change there habits or is it just to know.  My question,  I took more steps than I thought, so at dinner after the round I get a triple bacon burger, extra chili cheese fries and a shake?  Well, that might be what I would order no matter what.
chris

[jeffwarne]

i have mentioned to more than one person that we have taken out 700 feet of vertical climbing on green to tee walks, so yes we've quantified it to some degree

[Ronald Montesano]

i have mentioned to more than one person that we have taken out 700 feet of vertical climbing on green to tee walks, so yes we've quantified it to some degree

Was most of that on a certain ski slope?

[jeffwarne]

i have mentioned to more than one person that we have taken out 700 feet of vertical climbing on green to tee walks, so yes we've quantified it to some degree

Was most of that on a certain ski slope?

No that was only 80 up and 80 down.
Quite a bit on the next hole as well
and quite a bit on 4, 6 and 18 since you were there.

[Chris_Hufnagel]

Josh, that is an interesting question and as several other posters have pointed out - I would guess that this is already happening in some small way and will probably only gain traction in the future as wearables become more and more prevalent.

On the qualitative front, the Walking Golfer Society has "walkability" rankings - a link is below.  But to your point, I haven't seen anything quantitative...

http://www.thewalkinggolfer.com/twg_walkability_ratings

[BHoover]

I think this would be a great idea. I walk both because I think it's the most enjoyable way to experience a course and for the exercise. I think that showing the health benefit in clear, black and white terms might be a decent way to encourage walking and promote the game. Not saying it's THE answer, but I would like to have that information.

Now I sit back and wait for Kavanaugh to tell me why I'm an idiot.   

[BCowan]

If one could do a study that gave X amount of holes walked = 1 Beer.  You could possibly really make some headway with walking.  Guilt Free Happy Hour.  

[Mark Bourgeois]

Josh,

A good question but first of you need to understand you're using the wrong paradigm. Variances in the morphology of individual golfers, plus the collapse of costs to collect, process and analyze data renders generalized qualifiers or metrics like "walkability" meaningless. The current sports paradigm is "N=1" which in this context means walkable for you.

That out of the way, to answer your question: any firm that wanted to develop a personalized walkability rating app could do so right now for people using iPhone 6s. These devices measure steps, distance and changes in elevation automatically. Additionally, the phone's factory-installed "Health" app can hold user-supplied information like weight and age (plus a lot of other relevant metrics) that could feed directly into ratings.

What the app would need to do is capture users' experiences over specific courses AND / OR use third-party topographical data for the baseline information of distances and elevation change.

So all the data needed exist or can be collected easily, at least for a subset of the population. (If something for everyone was desired, the data collected as above could be extrapolated into less accurate but perhaps serviceable "ratings.")

[Greg Tallman]

There is one particular rating panelist I know to use his Nike gadgetry to measure the exact number of steps for each golf course. So yes some are doing this for comparison purposes.

[Ally Mcintosh]

i have mentioned to more than one person that we have taken out 700 feet of vertical climbing on green to tee walks, so yes we've quantified it to some degree

Jeff,

I don't know the course you refer to but I'd be interested to know how you managed to do that i.e. What extent of redesign was needed... and the particulars.

Most designers would measure /  model these kind of figures with their routing options. Hawtree certainly did at Trump for instance.

Thanks,

Ally

[Blake Conant]

Using the iphone to gauge, I played Pacific Grove and took roughly 11,000 steps.  Played Pasatiempo and took roughly 14,000 steps.  Those numbers seem pretty accurate.  The elevation change stuff didn't really work for me, but I bet it could. 

After our round at Pasatiempo and after I looked at my steps, heard another guy at the bar telling his buddy how many steps he took during his round.  There's definitely a market for what you're getting at. 

[Jason Thurman]

The easiest way to make golf "cooler" is to social network it. We need golf balls with sensors that tell us how far we hit them, an iPhone app that syncs with Facebook and Twitter and makes it easier to share our scores and stats, and yes, a crowdsourced "walkability" app that rates golf courses by the difficulty of their walk and how many calories are burned when walking. There's definitely a market for this, in the same way that there's a market for people to boast about every other activity they do in 2015. We can't be more than two years from the Nike+ chip going into the Nike TW shoes to instantly upload all kinds of data about force generated during the swing, miles walked, energy expended, and calories burned.

Josh, you had the idea first. I'd delete this thread and start developing your app. You'll almost as much money from it as the "other" Josh Smith has made from bricking long jump shots.

[Jim Sherma]

When I was at Ballyneal this year one of my friends had one of the wrist things that tracked miles walked, not sure which one. Over the four rounds he averaged a little over 7 miles per round. He was not spraying it all over the place either so most of the walks were within the fairway lines. Just under 30 miles over two days at some altitude was a good workout.

[Philip Hensley]

Played Mid-Pines on New Years Day. Guy in the group wore the pedometer and topped out at just over 15,000 steps.

[Jon Cavalier]

As several people have mentioned above, the two relevant variables here are total distance walked and absolute total elevation change covered (with 100 feet up and 100 feet down counting as 200, not 0) over that distance. I'm sure you could combine those two in a replicable way that would give you a pretty accurate "walkability factor."

Caveat - you could always add more variables to give a more accurate measure, like average slope (with the idea being that a course that has 1000 total feet in elevation change crammed into a few steep climbs is a tougher walk than the same change spread out gently over the entire course), but I think total distance combined with total elevation would work in most cases.


With a Fitbit and some excel knowledge, you could probably write a formula that would spit out a rating for every course you walk.

[Jon Cavalier]

By the way, as I just recently discovered, anyone who has an iPhone with the latest iOS (I think it's already has a built in, automatically functioning tracker that will give you total distance, total steps and elevation change. It's in the free apple Health app, and it runs automatically in the background (and has been tracking your steps since you got it, unless you manually turned it off).

[Jason Topp]

One could calculate a minimum distance walked by simply measuring on a map the centerline distance of each hole and adding the walking distance from the center of the green to the next tee you will use.  I have calculated it at five miles at my course and four miles at a couple of golden age courses in my area. 

Actual distance would be larger in each case but a straight line method gives you a pretty straightforward way of comparing courses that does not depend on the specifics of a particular day's play.

[Adam Warren]

I have worn a pedometer this year on most rounds played.  I had a hip pedometer for a while and have a fitbit as well.  First thing, is due to where the fitbit is worn, it seems to track less steps than a hip pedometer.  I don't know if that means one is more accurate than the other, but I would assume the hip is more accurate due to the fitbit and similar devices requiring movement of the arm or wrist.

These devices, as best I can tell, do not measure items like elevation change.  The fitbits and the like do seem to monitor how quickly you move and provide you with "active minutes."  I believe some new fitbits are going to monitor your pulse, heart rate, etc.  I will be looking into the iphone app thing, to see how much extra information you can gain from it.  There is certainly a market for the question being posed here.

[Russ Arbuthnot]

The GolfShot app integrates with the health features on the iPhone and tracks the number of steps, miles, time, and estimated calories. For the one round I have tracked, I had 16,420 steps, 8.22 miles, 511 calories, in 3:28.

[Garland Bayley]

...
A good question but first of you need to understand you're using the wrong paradigm. Variances in the morphology of individual golfers, plus the collapse of costs to collect, process and analyze data renders generalized qualifiers or metrics like "walkability" meaningless. The current sports paradigm is "N=1" which in this context means walkable for you.
...

I disagree with the premise. A course can be very walkable, but if you can't walk it, that is a reflection on you not the course. If all courses are calibrated against the same standard, it is a matter of you measuring yourself against the standard. If you fall short, it is on you, not on the course. If you fall short, it's up to you to improve your conditioning, not to dismiss the course as unwalkable.


EDIT: All courses are walkable. You don't need mountaineering gear to walk a course.