Arccos has announced an update to its award-winning ‘Caddie’ artificial intelligence platform, making a number of improvements to the system which has already recorded over two million rounds of golf worldwide.
New features include voice command shortcuts, enhanced putting assistance and live daily pin locations courtesy of other golfers.
Jack Brown, Senior Vice-President of Product and Software at Arccos, said:
We continue to leverage our fast-growing user base to create a network effect where any one player’s actions can benefit the Arccos golfing community at large.
Once the hole locations are set, we’re able to provide highly accurate distances to the pin- potentially eliminating the need for users to carry a traditional rangefinder.
Ask pretty much any golfer in the world, and they’ll tell you that they’d love to have a caddy alongside them during every round to give them all the information they need and help them with the correct strategy for every hole.
The Arccos Caddie 3.2 has taken another step closer to making that a reality with a number of enhancements to its already-impressive system. Golfers can now access daily hole locations all over the world, which can be set by any golfer playing the course for all other golfers to see that day.
This, alongside Arccos’ rangefinder GPS and ‘Play Like’ distance calculator, ensures that golfers are as well prepared as possible to really dial in to the target when approaching the green.
Artifical Intelligence is becoming more and more popular these days, with the likes of Siri and Alexa taking the place as another member of many families, and the Arccos Caddie 3.2 makes the most of this. Powered by the Microsoft Azure cloud, the Caddie allows golfers to ask Apple’s Siri assistant to recommend a club, mark a hole location or add a duff shot. Apart from carrying your own bag, it’s almost as if there’s someone walking the fairways with you!
For those of you who struggle on the greens, the Arccos Caddie app can now provide a much more detailed green view which allows for precise pin setting, distance to the pin GPS and more accurate putt tracking.
The Arccos Caddie 3.2 uses a number of different strategies to give golfers real-time insights into the optimal club to use, by predicting the outcome of each possible choice to find the one that is statistically most likely to succeed. Factors that are considered include:
• a user’s shot history
• the historical performance of other Arccos users
• wind speed/direction and other weather conditions
• elevation changes
• hole geometry
• hazard locations
For all these claims, it seems like the system really does work too.
In 2017, Arccos users improved their handicap by an average of 3.55 strokes – which they say is 46 times faster than the average player with a USGA handicap. This year, that rate of improvement increased to 3.79 strokes.
So if you want to drop four shots off your handicap, maybe it’s worth thinking twice before committing to a series of lessons or an expensive new driver?
Arccos Caddie 3.20 is available free alongside the Arccos 360 system from selected outlets at a RRP of £249, while existing Arccos Caddie 2.0 users can upgrade via the app.