Data and analytics drive powerful new insights for the LPGA

At the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, we proudly launched KPMG Performance Insights, our game-changing technology platform that provides data insights and advanced performance analytics for the LPGA Tour.

The platform’s rollout was another landmark moment in the firm’s continued commitment to elevating women’s golf, and a major step forward for the LPGA’s goal to significantly expand the use of data on the Tour to enhance the game’s overall experience for players, fans, and the media.

“For years, men’s professional golf has used advanced shot-level data for analysis and improvement, and we knew it would be a game-changer if we could implement this on the LPGA Tour,” says LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan. “From strokes gained to proximity-to-the-hole statistics, players use the insights to further elevate their games.”

The numbers game

Far beyond simply playing catch-up with the men’s game, though, the LPGA’s embrace of KPMG Performance Insights is consistent with the approach many forward-focused organizations are taking today by using data to unlock new opportunities across a wide range of businesses, from driverless cars to driving golf balls.

The 2022 LPGA Tour season marked the first full season of data capture, where data from every stroke-play event was collected by the KPMG Performance Insights platform. As the season progressed, the growing depth of data from each tournament revealed deeper and more thorough insights for all stakeholders. The media had richer stories to tell and graphics to show, and the fans had a new, more quantifiable appreciation for the enormous talent of the players.

But most importantly, the players now have a wealth of shot-by-shot data to help them continuously improve their games, all easily accessible in the KPMG Performance Insights player dashboard. Here are a few examples of the notable insights from the 2022 LPGA season:

Making a Player of the Year

At first glance, Lydia Ko’s 2022 dominance seems founded in traditional stats like her Tour-leading scoring average (68.988), bogey-free rounds (17), and top-10 finishes (63.6 percent). Consistently one of the best putters on the LPGA Tour, it’s also no surprise that she led all golfers in strokes gained putting at +1.41 per round.

But a deeper, Performance Insights-driven look at her statistical improvement across the rest of the course shines new light on her journey to her second Rolex Player of the Year trophy in 2022. For example, Ko averaged 1.20 strokes gained approach per round, the fourth-best average on the Tour, but a personal improvement year-over-year of 0.29 strokes—which is a significant 1.16 strokes per 72 holes. The improvement in her approach play led to a whopping 68 more birdies-or-better in 2022 than in her 2021 season.

But a deeper, Performance Insights-driven look at her statistical improvement across the rest of the course shines new light on her journey to her second Rolex Player of the Year trophy in 2022. For example, Ko averaged 1.20 strokes gained approach per round, the fourth-best average on the Tour, but a personal improvement year-over-year of 0.29 strokes—which is a significant 1.16 strokes per 72 holes. The improvement in her approach play led to a whopping 68 more birdies-or-better in 2022 than in her 2021 season.

The best in ALL of golf

Minjee Lee, the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open Champion, was a statistical sensation in the 2022 season, in large part due to her stellar approach play. Lee’s average strokes gained approach per round of +2.02 was best on the LPGA Tour, but also a staggering 15 percent better than second-place In Gee Chun and a full shot better than 2022 PGA Tour strokes gained approach leader Will Zalatoris. In total, Lee gained an incredible 145.7 strokes with her approach play alone in the 2022 season, which was 28 more—24 percent better!—than anyone else.

The sky is the limit

As we approach two years since the launch of KPMG Performance Insights this June, we’re still on the front nine of what we can do with this program. We continue to work closely with the LPGA to enhance and expand the capabilities of the KPMG Performance Insights platform, as more and more data will drive increasingly richer, sharper, and more valuable insights.