For Auburn women's golfer Ami Gianchandani, golf is more than a sport - it's a business. During her time as a member of the golf team at Yale, Gianchandani ventured into the world of golf statistics in early 2021 when the university did not hold a golf season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The business, Accel Golf, is making headlines for being implemented by the United States Golf Association's U.S. National Developmental Program.
Gianchandani's qualifications for being an expert in the industry span much further than just her Statistics and Data Science degree from Yale; her amateur golf resume is also impressive. The Watchung, New Jersey, native was twice named Ivy League Player of the Year and has recorded nine individual collegiate tournament victories. This summer, she also claimed her second New Jersey Women's Amateur title in dramatic fashion.
The name Gianchandani can be found throughout Yale's record book, including in the top spot for career birdies, counting scores, rounds played, par or better rounds, tournament wins and scoring average. Since making the move to the Plains for graduate school in August, Gianchandani played in all four fall events for the Tigers, shot a career-low 64 at the Mason Rudolph Championship and is tied for the team lead with 44 birdies.
Her inspiration for Accel Golf came from firsthand experience with golf statistics.
"I initially wanted to create Accel Golf because I was frustrated with a lot of the other golf stats apps out there for two reasons: because it took forever to enter the stats after the round and because the analytics that it gave back to the players were hard to understand and hard to learn from," said Gianchandani. "I wanted to make a better product and thought that I would be able to personally use it. And then it grew from there into something that I wanted to introduce for more players and teams to use."
Gianchandani did just that. Her app has the ability to track a golfer's basic statistics, such as scoring average and greens in regulation, as well as advanced statistics including strokes gained tee-to-green, strokes gained putting, average proximity to the hole, putting make percentages from every distance as well as the basic statistics broken down by par or surface type.
On top of that, Accel Golf emphasizes where the golfer misses relative to the fairway or green, and the app creates visuals of those misses for the user. The app is also keeping up with the latest trends in artificial intelligence, implementing an AI coach feature.
"AI coach is a cool new feature in our app," said the Auburn graduate student. "What the AI coach does is read your incoming stats. Every week it's going to generate a recommendation of a strength and three weaknesses. It's going to highlight those three weaknesses based on short-term and long-term trends. So if you have something that's consistently a weakness, you'll often see that come up in the AI coach, but also if you have something that's consistently a strength but you have a recent dip in performance, that's also going to show up."
The effectiveness of Accel Golf is something that was certainly noticed by the USGA, which announced on Wednesday that the app would be a part of its National Development Program for junior golfers. According to the USGA, the program exists to identify, train, develop, fund and support the nation's most promising junior players – regardless of cultural, geographical or financial background – to ensure that American golf is the global leader in the game. The program's elite juniors, amateurs and young professionals will be invited to join one of three national teams with dedicated staff and resources and compete internationally under the U.S. flag, with the first junior national team set to be announced in early 2024.
Members of the national teams will receive world-class coaching and analysis, sports psychology, nutritional guidance and resources necessary to develop the physical, mental and life skills to reach their full potential. To help junior golfers navigate the competitive landscape and track their progress, the program will offer a range of resources, including statistical platforms like Accel Golf.
"Right now, the USGA's National Development Program is focusing on junior golfers and one key difference between Accel Golf and a lot of the other stats programs out there is that Accel Golf is a lot easier to use, especially for junior golfers who have never kept track of their stats before," Gianchandani said of the partnership. "I think this is going to be a great introduction to junior golfers of how to keep track of their stats to interact with coaches and help them get better.
"The head coach of the U.S. National Development Program will oversee the entire stats program and every junior golfer right now in the program will have an account. If a junior golfer wants to share that with their individual swing coaches or strength trainers or putting coaches, they'll have the ability to do that as well."
Gianchandani will complete her final season of collegiate golf this spring as a member of the Auburn women's golf team and is currently pursuing a certificate in business analytics with the Harbert College of Business.