February 16, 2026
Fore! Feelings vs Fairways
Building a model that visualizes strategic golf
Golf’s New Cheat Map Has Fans Yelling: Genius or Fun Killer
TLDR: A new model turns golf strategy into colorful maps, adding angle and slope to the usual distance math. Commenters split: purists fear “robot golf” killing creativity, while designers and techies cheer a potential blueprint for smarter play and course design—cue the meme: caddie vs algorithm.
A sleep-deprived coder-golfer just built a tool to ‘see’ golf strategy, riffing on Mark Broadie’s strokes-gained idea (a way to measure how many shots it usually takes from any spot). Instead of only caring about distance, the model shows how angle and slope can make the same yardage a winning or losing play. The post was nerdy, yes, but the comments? Pandemonium.
One camp is screaming “robot golf.” User marysminefnuf loved the craft but worried the model “makes us less human,” ignores personal quirks like being better with long irons than short ones, and drains the joy from risky, suboptimal choices. “Get this in front of Tom Doak immediately,” begged one architecture fan, imagining designers using heatmaps to bake in smarter hazards and angles.
Then the tech brigade burst through the gallery ropes. Researcher gwern said the project basically re-creates “reinforcement learning” (computer trial-and-error) and “dynamic programming,” turning the course into a map of best moves. Non-golfers swooned over the pretty plots, with refulgentis caps-locking their love. The meme of the day: “Caddie vs Algorithm.” Love it or loathe it, this tool has everyone arguing on the first tee—and it could change how we play and build courses.
Key Points
- •The author built a custom tool to visualize strategic elements of golf course design.
- •The tool expands on Mark Broadie’s strokes gained framework, which benchmarks by distance and lie.
- •The article highlights a limitation of strokes gained: it can overlook positional and angular strategy.
- •A proposed solution uses a hypothetical flat, featureless hole to create a distance-only benchmark.
- •A strokes-to-hole heatmap illustrates expected strokes by position, enabling comparison to real-world features.