Bobby Jones famously said that golf is a game of inches: the slightest deviation can make or break your entire round. A golf swing is a complex machine full of moving parts – shoulders, hips, and arms communicating in harmony, sending the ball whistling down the fairway. 

The trick is remembering how exactly you did it. And UNLV’s swing lab is full of reminders.

Housed within the Harrah College of Hospitality, the Dwaine Knight Center for Golf Management operates one of just 18 programs accredited by the PGA of America through its PGA Golf Management University program. Around 100 undergrads are enrolled annually, training to enter a golf economy worth about $2 billion locally and $84 billion nationally.

“We’re really fortunate to have this program,” said Christopher Cain, director of UNLV’s PGA program. “And fortunate to have the opportunity to serve nearly 60 golf courses in Southern Nevada, golf is a big deal here and fits perfectly into the hospitality program.”

UNLV’s program is the only one of its kind in the nation situated within a hospitality program - the top-ranked UNLV Harrah College of Hospitality deepening the tie between the golf business and its growing presence within the hospitality and tourism industry. 

Right Club for the Job

Golf has been around for centuries, but the game continues to change – especially the clubs. There’s nothing out there quite like Happy Gilmore’s hockey stick-putter yet, but lighter weight materials and hybrids have altered the look of golf.

Using these modern clubs, along with advanced analytics that measure every movement of the golfer, the program’s simulation lab has captured thousands of unique swings. Analytics have found favor throughout amateur and professional sports in recent years, and UNLV’s lab epitomizes the power of parsing data in golf. Both students and professionals, such as PGA Tour pro Sangmoon Bae, have used it to fine-tune, correct, and evaluate their swings for competitive play. 

The lab is one of less than a handful of its kind in the nation. The data collected reveals every nuance of a player’s golf swing, along with the end result on the course – and this is where the program really shines.

“A lot of movements that produce results at the highest level – at the elite level – are hard to see with the naked eye,” said Cain. “So, we invested in a lab that can literally down to the millisecond and millimeter identify golfer swings so we can take a look at things at a much deeper level and analyze the differences.”

If you’ve ever wondered while watching a golf event, “How do they do that?” Well, that’s what’s being answered in the lab. The swing-tracking is made possible through a variety of systems working together, including 3-D motion capture models of the golfer.

With the help of motion-capture suits, force plates, and more than ten cameras, information on strike force, accuracy, and ball positioning are simulated on a variety of virtually recreated golf courses.

The expertise of the program isn’t exclusive to the technical side, either. There’s a full, public golf shop that gives students the opportunity to learn about inventory management, marketing, and how to fit golfers with the clubs that work best for them – broadening the applications of the program.

And it’s working. UNLV’s program has an astounding 100% success rate in placing graduates in jobs within the golf or hospitality industry after their time on campus. 

“We’ve always had this passion of just trying to understand the game at a higher level, so we can improve our teachings in the classroom and also maybe add another brick of knowledge to areas of research,” said Cain.

The Most Important Shot in Golf is the Next One

Being one of only a few PGA programs in the country means every piece of data can make a difference. And because of that, UNLV and Penn State University have partnered to increase the diversity of their research and double their captures, heightening their students’ – and their own –understanding of the game.

“There’s a ton of value in that,” said Eric Handley, director of Penn State’s Golf Teaching and Research Center. “UNLV might have a real strength that we can also benefit from, and Penn State might have a strength that UNLV can benefit from and work together in that regard.”

One of those benefits is having a say in what comes next. The partnership has the potential to fuel the next big thing — from a new generation of golf instruction to a hot, breakthrough technology or style (think belly putters) that sways consumer behaviors in the golf shop.

“With the data collection going on here, we can potentially influence what people decide to spend money on,” said Cain. “If they see maybe there’s an advantage to a certain club or technique in their game, and it’s backed by the science, then maybe we’ve discovered something here that’s pretty special.”