By Jonathan Bym
Staff Writer
Nestled alongside the fifth hole of the bustling Pinehurst Course No. 10 is a space dedicated to the scientific arm of the U.S. Golf Association on several acres donated to the governing body of golf.
A structure with three glass garage doors overlooks an expansive turfed area that is the USGA’s Outdoor Testing facility, where equipment conformity and the Green Section come together.
“You can cover the whole range of golf here. You’ve got your player, you’ve got your actual equipment, and then you’ve got the playing service,” said Kelly Scott, the USGA’s assistant director of Research and Development.
Before plans were presented for the Pinehurst Sandmines location to Aberdeen, the USGA’s involvement in the property was planned out. Part of the testing the Research and Development department does has to have a real life element to it, to go along with what is done in the indoor laboratory located on the first floor of Golf House Pinehurst.
“We want to see how much that affects an amateur player versus an elite player who we might see at the U.S. Open,” Scott said. “Characterizing those differences is of interest to us in the Equipment Standards department, trying to make sure that skill is a predominant factor in the game and not the equipment you are purchasing.”
The three hitting bays overlook a 400-yard by 70-yard wide fairway that serves as a landing zone for golfers who come to do equipment testing on a large mechanical swinging machine and a ball launching machine. The building is closing in on completion later this year.
All the data that comes off the face of a golf club is gathered either for conformance to the game standards or, in the case of the players, adding to the database of information the USGA is gathering for its Distance Insights Project.
“It’s anything for gathering more data and target data on amateurs on a one-on-one basis,” Scott said. “I can say, ‘Here’s a target out there. I want you to hit it. I want all the bad and all the good. I want to be able to characterize someone better than it would be possible in a larger data set.”
Information the USGA is gathering is designed to keep up with the wealth of data that’s already available of professional golfers’ swings. Information on amateurs isn’t as represented. That includes adding in the average golfer’s swing data, as well as those of the top amateurs in the game. Space has been dedicated to the U.S. National Development Program, founded in 2023, for a private location for testing.
“It will be a space where they can come out here and have a private space to conduct testing that is very helpful,” Scott said. “There are a lot of ranges around Pinehurst. I can go out there and pick some targets and stick some flags so we can measure them after they hit them. You can’t do that on an active range.”
The robotic swing machine has the capabilities to hit a perfect golf shot every time, but also can be programmed to mimic more unique swings for data collection as well. The robot was purchased using $200,000 in Golden LEAF grant funding in 2020.
“If you want to figure out how different ball constructions affect players with varying swings and speeds, I can make this swing like the average amateur, and then I can put different golf balls,” Scott said. “Or I can program in a swing flaw and see how much that affects the shot going off line. It’s more focused on the conformance of product back at the Golf House Pinehurst. This is doing the actual tests or answering any questions that come up from senior leadership or various stakeholders.”
The operation of the facility also gives a place for the Green Section to test out different types of grasses and chemicals when it comes to the turf that the balls land on.
The size and scale of the operation is larger than the Testing Pavilion’s predecessor in Liberty Corner, New Jersey. The current site is off campus from Golf House Pinehurst, while the one in the prior location in New Jersey was connected to the headquarters, and had a shorter space for testing to be completed.
No matter where the Outdoor Testing Pavilion is located, Scott said that synchronicity is needed for the USGA’s testing facilities with the Royal & Ancient — the European and worldwide counterpart for governance of the game.
“It’s more complicated than it sounds, but you have to take golf balls from here and send them to there, and they test them and we test them,” Scott said. “We have this round robin on a regular basis, but we’re comparing the results and checking to see if there are any differences to make sure those are correlated across the pond.
“Now you throw into the mix the fact that we are moving from New Jersey to Pinehurst, we need to make sure that we are matching what we do down in Pinehurst to what we did in New Jersey.”
The science of the future of golf is executed in Pinehurst Sandmines, and so too is the future of science education.
With a conference room that can double as a classroom, the USGA plans to open up more for science lessons through Moore County Schools and other organizations.
“The idea is we can come here and do player testing, we can do research, we can do STEM outreach stuff here in addition to the National (Development Program) for players to do general testing,” Scott said.
Contact Jonathan Bym at (910) 693-2470 or jonathan@thepilot.com.
