Salman “Sal” Syed, golfing futurist, dreams of a day when you, with your 16.3 index and your 88-mile-an-hour clubhead speed, will actually know how far you hit your 8-iron. Because Syed’s company, after looking at about 100 million regular-joe golf shots since 2014, has figured out the single biggest difference between them and us: The Tour players are realists, and we’re dreamers.
“They know what their clubs will do,” says Syed, born and raised in Pakistan, educated at Ohio Wesleyan (math major, tennis player) and the Yale School of Management. “We idealize our best shots.” It’s a far, far better thing to know that your true median 8-iron goes 132 yards, and to accept that the 8-iron you stiffed from 161 in your last round is, in fact, an outlier.…
