In our view, this should always be the ‘actual’ distance to the hole. We believe, there should be no adjustment for elevation change, temperature, wind, air pressure, etc.
This ensures that the recorded data is consistent with Circles' benchmarks and between players.
Why?
In some rounds where you've got high winds and Sunday pins, you will likely have different results to perfect weather and good scoring conditions. We strongly recommend that players should enter all rounds, good and bad, to provide a performance profile that reflects the average play of that individual. That's consistent across both course conditions and player variability.
We believe it's important to look at performance over time and not react to a round or an event in a single metric, such as distance.
The key is using data to ask the right questions.
For example, the same goes for driving distance. You might ask, why is the driving distance short? Then the question is short compared to what? Your potential or your goal?
This is where logging your practice comes in really helpful. Your practice log provides a skill level benchmark and enables a coaching team to ask specific questions.
For example, a player's practice log shows that you're 40y longer than the tournament average - why?
The response may be, that the weather was terrible (30mm of rain and no run), or there were four lay-up holes where a 5-wood was used for positioning.
The key is the average and the trends over time. Over time, you’ll have a clear track of your performance in each area of your game and review it objectively.