Rocket Science for Golf Equipment Design - Ping ChipR Vs Odyssey X-Act Tank Chipper
Ping ChipR Vs Odyssey X-Act Tank Chipper – The Moment of
Confidence (MOC), Bringing Rocket Science to Golf
It has long been
known in high-risk industries such as space exploration that fantastic
engineering is not enough to make any piece of equipment a success. It is the
psychology of the design that will decide if the human operators will use it……..or
not. The history of golf and engineering in all industries is littered with examples
of technical marvels that the world ignored. For a piece of kit to fly off the shelves
it has to fire up the primaeval circuits of the human brain that still drive
our emotional response to our environment and everything in it. In neuroscience
this is known as the MOC – the Moment of Confidence.
After 30 years of
applying MOC (the Moment of Confidence) into global industries the
Chief Psychologist at Sport Psychology Ltd (SPL) has introduced this technique
into sport with the creation of our new division PSYenz.
With the release of
the new Ping ChipR the neuroscientists at PSYenz wanted to know if this design
created a higher level of confidence than a traditional chipper design. To do
this the ChipR was directly compared with the leading traditional chipper the
Odyssey X-Act Tank Chipper.
Results
There was a huge
differential in the psychological response to the two designs as shown in the
table below:
|
Model |
Moment
of Confidence (o-1.00) |
|
Ping ChipR |
0.742 |
|
Odyssey X-Act Tank Chipper |
0.533 |
At PSYenz we
rarely see such large differentials with over a 20% difference in the MOC between
the 2 designs.
Chief Psychologist
Stephen Smith said:
“There will
always be a small differential in favour of any new product versus a more
traditional design but that is of the order of 0.05 – 0.1 points at best and
the differential here was significantly beyond that suggesting a profound impact
on the emotional decision making parts of the golfer’s brain”
Looking at the
comments collected from the members of the study group the new design is
clearly appealing to the deep psyche and ego of golfers as demonstrated by comments
like:
“This is a real golf club”
“It removes the ‘Badge of shame’ that goes
with using a chipper”.
“I can use this and no one will know it's
not a normal club"
Stephen Smith said :
“The popularity of the design is due to the fact that it ‘Normalises’ the
chipper. No one likes to admit that they struggle to deliver a crisp chip shot with a wedge and need a chipper.
This club removes embarrassment which is why it has such an emotional impact”
The Technical
Stuff
·
The
study comprised 102 individuals:
· 43 Female
· 101 amateurs and 1 PGA professional
· All were asked to view and hold the clubs but no balls were hit. This study looked purely at the psychological belief the participants had in the alternate designs.
· All then rated the designs out of 10 for their confidence in the design.
Just under 25% preferred
the traditional design from Odyssey. When the MOC were calculated just on that group it was
found that their level of confidence in the design was almost as high as those who preferred the ChipR (difference of 0.06). Hence there is still a
significant market for the traditional design of a chipper.
No personality type
measurements were taken in this study. Previous research has shown that introverts
prefer Ping and extraverts prefer Callaway.
PSYenz would recommend a further study be carried
out to ascertain the impact of personality types on design preferences.
No payment was
received for this study and all equipment was purchased by SPL/PSYenz
For further details contact
info@psyenz.org
+44
(0)7806 794 527
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