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:

·         59 Male
·         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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