[COLUMN] The Future of the Golf in the AI Era – Interview with GOLFZON’s Jang Cheol-ho

As AI-powered services and technologies continue to emerge across industries, GOLFZON GROUP, a global total golf platform company, is exploring new ways to bring AI into the golf experience.

GOLFZON COMMERCE relaunched its Golping AI Fitting service this year, using customers’ shot data to recommend golf clubs suited to their swing characteristics. GOLFZON also established a dedicated AI Service Development Team in 2024 and introduced its AI-based golf coaching technology at the 2025 AWS Seoul Summit.

To explore how AI is being applied to golf today—and how it could reshape the sport in the years ahead—we spoke with Jang Cheol-ho, Head of the Technology Development Division at GOLFZON, who is leading the company’s AI strategy. We also looked at AI-powered features GOLFZON plans to introduce sequentially across its simulators, including dynamic swing analysis, personalized coaching content, and lesson and expert matching.

Coaching and Personalization Could See the Biggest Changes Over the Next Five Years

AI is already finding its way into many areas of golf, from course operations and equipment manufacturing to coaching and broadcasting. Among these, Jang sees coaching and personalization as the areas where golfers are likely to experience some of the most noticeable changes over the next five years.

One of AI’s biggest potential impacts on golf, he explained, is its ability to lower barriers to learning and help golfers improve more efficiently.

In the future, every shot and swing could be recorded as data, allowing AI to analyze and interpret a golfer’s performance and provide personalized feedback in real time. This could give golfers access to something close to a personal coach—one that can objectively assess their swing and recommend practice methods tailored to their individual needs, regardless of time or location.

Data could also provide clearer reasoning behind decisions about equipment and practice. Rather than relying solely on experience or intuition, golfers would be able to make choices based on their own measured performance.

The overall golf experience could become increasingly personalized as well. Instead of applying the same approach to everyone, rounds, practice sessions, and lessons could be tailored more closely to each golfer’s skill level, tendencies, and progress over time.

Looking further ahead, Jang also sees the possibility of AI-powered coaching extending onto the golf course itself. If AI is integrated into physical devices such as robots or golf carts, personalized guidance could eventually become available during an actual round. This could open the door to what is often described as physical AI—AI moving beyond software and interacting directly with people through physical devices.

While AI is also expected to transform areas such as golf course operations, Jang believes golfers themselves are likely to feel the biggest changes in coaching, personalization, and fitting.

GOLFZON’s Strength: An Integrated Platform Where Data Continues to Circulate

Global big tech companies and golf technology companies also have strong AI capabilities. But Jang emphasized that in golf AI, technology alone is not enough. What matters just as much is access to high-quality data continuously generated by real golfers.

GOLFZON aims to evolve beyond simply collecting data and become an AI platform company that turns accumulated customer data into new services and customer value.

One of the foundations for this vision is Korea’s distinctive screen golf culture.

Screen golf is an environment in which every shot can be digitally recorded. During a traditional round on a golf course, it can be difficult to capture precise information for every shot. In a simulator, however, a broad range of data—including ball flight, club speed, launch angle, and spin—can be collected automatically.

In Korea, where screen golf has become a familiar leisure activity, golfers may play the same courses dozens or even hundreds of times. Over time, this creates a detailed record of an individual golfer’s tendencies and changes in performance, providing an environment in which large volumes of structured golf data can accumulate continuously.

The data collected through GOLFZON simulators can be used in two main ways.

• Baseline: Statistical swing patterns can be established across groups such as handicap, age, and body type. By comparing an individual golfer with these reference groups, AI can help identify relative strengths and areas for improvement.
• AI Training Data: AI needs a sufficient volume of real-world data to learn the relationship between swing characteristics and shot outcomes and, ultimately, provide more reliable feedback and recommendations.

Jang Cheol-ho, Head of GOLFZON’s Technology Development Division, introduces TwoVision NX Plus.

Jang describes GOLFZON’s strength as its vertically integrated structure, combining sensor hardware, a large user base, and accumulated golf data.

Because measurement, analysis, coaching, and commerce can all be connected within a single platform, GOLFZON has the potential to build a continuous cycle in which AI learns from data, is applied to services, and is further improved through new user experiences.

The quantity and quality of data can directly affect the accuracy of AI services. As shot and swing analysis becomes more sophisticated, AI could move beyond simply showing what happened and begin helping golfers understand why it happened.

For example, rather than only displaying a poor shot result, AI could identify changes such as a faster-than-usual swing tempo or an open clubface at impact. This could make it easier for golfers to understand what was different about their game on a particular day and what they may need to work on.

GOLFZON’s Upcoming AI Services

GOLFZON wants its simulators to move beyond simply measuring or analyzing swings and become a partner that better understands each golfer.

To move toward that goal, the company plans to introduce three types of AI-powered features sequentially across its simulator services.

Dynamic Swing Analysis: Instead of simply identifying swing errors at a specific moment, the AI analyzes the movement and mechanics of the swing dynamically. The goal is to help golfers understand what is happening throughout their swing in a more intuitive way.

Personalized Coaching Content: Based on the analysis results, the system recommends practice methods and drills tailored to the golfer’s individual characteristics and areas for improvement.

Lesson and Expert Matching: Based on weaknesses and improvement areas identified through data, the system connects golfers with appropriate coaching resources. In GOLFZON Range’s RX, AI-powered instructor matching is being developed to support both online and offline lessons, while a kiosk-based video lesson feature is also under development.

Together, these features could create a more connected screen golf experience in which shot measurement, analysis, and improvement recommendations naturally follow one another.

GOLFZON also plans to introduce an AI Round Report feature in a new simulator scheduled for release. Rather than simply highlighting the best and worst shots of the day, the goal is to provide insights that golfers can actually use to improve their scores.

Looking further ahead, GOLFZON sees the possibility of extending this type of intelligence beyond the simulator. If AI-powered analysis is eventually connected with robots, golf carts, or other physical devices, similar coaching experiences could potentially be brought onto the golf course through physical AI.

Extending Golf Data into New Services: Golping AI Fitting

Golping AI Fitting, relaunched by GOLFZON COMMERCE in May 2026, is one example of how golf data can be expanded into services beyond the simulator itself.

The service uses more than 500,000 real-world swing data points from GOLFZON members to analyze a user’s swing characteristics and recommend suitable golf clubs.

Rather than presenting a single recommendation, Golping AI Fitting offers three club options tailored to the golfer’s swing, along with the reasons behind each recommendation and the potential improvements each option may provide.

For Jang and the Technology Development Division, one of the most important areas of collaboration is ultimately data integration.

For recommendations to be useful and reliable, shot and swing data collected through GOLFZON simulators needs to be transferred to the commerce service in a consistent and dependable format. In this sense, Golping AI Fitting illustrates how data generated in one part of the GOLFZON ecosystem can be used to create additional value in another.

Challenges the Golf Industry Must Address in the AI Era

Jang Cheol-ho, Head of GOLFZON’s Technology Development Division, introduces the AI Spin Sensor applied to the recently launched TwoVision NX Plus.

GOLFZON sees the rapid development of AI as an important opportunity.

Jang noted that data will be one of the key foundations of competition in the AI era, pointing to GOLFZON’s long history of accumulating golf-related data. The company sees this as an important moment to combine those data assets with AI technologies and explore ways to deliver more personalized and useful experiences to golfers.

At the same time, broader adoption of AI also brings challenges that need to be addressed carefully. Jang identified three areas that GOLFZON considers particularly important.

• Data Reliability and Consistency: If data quality varies depending on the measurement environment or sensors, the reliability of AI recommendations can also decline. Accurate and consistent measurement therefore needs to serve as the foundation of AI services.
• AI That Complements People: AI should support, rather than replace, the human elements of golf—including the enjoyment of receiving coaching, interacting with others, and sharing a round.
• Personal Data Protection and Ethical Use: As more golf data is collected and connected across services, privacy protection and responsible data governance will become increasingly important.

For GOLFZON, advancing AI technology is only one part of the challenge. Jang emphasized that maintaining customer trust while developing and applying these technologies will be equally important as the company continues to explore the future of AI in golf.