On-Course with Professional Golfer Luiza Altmann

Unfailingly humble and gracious, up-and-coming professional golfer Luiza Altmann is quick to give her father credit for turning her on to Arccos. A native of Indaiatuba, Brazil, the 22-year-old Altmann lives in Orlando, where she’s preparing for the upcoming Epson Tour season. (Follow her journey via Instagram: @lulualtmann)

She tracks every practice and competitive round she plays using Arccos (via Arccos Caddie Link) and says she literally has not played without it since December. But had it not been for a call from her father, her approach to game improvement may have been decidedly less data-driven.

“He calls me and says ‘Hey Lu, next time you visit can you bring me an Arccos set?,” she says, doing her best impression of her dad. “He’d read about it in an article. So I started researching Arccos and I was like ‘wait a minute, this would be perfect for me.’”

Perfect, in that Altmann demands perfection, whether it is on the golf course or in the “virtual classroom” in her studies for her finance degree. Prior to discovering Arccos, she would spend up to an hour, post-round, just recording her shots, and even more time on analysis.

The notion that there could be human error involved with her data always concerned her. 

“Arccos really opened my eyes to data analysis and it saved me so much time,” she says.

Strokes Gained Analysis

Altmann is a heavy user of all of Arccos Caddie’s features, but Strokes Gained Analytics is her “go-to.” Immediately upon installing her Smart Sensors and Arccos Caddie App on her phone, she set her handicap target to plus-four. As a result, she’s made measurable improvements in her game in just under two months. 

“Knowing where I stand versus a plus-four and what I need to do to get there is what fascinates me about Arccos,” she says. “It also helps me focus my practice on the things I really need to work on.”

After moving from Hilton Head Island, S.C. to Orlando, Altmann worked with noted instructor Sean Foley for three years in addition to spending three years at his junior golf academy. She recently began working with Stephen Bosdosh, who is based in Maryland and relies on Altmann’s Arccos-generated performance data in creating her weekly practice plan.”

“Steve has access to my Arccos Dashboard and one time he really surprised me,” Altmann says. “I had just finished my final round in a tournament and hadn’t even turned in my scorecard yet and he texted me about the things I did well and what I needed to work on.”

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Altmann says Arccos players of all levels can benefit greatly from the Strokes Gained Analytics feature, as it removes cognitive bias and emotion from the equation and relies solely on on-course data. Otherwise, they might waste valuable time practicing on the wrong facets of their games.

“You can feel like you had a bad round of putting, but you might find out it was actually the approach shots leading to the putts that were the issue,” she says. “Knowing that I can allocate my time to the right area that I need improvement gives me peace of mind. Amateur golfers can do the same thing.”

Rangefinder & Caddie Recommendations

Altmann has been using Arccos Caddie’s artificial intelligence-powered Rangefinder during her weekly practice rounds, and also during practice rounds in advance of local tournaments she’s played in around her Florida home base. 

“I gather information on the prevailing winds and how that will impact yardage on certain shots, especially where there are a lot of trees,” Altmann says. “There can be a five-to-10-yard difference compared to the club I’d normally play. That’s a big difference.”

If professional golfers can under- and over-estimate yardage on shots, Altmann says not having true shot distances available can have a substantial impact on skilled amateurs and recreational players. 

And having played with a number of members at her home course, Lake Nona Golf and Country Club, she says most golfers have no idea how far they really hit the ball.

“If there’s a par 3 that’s 150 yards, they might take a 7-iron and only end up hitting it 130 yards,” she says. “I think the Arccos Caddie club recommendations are huge for average golfers. In my opinion this is the best part of Arccos for them.”

And that includes Altmann’s father, who since receiving his Smart Sensors is “all-in” on Arccos, as she likes to say.

“He is so obsessed,” she says, laughing. “You know how you have to play five rounds before most the features are available? Well, he tried to do that in like two days. He found out his problem is his driving. His course in Brazil is very narrow and he was missing fairways. He looked at the data and started using a fairway wood off the tee and he’s hitting more fairways.”

It only goes to show, sometimes father does know best.