Short Game Research Articles

The effects of target distance on kinematic sequence of the short game in male collegiate golfers

ABSTRACT Golf is an international sport that has become increasingly more popular in recent times. Previous literature has shown that golf approach shots are crucial to the success of elite golfers. However, there is no known publication investigating distances less than 100 yards, known as the short game. The primary purpose of this study was to collect comprehensive data on 3D biomechanical variables of the short game at four target distances in college-aged, male golfers. Participants were instructed to hit five successful shots at each target distance: 30 yards, 50 yards, 70 yards and full swing (maximal distance) yardage. A motion capture system recorded kinematic and temporal parameters of golfer movement, additional to a golf simulator that collected ball carry distance of each shot. Distance did have a significant (p ≤ 0.05) effect on swing phase timing, angular velocities and motion sequencing. Movement sequencing within the short game displayed irregular patterns across all distances and phases, with a partial proximal-to-distal pattern (pelvis → shoulder girdle → arms → club) at best. The findings of this study show that the short game swing did present its own unique motion patterns that will require practice as its own skill.

Making the ‘short game’ a ‘long game’: Promoting clothing longevity in the use phase

As the most significant portion of a garment’s ecological footprint stems from its use, clothing users play a pivotal role in extending the clothing lifespan by way of their wear, care and repair habits. Despite the fashion industry’s slow progress towards sustainability, clothing users have autonomy to shape their practice, which holds promise for reducing environmental impacts. There is a need to explore more critically various practices such as wear, care and repair habits that contribute to longevity within the consumer’s sphere of influence. Likewise, there is a need to transform educational perspectives in the field of sustainable consumption, as increased knowledge alone has been found insufficient to drive behavioural change. This study investigates the impact of short-term behavioural modification challenges (the ‘short game’) on users’ long-term consumption behaviour (the ‘long game’). Through a case study involving young female university students, this study characterizes the implementation of a lifestyle change towards sustainable clothing use practice and highlights its effects on long-term behaviour. This case illustrates an educational intervention that employed cognitive (head), affective (heart) and practical (hands) learning activities to advance specific competencies associated with sustainable consumption in the context of clothing use behaviours. The study provides a window into the logistical challenges, emotional longings and social pressures that young consumers must invariably reconcile to remain motivated and persist in the ‘long game’ of clothing longevity. By focusing learners’ attention on clothing use behaviours and providing some supportive conditions, young consumers can make meaningful and lasting changes to their practice.

The effect of short game videos on consumers' willingness to purchase virtual items in games: A moderating effect based on game experience

With the popularity and development of new media, the short video industry has deeply influenced people's daily shopping behavior and entertainment activities. Similarly, with the development of Internet technology, the game industry is attracting more and more attention from game players and consumers. This study explores the impact of short game videos on gamers' willingness to purchase in-game virtual goods according to the SOR theoretical model and the moderating effect of external stimuli such as consumers' differences in game experience and perceived value on their willingness to buy game virtual products. Through a series of literature research and relevant data analysis and processing, this study confirms that some features of short game videos will not have a significant impact on consumers' purchase behavior, but most features will lead consumers to consume games. Features such as Validity and Serviceability, Interactivity, and Sociability are positively correlated with consumers' willingness on consumption, but Influenceability is not significantly correlated with consumers' willingness to buy. In addition, the game experience of consumers has a significant moderating effect, and the perceived value difference also has an important impact on their purchase behavior. The findings from this study can help the new media industry and the gaming industry to grasp the needs of young consumers, represented by university students, and to adjust their marketing strategies more effectively.

Experience with a medium chain triglyceride complex and changes in mental focus and score in different modes of golf transport and play

Medium Chain Triglyceride (MCT)- based supplements have increased cognitive function in general and specific functional realms. Can an MCT complex improve mental focus in sports with a high, active cognitive component? This pilot investigation tested whether the proprietary MCT complex utilized could result in positive gains in mental focus or perception of enhanced energy on the course. Each of the ten subjects played a 9-hole round using a motor cart, pushcart, carry bag, or electric trolley (which simulated playing with a caddie) while wearing a portable metabolic system to determine baseline energy expenditure, mental focus, and score baseline. Data points recorded and averaged included the volume of oxygen used per minute total (VO2/L/min), oxygen used per kg of body weight per minute (VO2ml/kg/min), converted to kcal per hour, and heart rate. A 10-point mental focus scale had golfers rating tee shots, second through fourth shots, and the short game from 100 yards in. Using their preferred mode of transport and play, the subjects completed one more, 9-hole round after once-daily consumption of the supplement for seven days. The average rating of mental focus and perceived energy increased from a level of 5.77 to 7.22 out of 10, statistically significant at P= 0.0120. Actual play scores decreased from 10.8 to 8.9 over par for the 9-hole rounds, trending positively. This initial trial suggests that a proprietary MCT complex can improve actual golf performance and the golfer's perceptions of focus and energy regardless of which mode of transport and play is used.

Integrating life skills into small-game courses within the context of positive youth development.

This study aims to obtain empirical evidence on the healthy development of adolescents in a small-sided game course by integrating life skills. A Matching-Only Pre-test Post-test Control Group Design utilizing a Quasi-Experimental Design methodology was applied as the research design. The study utilized a representative sample of fourth-semester students enrolled in the short game course. The sample consisted of three groups: Group A was the youth participating in the small-sided game course integrated with life skills (up to 24 individuals); Group B comprised the youth taking part in the small-sided game course without integrated life skills (up to 27 individuals); and a control group from another class (up to 25 individuals). The Life Skills Scale for Sport (LSSS) questionnaire instrument was employed in this research. Statistical analysis revealed that the t-count value of 5.295 is higher than the t-table value of 2.010. It indicates a significant difference between the groups or conditions compared in the analysis. The findings suggest that integrating life skills in the small-sided game course significantly impacts the measured outcomes. Further analysis and interpretation of the statistical results are required to understand the specific nature and magnitude of the observed differences. In conclusion, this study contributes to the understanding of promoting positive adolescent development by integrating life skills in a small-sided game course. The findings highlight the significance of incorporating life skills into sports education programs for fostering holistic growth among adolescents.Keywords: Positive youth development, small game learning, Life skills.

Energy expenditure compared to mental focus & score in three modes of golf transport/play

How does energy expenditure (EE) vary in golf based on the mode of transport and play? Does walking in some form enhance mental focus and decrease scores? Do all forms of golf play qualify as health-improvement activity? To determine potential golf participation benefits, a pre-study VO2 test was used to compare EE from the trials. The ten subjects (n=10), six males and four females, were all regular golfers at an accessible public golf course. Subjects played nine-hole rounds using a motor cart (MC), pushcart (PC), and electric trolley (ET)while wearing a portable metabolic system. Data points were recorded and averaged for O2/L/min and converted to kcal per hour, oxygen consumption in VO2 ml/kg/min, and heart rate (HR). Subjects kept score and completed a mental focus survey, which rated tee shots, second to fourth shots, and the short game from 100 yards in for each trial. The MC play had the least average expenditure of the three modes of transport and play (211 kcal/hr.), followed by the ET (236 kcal/hr.) and the PC (288 kcal/hr.), p = 0.001. The ET had the highest mental focus score (6.63/10), followed by the PC (5.67) and the MC (5.01), p = .015. The average score to par was one stroke better for the two walking modes versus the MC (10.3 vs. 11.5), p= 0.1906580. Walking while playing had better potential health effects while improving positive focus and scoring benefits compared to a motor cart. Golf in the walking modes is a moderate-intensity physical activity, while MC play is lower in health and fitness benefit.

Chimpanzee play sequences are structured hierarchically as games.

Social play is ubiquitous in the development of many animal species and involves players adapting actions flexibly to their own previous actions and partner responses. Play differs from other behavioural contexts for which fine-scale analyses of action sequences are available, such as tool use and communication, in that its form is not defined by its function, making it potentially more unpredictable. In humans, play is often organised in games, where players know context-appropriate actions but string them together unpredictably. Here, we use the sequential nature of play elements to explore whether play elements in chimpanzees are structured hierarchically and follow predictable game-like patterns. Based on 5,711 play elements from 143 bouts, we extracted individual-level play sequences of 11 Western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) of different ages from the Bossou community. We detected transition probabilities between play elements that exceeded expected levels and show that play elements form hierarchically clustered and interchangeable groups, indicative of at least six games that can be identified from transition networks, some with different roles for different players. We also show that increased information about preceding play elements improved predictability of subsequent elements, further indicating that play elements are not strung together randomly but that flexible action rules underlie their usage. Thus, chimpanzee play is hierarchically structured in short games which limit acceptable play elements and allow players to predict and adapt to partners' actions. This "grammar of action" approach to social interactions can be valuable in understanding cognitive and communicative abilities within and across species.

Priming creativity: Doing math reduces creativity and happiness whereas playing short online games enhance them

Creative thinking is an indispensable cognitive skill that is becoming increasingly important. In the present research, we tested the impact of games on creativity and emotions in a between-subject online experiment with four conditions (N= 658). (1) participants played a simple puzzle game that allowed many solutions (priming divergent thinking); (2) participants played a short game that required one fitting solution (priming convergent thinking); (3) participants performed mental arithmetic; (4) passive control condition. Results show that divergent and convergent creativity were higher after playing games and lower after mental arithmetic. Positive emotions did not function as a mediator, even though they were also heightened after playing the games and lower after mental arithmetic. However, contrary to previous research, we found no direct effect of emotions, creative self-efficacy, and growth- vs. fixed on creative performance. We discuss practical implications for digital learning and application settings.

A hoop with no net

In the space where photographs elicit memory, I wade between the contours of the metaphor and our ever-present reality to look ahead. The photograph below portrays my cousin Bryan and our favorite pastime growing up. As kids, we would often challenge each other to one-on-one games of basketball. I can still remember my insistent hope that he’d miss every shot. We’d yell “brick!” at one another well before the ball left our dirty fingertips. Every miss became a celebratory moment, and each misstep an inch closer to trading possessions. Now more than ever, I hope he makes every shot. In basketball, as in life, we aim for something. From the moment we bend our knees and push away from the ground that holds us, there’s no promise of whether the ball goes in; nor is there a guarantee that we will get to play the game again. The precariousness of Black life makes me wary of the possibility of a short game. I hope that we get to play all four quarters, on our terms; I hope that your ball is full of air and your shoes tied tight; I hope your arch is pure and that when the ball goes in the rim, it makes the sound of a hoop with no net.

Comparative Analysis of Performance Factors between Ladies Professional Golf Association and Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association Golfers.

This study aimed to analyze the performance factors of both Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) and Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA) players and suggest which performance factors they should improve to play in world-level games. Data from 180 LPGA and KLPGA players who ranked within the top 60 in prize money rankings from 2018 to 2020 were analyzed. Then, the data from LPGA and KLPGA golfers were compared using the seemingly unrelated estimation method. As a result of analyzing 178 data, excluding two players who had missing values, this study found that among LPGA player data, putting average (PA), sand save (SS), green in regulation (GIR), and birdies (BIR) had a significant impact in 2018. Additionally, scoring average (SA) and top-10 finish (T10) had a significant impact in 2019. However, there were no factors influencing performance in 2020.From the results of analyzing 180 players who ranked within the top 60 in KLPGA prize money rankings, there were no performance factors that significantly affected their performance in 2018. However, driver distance (DD) in 2019 and DD and T10 in 2020 affected performance. In conclusion, short games were the most important factor on the LPGA Tour, and driving distance was the most important trend on the KLPGA Tour. Therefore, KLPGA golfers should train in abilities such as putting and ironshots.

Systematic Review Paper on Influence of Ingenious Human Resource Practices on Employee Engagement during Pandemic in Banking Sector

The COVID-19 epidemic has a profound impact on the global economy and human health. However, in contrast to the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, which required the use of taxpayers' money to rescue banks in many countries, banks are being asked to help reduce the impact of COVID-19 and participate in economic recovery during this time. At the time of the epidemic, the organization was the development of many active participatory activities, such as online family interaction and practice, visual learning, and online construction, team building, training workshops, weekly, or online, video conference, and short sessions, online games, games, challenges and competitions, or online courses, thanks, and times, tests, communication, and game times, online support, insight, and is the sole discretion of the session of workshops devoted to anxiety and stress, meditation, and social interaction in the virtual office, digital class, modules, e‐learning, and many other creative courses. The inclusion of the in-house activity, it is very suitable for both the employees and the organizations. In light of this, the study investigates with an emphasis on the Indian banking sector, the responsible measures were approved by banks to reduce the negative effects of the epidemic on its employees and the community. The findings of our article are based on review of documents and reviews of major banking websites.

Pharmacy leader reflects on pharmacy reaching its full potential

Pharmacy leader reflects on pharmacy reaching its full potential

Short Digital Games as Expressive Media in the EFL Classroom

Short Digital Games as Expressive Media in the EFL Classroom

Defining Microgames in Education Context

The concept of microgaming in education is relatively new and it has evident potential for supporting learning in various learning environments. However, there is little consensus in the education literature on how micro-games are defined. The present article proposes a conceptual definition of mi-crogames by considering related terms and learning approaches in education. Microgames in education context are defined as very small and short games that provide brief engagement and meaningful experience for players, support learning and instruction toward specific objectives, and integrate with existing resources. This article further elaborates the key definition elements to indicate microgame characteristics and provides some examples to demonstrate the kinds of games that fit this definition. The proposed definition acts as a fundamental starting point to study microgames for educational purposes in the future.

On the Effect of Practice on Exploration and Exploitation of Options and Strategies.

Insufficient exploration of one’s surroundings is at the root of many real-life problems, as demonstrated by many famous biases (e.g., the status quo bias, learned helplessness). The current work focuses on the emergence of this phenomenon at the strategy level: the tendency to under-explore the set of available choice strategies. We demonstrate that insufficient exploration of strategies can also manifest as excessive exploration between options. In such cases, interventions aimed at improving choices by reducing the costs of exploration of options are likely to fail. In Study 1, participants faced an exploration task that implies an infinite number of choice strategies and a small sub-set of (near) optimal solutions. We manipulated the amount of practice participants underwent during the first, shorter game and compared their performance in a second, longer game with an identical payoff structure. Our results show that regardless of the amount of practice, participants in all experimental groups tended to under-explore the strategy space and relied on a specific strategy that implied over-exploration of the option space. That is, under-exploration of strategies was manifested as over-exploration of options. In Study 2, we added a constraint that, on a subset of practice trials, forced participants to exploit familiar options. This manipulation almost doubled the per-trial average outcome on the comparable longer second game. This suggests that forcing participants to experience the effects of different (underexplored) strategy components during practice can greatly increase the chance they make better choices later on.

Playing Cool - Winter Weather's Influence on Location-Based Gaming

Location-based games are highly dependent on the physical environment. One important but often overlooked factor is weather. In this paper we focus on winter weather, as this is a common weather that is often not designed for specifically. By performing a qualitative observation, interview, and questionnaire study of families during and after playing a GPS-based mobile game in a winter setting, this paper studies how winter conditions affected the gaming experience. Three main factors were observed to have a big impact on the gaming experience: snow, ice and cold. We outline ways these weather conditions were found to be both obstacles, and adding value to the game. Finally, we suggest design implications for winter weather, mainly; the need for short games due to cold, adaption of gameplay for movement in snow, to avoid interactions based on handling the phone, and to adapt maps to the effects of snow and ice. By explaining how winter conditions affect the gaming experience, location-based games can be better adapted for these weather conditions, and thereby help in making better design decisions.

Towards General RPG Playing

General videogame playing has come a long way in a short period of time, but remains at the level of solving relatively short games made up of distinct and isolated episodes. Even simple console role-playing games (RPGs) are far beyond the reach of current techniques, requiring the synthesis of cultural knowledge with compositional reasoning over several interconnected sub-games. We explore how the challenges of playing these games could spark new advances in compositional analysis of games and common-sense reasoning. General RPG playing can leverage advances in episodic general game playing and in areas like text understanding, image classification, and automated game design learning. It has direct applications in design support and AI-based game design, and the techniques used to enable it could generalize to other families of games such as adventure, open-world, and simulation games. In this paper, we describe the motivation behind general RPG playing in a sub-domain of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) RPGs, some promising approaches to some of its fundamental issues, and immediate next steps; we conclude by describing a few concrete benchmark problems on the path towards automated play of these complex games.

First Person and Third Person Perspective in Virtual Reality: Analysis of Cybersickness Symptoms

Advances in technology makes it easier to gain access to the virtual world. This has led to more and more application and games being targeted towards the virtual world. But with the growing popularity of the virtual world, cybersickness has grown in popularity as well. This study aims to evaluate the factors affecting cybersickness in the Virtual Reality (VR) environment. There are few factors causing the effect of cybersickness in VR like duration, field of view, speed, habituation, and susceptibility of said user. Those factors affect differently in first person perspective(1pp) and third person perspective(3pp). To measure the cybersickness, a Virtual Reality Questionnaire (VRSQ) measurement index is utilized. The experiment was conducted with the following settings. The participants consisted of 20 males and 4 females who never used VR before. They performed task using short games. It consisted in total of 4 tasks (2 types of game (action and adventure) x 2 perspective (1pp and 3pp) = 4 tasks). The Latin Square design was used to minimize the effect of order. Then, a questionnaire was conducted after each treatment. Paired Dependent T-Tests was performed to check if there are differences in oculomotor, disorientation and VRSQ total score. There was a significant difference in 1pp and 3pp in both games. It is recommended to use third person perspective to reduce the cybersickness in VR environment.

경기력분석을 통한 LPGA선수의 우승예측분석: 2011~2020년 종단분석

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the performance factors to produce results by analyzing the performance data of LPGA players for 10 years from 2011 to 2020. The scoring average, driving distance, driving accuracy, greens in regulation, putting average, sand saves, birdies, eagles, and rounds in the 60’s were selected as performance factors to predict winning probability, and the prize-winning ranking up to 60th’ data group which had 95% of winning probability, was analyzed.<BR> Method: Technical statistical analysis was conducted to analyze the trend of performance factors for 10 years from 2011 to 2020. Also, the independent sample t -test was conducted to verify differences between winners and non-winners. Lastly, the decision tree analysis was used to verify performance factors affecting the winning probability.<BR> Results: Players in the top 60th in the LPGA’s prize money ranking steadily had improved their performance factors over the past 10 years. Those who had winning experiences differed significantly in scoring average, driving distance, driving accuracy, greens in regulation, putting average, and saves, birdies, eagles, and rounds in the 60’s. The factors that determined the winning were driving accuracy, greens in regulation, putting average, and scoring average.<BR> Conclusion: In order to achieve good performance in the LPGA, training to increase the birdies would be necessary. Also, unlike in the past, training to increase driving accuracy would be necessary. This implies that short game capability can be a direct factor for winning than power game capability in the future. This shows that focusing on training the accuracy of shots is very effective to win for KLPGA players who want to enter the LPGA.

PERBANDINGAN PEMBELAJARAN METODE DRILL DAN KOMANDO DALAM SERVICE PENDEK BULU TANGKIS SISWA DI SEKOLAH DASAR

This study was an experimental study that aims to determine the application method and the method of command drill results in short service badminton game. The subjects were fifth grade students of State Elementary School. Data collection techniques using the "Skills Test Badminton derived from the writings of Frank. M. Verducci. "Data analysis techniques using T-Test, after going through the prerequisite test that is test of normality and homogeneity test. The results showed a very significant improvement. Methods drill an increase of 72.78%, an average increase of 7.28%. Methods of command increased by 48.75%, with an average increase of 4.88%. Based on these descriptions can be concluded that an increase in drill method is greater than the methods of command. Differences increase was 24.03% with an average of 2.40%