Golf Analogy for ETL

Corey Webster, a Project X Ltd. consultant, just sent me an email with a neat idea.  I have been writing in several of my blogs about how golf is a great analogy for life.  One example is to play it as it lies which I interpret as taking life as it is handed to you.

In contrast to that Corey suggest that a great golf analogy for ETL is Lift, Clean, and Place.  For you non-golfer, we use lift clean and place when the course condition are poor.  We are sometimes allowed to lift the ball, clean it and place it down on the grass. 

So with ETL, we lift the data from another spot, transform (clean) the data, place it in the data warehouse.  It is really important that when we lift, clean and place in golf we do it according to the rules of golf.  Similarly in ETL, we must conform to the business rules.     

I have always thought if we look hard enough we can find a metaphor in golf for almost everything.

Thank you, Corey.

  1. honda dealers in pittsburgh pa Reply

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  2. Denny Mathews Reply

    I’ve never been a fan of golf, but I know of the rule that Stephen Hayward mentioned.
    I loved your analogy. I’ve worked in this area and I’ve never heard it used that way. Thank you for sharing and I look forward to hearing more of your analogies.

  3. Stephen Hayward Reply

    Good to look for another analogy. I like the idea as in golf, you can only do lift clean and place under specific rules. Hit it where it lies is the rule.
    The challenge is that the analogy fails on most of the data steps. I think this analogy best fits data governance as an example of when you are allowed to change the rules. Under one version of the truth model you are hit it where it lies rules. Under the data movement you are in lift clean and place, and this should only be done as required.

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