Jim Stracka

Jim Stracka is the founder and CEO of StrackaGolf. In 2007, with his son Chase Stracka, he invented the concept of using a topography map for golfers as a putting guide — a laser-scanned contour map of the green, sold as a practical tool — and launched it at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.

That is the product claim. He did not invent the caddie yardage book.

Technology, then golf

Jim is a technology entrepreneur. Golf was the second act.

He holds a Computer Science degree from Slippery Rock University and an MBA from USC’s Marshall School of Business. He founded PentaSafe Security Technologies, acquired by NetIQ for $255 million in 2002, then developed Fast400, a technology acquired by IBM. Those businesses came first. StrackaLine came after.

The spark

The golf idea started on the course.

While playing at The Bridges in Rancho Santa Fe, California, with putter maker Scotty Cameron, Jim was stuck on subtle breaks. The company has long put it this way: “You make the best putters,” Jim said, “but what good is it if you can’t read the green?”

Around that time, digital GPS yardage was already a consumer product. SkyCaddie was the name most golfers knew — distance from tee to green, before smartphone golf apps were common. Putting is half the game, and those devices had no topographic data for the putting surface. (Chase Stracka’s paraphrase of Jim’s thinking at the time. Not a recorded Jim quotation.)

Jim took CAD drainage and water-flow software and retrofitted it to laser-scan greens. The Bridges was the first project. Chase did the early laser scanning.

2007 launch

In January 2007, Jim and Chase launched Stracka Design Company / StrackaLine at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, debuting laser-scanned Greens Guides.

Chase Stracka is COO and Partner. They co-founded the company in 2007.

Yardage books were a different lineage. In 2008 the company acquired the Tour caddie yardage-book business of “Gorjus” George Lucas. Green maps went into those books. That split — yardage vs putting map — is the history of the green-reading book.

How to use the maps; company page

For the page in the bag, see How to Read a Green Book. The company story, acquisitions, and current figures stay on About. Product / George copy: About StrackaLine.

Independent coverage of the origin (CAD drainage software, The Bridges as first project, Tour use) is in Sports Illustrated, 28 November 2018: StrackaLine puts golfers in uncharted land. Jim also discussed the books on the AmateurGolf.com podcast (18 April 2022).

Current company figures (not 2007 numbers): more than 2 million physical books sold; 31,000+ courses in the database; 13,000+ with full hyper-accurate green data; 900+ NCAA teams. Source: About.