LSW vs Pelz

[Nagah]

Please watch the this video link. LSW and separation value.

Pelz puts his own separation values on the game as well.

 

 

 

[Golfingdad]

All he is doing is saying that the closer you get to the end of a hole, the more important the shot becomes because you can't "recover" from it if you fail.  That's stupid.

Everything that comes before it matters a great great deal.

[mvmac]

Pros separate themselves from single digits, from high handicappers mostly because of how well they hit the ball, not because of their short games. LSW example is always a good one, would you rather bet a pro in a putting contest or a closest to the pin/GIR competition. Obviously a putting contest because you'd actually have a chance, even a bogey golfer.

The driver is an extremely important club for shooting lower scores.

Quote

A few little things from this video:

Putting is not #1. Sorry, Dave. You can't just say it and make it true.

No, none of us will get as good as Rory McIlroy. But the fact still remains that if we can close the gap by 1/3 - if we can get from where we are to where Rory is (or Spieth, etc.) by only 30% or so - that will have a larger impact on our scores than if we can putt as well as they can/do. Additionally, you can close the gap to 75% or so putting significantly easier than you can closing the gap even 10% driving.

Now obviously for the second I'm speaking very generally, but the point is that in that video Pelz presents a sort of false dichotomy. He's proposing only 100% solutions: you have the "choice" between becoming 100% as good as Rory at driving (which you can't do) or becoming 100% as good a putter as he is (which you probably could do).

And don't be fooled by the 65/20/15 ratios… That 15% is the lowest total there, of course, but putting is relatively simple, even compared to the short game, so that 15% represents a higher amount of practice time on fewer things. Putting is just putting: the short game uses different clubs, different lies, different amounts of spin, grass/sand/fairway/rough, etc.

 

We said in LSW that practicing your short game, even if it's not a glaring weakness, is the fastest way to shot lower scores, but practicing your long game is the best way to shoot even lower scores. In other words, practice your short game to shave 3 or 4 strokes quickly, then practice your long game to shave 7 or 8 strokes. The latter takes more effort, but results in bigger gains.

The above advice is probably fine for a golfer that… plays once a week and practices once a month. It's a way to keep trying to achieve the "fast gains" of working on your short game. With so long between practice sessions, I could see telling him to practice it a bit more so that he can basically keep getting those "fast gains" each time. With a month between practice sessions, backsliding is easy.

 

[Nagah]

5 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

All he is doing is saying that the closer you get to the end of a hole, the more important the shot becomes because you can't "recover" from it if you fail.  That's stupid.

Everything that comes before it matters a great great deal.

I was thinking the same thing. No use taking 4 shots to get inside 100 yards to get up and down on a par 4.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Nagah

[Mr. Desmond]

Dave does have something to sell, the short game, so his analysis is not exactly independent. He makes his money on the short game.

If you want to keep from hemorrhaging, having an excellent short game will help. But if you want to score low consistently over the long term, you need a fine long game. 

[onthehunt526]

I'm not going to say that the short game is not important, it is, but approach shots and driving are more important.

I tend to agree with Dave Pelz on a few things, but LSW is the way to go... Like Erik and Dave have said, without giving too much away, Its all about separation value... 65/20/15 works... One of the pro shop attendants at the course I volunteer at (I'll do anything for free Golf)... Has told me, I need to work on my short game. I should be emptying my shag bag 2 or 3 times working on pitching and chipping... 

I don't necessarily have my practice times down to a science yet... But in a 1 hour practice session, probably 10-15 minutes goes onto my short game, 35-40 minutes on full swing and 5-10 minutes on putting... (That is usually closer to 10)...

I have an issue with the 125 and notion, (125 being considered short game) a lot of the yardage from 125 and in involves some sort of full swing motion. Down to about 50 yards and maybe even as low as 30 for some players.

Even if 100 yards and in was considered "short game", at least ½ the yardage involves some sort of full swing motion... Which falls under Approach Shots which are the #1 Separation Value (Driving is second)...

(I've only read the book 7 times Erik)

[Dave325]

For where I am at with my game, the full swing has been a critical area that always needs work... like keeping the ball somewhere near the fairway and stop losing balls. I have lost a lot of balls off the tee (and that is a penalty stroke), but missing a putt adds one stroke... no penalty stroke and best of all, you can't loose a ball on the green. So, the separation value for me is closer aligned to LSW. But maybe that could be different for somebody that is already great off the tee. In that case, working on the short game may be their area of concentration (shrug).

[saevel25]

5 hours ago, Mr. Desmond said:

If you want to keep from hemorrhaging, having an excellent short game will help. But if you want to score low consistently over the long term, you need a fine long game. 

If you hit one ball OB, top the next one, fat the next one, finally ended up near the green you are already dead 
 

4 hours ago, onthehunt526 said:

Even if 100 yards and in was considered "short game", at least ½ the yardage involves some sort of full swing motion... Which falls under Approach Shots which are the #1 Separation Value (Driving is second)...

(I've only read the book 7 times Erik)

I think short game shots should be determined by you. I can hit a 70 yard pitch shot. My dad hits 70 yard full swing shots. To him that is a full shot. To me it's a short game shot. I think Pelz is stuck on the old adages of scoring happens with the wedges and in. So typically that tended to be inside 100 yards for PGA Tour players.

[RussUK]

7 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

If you hit one ball OB, top the next one, fat the next one, finally ended up near the green you are already dead 
 

.

Were you watching my last round? 

[billchao]

9 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

All he is doing is saying that the closer you get to the end of a hole, the more important the shot becomes because you can't "recover" from it if you fail.  That's stupid.

Everything that comes before it matters a great great deal.

I agree completely. 

The entire premise of the concept that you can't recover from a missed putt vs a missed full shot is flawed because it doesn't take into account the difficulty of the skill and the severity of the miss.

Not only is putting easier than making a full swing, but you're going to miss a lot closer to the hole on the putting green than you are from anywhere else on the hole, so your next shot (the one you can't "recover" with) will be easier.

If you miss your par putt, the best you can hope to make is bogey obviously, but it's also likely the worst you can score assuming your par putt was makeable to begin with and you didn't miss it by a mile. Yes you can par a hole after you hit an errant tee shot, but you can also make bogey, double, or triple, depending on how badly you missed. Even PGA Tour players can make the occasional 10 from the woods. Hell, if you hit OB or lose your ball from your drive you are already hitting 3 off the tee and you'd have to "birdie" the hole just to make bogey.

[Slowcelica]

My thoughts, all shots are important. But some are easier than others. It is alot easier to hit a wedge shot then a driver or mid to long iron accurately. The farther the shot the less margin for error there is as far as face angle, path etc... So you don't need to spend as much time practicing your short game, because it really is that much easier to hit the ball solidly and at least end up in the general area of where you wanted to be. 

I improved both my driver and my irons this year, and my GIR went up as well as NGIR, but I only dropped 10 strokes off my average from about a 102 to 92 - 93. Getting around the green only got me so far, when I am either 2 putting or a chip and 2 putting every hole. Thats 3 of my strokes per hole. I did not practice my short game at all this year. I was more focused on my full swing, and I still am. But I am going to work on putting and my short game over the winter months.

[Golfingdad]

19 minutes ago, billchao said:

I agree completely. 

The entire premise of the concept that you can't recover from a missed putt vs a missed full shot is flawed because it doesn't take into account the difficulty of the skill and the severity of the miss.

Bingo.  It's like saying that fumbling while running into the endzone for a touchdown at the beginning of the game is less important than shanking an extra point as time expires.  Well, in a small number of cases, that could turn out to be true.  For example, if in the first instance you go on to win 45-10 and in the second instance you lose by 1.  But over the great majority of situations, the bigger ones (goal line runs, long game) where the mistake could be way more severe matter a lot more than the little ones (extra points, putts).