Pro vs Amateur in Numbers

Comparing the professional golfer to the amateur golfer is not an easy thing. Not only do we (amateurs) for the most part play on shorter and easier courses, we do not have the stress of competing in front of thousands of people in person and millions more on TV. Also, amateurs do not have to make a living and survive by hitting that damn white ball into what seems to be a shrinking hole.

So what does this have to do with numbers? Well, I thought it would be interesting to see if my stats correlated in the same way the pros did. The results were interesting.

Putting
This was the area I thought needed the most work going into the year. After seeing how much it affected my scoring average, I really wanted to get my average number of putts under 30 and my putting average under 1.8. Both in the previous year had been well over those two numbers. Through the year my putting did improve somewhat and the scores seemed to drop. Below is the graph for my scores by putting average (with a best fit line):

At first glance, I thought that the line might have a little more slope, highlighting the importance of putting on scoring. The problem is that I had a few good putting rounds (using Putts per GIR) while only hitting a few greens. It may be more accurate to use total putts or at least throw out rounds that I had hit less than 40 or 50% of the greens but I did not want to throw out any data points as I only had 32 to begin with and also wanted a true representation of the entire year.

For comparative purposes, here are average scores for players on tour by their putting average:

This is a little closer to the slope of the fit line that I expected to see. My graph just doesn’t quite fit with the tour average one. Putting doesn’t affect my score as much as theirs. This will be an analysis I run on a regular basis to see if it changing as time goes by.

Greens in Regulation
GIR has been something that I’ve tried to improve more and more throughout the year. In fact in my past couple rounds I’ve focused more on hitting greens than aiming at the pin. Sure there would be some opportunities to go at a flag, but when there was a sucker pin in a dangerous spot, I played away from it more than I thought I needed. In those past couple rounds, I’ve hit more greens and had good scores. My putting average is up a bit because I’m not hitting it as close, but I’d rather have the lower score than the good putting stat.

OK, back to topic… below I charted out each round’s GIR against score:

Looks pretty good. The slope of the line shows that as more greens are hit, score drops significantly. Pretty much just what I thought it would look like. I’ve plotted the same stats for the tour players and here is what I got:

The slope of the line is virtually identical. My averages mirror what is happening on tour almost exactly… of course their scores are much better than mine, but you know what I mean. For one amateur golfer, the same rule (or theorem) applies… hitting greens means lower scores.

Final Thoughts
The results of this weeks column were about what I thought I would see. So what does this mean? Well, from my point of view I’m going to take a slightly different approach a round of golf. For a long time, I’ve almost always fired away at the pin and never thought much about the consequences or long term success of a different strategy. I think now I’ll continue what I’ve done in the past couple rounds. Take my chances when I get them, but not at the expense of missing the green and getting myself in trouble.

Think about it this way… I played with some older gentlemen in the club championship this year that didn’t hit the ball all that far but are a couple of the best golfers at the club. After talking with them and watching how they played the game, their course management was much better than mine. They knew that getting on the green in regulation was their first priority when standing on any tee. Course management isn’t something I’ve really considered working on up to this point. To me, it means taking your lumps when you get them and moving on. It also means that par or even bogey is a great score sometimes.

Knowing your game and managing it better will make for a much more enjoyable experience. I’ve done it in the past couple rounds and hope to continue it going forward.