Knockdown Shots with Club Tracking

[Bonvivant]

Preface: I have a Garmin S20 Approach, and quite like it. I've hear pretty mixed reviews on their app (which I don't have) but people seem to like the club tags at least a decent amount. I am not married to Garmin when it comes to the club tracking stuff.

Now on to the real question. If one tends to hit many knockdown shots during a round of golf (maybe 10 shots per round), are club tracking devices even worth it? I would imagine that you can go in and take out the knocked down shots, but when it's over half of all approach shots, do you even get enough data to justify the price of club tags/time dump of sorting through shots?

Looking for someone experienced with this that hits plenty of knockdowns during a round and uses or used a tracker in the past, but any input is appreciated.

[iacas]

"Worth it" for what?

Strokes Gained type stuff doesn't care what club you hit. Only the distance and lie, basically, and where the shot finishes up.

If you're worried about your "stats" for each club's distance… who cares? I think my GAME GOLF says my PW goes 110 or something… when it goes 125-130, because I almost never hit a full shot with it. I don't care about that — I know how far my clubs go.

[Bonvivant]

Just now, iacas said:

"Worth it" for what?

Strokes Gained type stuff doesn't care what club you hit. Only the distance and lie, basically, and where the shot finishes up.

If you're worried about your "stats" for each club's distance… who cares? I think my GAME GOLF says my PW goes 110 or something… when it goes 125-130, because I almost never hit a full shot with it. I don't care about that — I know how far my clubs go.

It was more for the latter, and to be honest I wasn't even thinking about the former. Perfect answer though. I was worried about the averages of club distance only, but the SG stuff makes lots of sense (i.e. where to tighten game up/focus practice other than going off of the 65/20/15 ratio). Thanks!

[dennyjones]

1 hour ago, Bonvivant said:

It was more for the latter, and to be honest I wasn't even thinking about the former. Perfect answer though. I was worried about the averages of club distance only, but the SG stuff makes lots of sense (i.e. where to tighten game up/focus practice other than going off of the 65/20/15 ratio). Thanks!

Don't abandon 65/20/15 ratio unless you have a glaring weakness in your SG data.   The ratio is still valid regardless of your data from your Garmin.   If you Garmin shows a glaring weakness compared to other comparable handicaps by all means, make that a priority but the 65/20/15 still should ring true.  

[Bonvivant]

Just now, dennyjones said:

Don't abandon 65/20/15 ratio unless you have a glaring weakness in your SG data.   The ratio is still valid regardless of your data from your Garmin.   If you Garmin shows a glaring weakness compared to other comparable handicaps by all means, make that a priority but the 65/20/15 still should ring true.  

Good point. I was thinking in extremes...like if hemorrhaging shots from 20-50 yards, then maybe some extra attention is needed on using proper pitching/chipping techniques.

[dennyjones]

6 minutes ago, Bonvivant said:

Good point. I was thinking in extremes...like if hemorrhaging shots from 20-50 yards, then maybe some extra attention is needed on using proper pitching/chipping techniques.

that will show up in your strokes gained/lost in the data, at least GG does.

[klineka]

Here's a good example from my rounds so far this year, guess which club I use A LOT around the green? 

Edited April 15, 2020 by klineka

[Bonvivant]

7 minutes ago, klineka said:

Here's a good example from my rounds so far this year, guess which club I use A LOT around the green? 

This is what I would be interested in: Do you happen to hit lots of knockdown 6 irons, or is it just an odd gapping? Also, do you never hit the sand, or use PW from bunkers? If it's the former, teach me!

[billchao]

16 minutes ago, Bonvivant said:

Also, do you never hit the sand, or use PW from bunkers? If it's the former, teach me!

You should know this one. Bunkers might as well be shaded black for high handicap players. Aim accordingly.

[klineka]

26 minutes ago, Bonvivant said:

This is what I would be interested in: Do you happen to hit lots of knockdown 6 irons, or is it just an odd gapping? 

Neither, the sample size is small with the 6 iron, only 3 shots so far this year with it compared to like 6 or 7 with the 7 iron and I probably mishit one or two of the 6 irons so that's why the numbers are closer. I expect after a few more rounds it will creep up closer to the 180-185 that I expect for my 6 iron.

26 minutes ago, Bonvivant said:

Also, do you never hit the sand, or use PW from bunkers? If it's the former, teach me!

I have not hit into a bunker yet this year, but if I'm in a greenside bunker, most of the time I'm using my 60 degree, the yardage got cut off in the screenshot but the app says the yardage for the lob wedge is 59 yards, which isn't that far off, I rarely hit my 60 degree further than about 75 yards unless I have to launch it up over a tree or something.

I should have included the 3 iron in the screenshot, it's my 225 club off the turf, out into the 230-240 range off the tee, but right now it is only showing 186 because I have used it a number of times this year for low punch shots under trees and not as much off the tee or into par 5s yet.

I pay more attention to the strokes gained per round per club (plus the strokes gained per each category like off the tee, approach, short game, putting) which for example is telling me so far this year my 6 iron is at -0.4 strokes per round, but my 7 iron is +0.2 strokes per round. It's still early in the year so I'm still dealing with a relatively small sample size too.

Edited April 15, 2020 by klineka

[Bonvivant]

Just now, billchao said:

You should know this one. Bunkers might as well be shaded black for high handicap players. Aim accordingly.

Too true. I generally do ok with avoiding them, but I always bring a towel.

 

Just now, klineka said:

Neither, the sample size is small with the 6 iron, only 3 shots so far this year with it compared to like 6 or 7 with the 7 iron and I probably mishit one or two of the 6 irons so that's why the numbers are closer. I expect after a few more rounds it will creep up closer to the 180-185 that I expect for my 6 iron.

Makes sense. I failed to read the "this year" part of your initial post. This was all very insightful for me though. Thanks for the great info. Out of curiosity, which system (tags too if you use them) do you use, and do you find it/them well?

[billchao]

1 minute ago, Bonvivant said:

Too true. I generally do ok with avoiding them, but I always bring a towel.

It’s really not that hard, man. I haven’t hit into a single bunker so far this year 😜

[klineka]

8 minutes ago, Bonvivant said:

Too true. I generally do ok with avoiding them, but I always bring a towel.

 

Makes sense. I failed to read the "this year" part of your initial post. This was all very insightful for me though. Thanks for the great info. Out of curiosity, which system (tags too if you use them) do you use, and do you find it/them well?

It's called "MyRoundPro" made by TaylorMade, it's a free phone app. In addition to the shot tagging, it also acts as a distance device, telling you the distance to the front middle and back of the green on whatever hole you are on. Plus I really really like the fact that once you tag a shot, as you are walking/driving up to where your ball is, it tells you how far you are from where your last shot was, makes it SUPER useful when looking for errant tee shots to know how far you are from the tee, I have definitely found myself looking either too far or too short before and then when I go to the right distance for where my slices end up, I usually end up finding the ball.

You can use just your phone and tag the shots, or it can sync up with a number of smart watches, I have it on my samsung smart watch so once the course loads then I just use my watch to select which club I have before I hit it and it's just become second nature now and is just part of my preshot routine. Then I edit the round on my phone after playing.

Unfortunately you can't edit on the computer, but it really isnt that bad to do it on my phone. I like the stats that it gives me more than the GameGolf stats I used to get.

Edited April 15, 2020 by klineka