Stroke Gained Discovery When Trying to Find Weak Areas in My Game

[p1n9183]

Me like others gather their own stroke gained (SG) stats to find out the weak points in our game in comparison of our pears or against the PGA tour. 
I usually record putting (short, middle, long), around the green (putt, chip, sand), off the tee (driver, woods, irons) and approach to green (250-225, 225-200,..., 75-50).
In every "approach to green" distance category I average around 0.15 strokes lost per shot against the PGA tour. Pretty consistent average from 50 to 250 yards so I always assumed I didn't needed to focus my training in any specific distance. 

But... BIG but.. last weekend I took the time to change the way I records the stats, besides the SG stats on my approach shots, I also tracked the real amount of stroke it took for me to hole out from every distance to the green between 250 and 50 yards. I gathered information of the last 10 round (same as the normal SG). The results were totally different.
Inside 75 yards I averaged 0 SG (2.75 real strokes to hole out) , between 75 and 175 I was loosing around 0.15 SG on each category and shockingly from 175 to 250 I was losing 0.35 SG on each category. So basically I'm really bad when I have to play shots outside 175 even when the normal SG stats told me everything was OK.

Thoughts?

[Ty_Webb]

47 minutes ago, p1n9183 said:

Me like others gather their own stroke gained (SG) stats to find out the weak points in our game in comparison of our pears or against the PGA tour. 
I usually record putting (short, middle, long), around the green (putt, chip, sand), off the tee (driver, woods, irons) and approach to green (250-225, 225-200,..., 75-50).
In every "approach to green" distance category I average around 0.15 strokes lost per shot against the PGA tour. Pretty consistent average from 50 to 250 yards so I always assumed I didn't needed to focus my training in any specific distance. 

But... BIG but.. last weekend I took the time to change the way I records the stats, besides the SG stats on my approach shots, I also tracked the real amount of stroke it took for me to hole out from every distance to the green between 250 and 50 yards. I gathered information of the last 10 round (same as the normal SG). The results were totally different.
Inside 75 yards I averaged 0 SG (2.75 real strokes to hole out) , between 75 and 175 I was loosing around 0.15 SG on each category and shockingly from 175 to 250 I was losing 0.35 SG on each category. So basically I'm really bad when I have to play shots outside 175 even when the normal SG stats told me everything was OK.

Thoughts?

What that tells me is that your short game needs work. If your shots from 175-250 are losing 0.15 shots, but you are actually losing 0.35 shots, you're losing another 0.2 shots somewhere. The difference between each of those buckets is that from further away you are missing more greens, so more pressure is being put on your short game. Basically you're 0.2 shots worse than PGA Tour average from wherever you are ending up. Given that you are zero from inside 75 yards, presumably your pitching is pretty darn good, so chipping seems to me to make the most sense. How are your strokes gained around the green?

[iacas]

46 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

What that tells me is that your short game needs work. If your shots from 175-250 are losing 0.15 shots, but you are actually losing 0.35 shots, you're losing another 0.2 shots somewhere.

Possibly, but I'm curious if he actually meant he's losing 0.15 on every category. I first read it as:

• From 0-75 he's losing 0.
• From 75-175 he's losing 0.15.
• From 175-250 he's losing 0.35.

But what if he meant from 0-250 he's losing 0.15 average?

Because if he's as good as a Tour player from 0-75 (which I'd argue is "short game" and obviously he has to putt and stuff in there), then his short game is pretty good… and when he's 200 yards out, he's hitting it in some really awful places.

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More clarification is needed from @p1n9183, though. Could you please add that clarification?

How many shots from 175-250 are you hitting per round? If you're only hitting one of them a round… it matters less that you lose more there. After all, you are not a PGA Tour player, so… you can lose a little ground in some places. If you're losing 0.15 from 75-175 14 times a round, that adds up to 2.1 shots, and would outweigh 0.35 shots once a round.

How are you calculating these, and what are the averages? Can you show us the data for every 25-yard bucket? In two ways:

1. Strokes gained on the approach shot itself (and the resulting lie/distance).
2. Strokes to hole out (counting the chips and pitches and putts after that).

For #1, that's just… "From 200-225, I leave it 73 feet from the hole on average" (we can estimate how often that is fairway, rough, green, bunkers, etc.).

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Penalty strokes alone might account for a lot of the 175-250 difference, too, @Ty_Webb. Don't be so quick to jump on the short game.

[GolfLug]

45 minutes ago, iacas said:

then his short game is pretty good… and when he's 200 yards out, he's hitting it in some really awful places.

 

This, right?

If he were hitting greens or nGIRs like he does the shorter distances he wouldn't be losing any more strokes than those zones. Having said that I am curious as to why this is surprising. Seems intuitive as to what distance zone he would lose most strokes (furthest). 

[p1n9183]

	50-75		75-100		100-125		125-150		150-175		175-200		200-225		225-250
SG	-0.18		-0.18		-0.12		-0.12		-0.12		-0.13		-0.16		-0.11
SG Real	-0.01		-0.19		-0.21		-0.06		-0.17		-0.39		-0.34		-0.34
Total Strokes	2.74		2.99		3.07		2.99		3.19		3.54		3.64		3.79
Avg Shots PRound	1.30		1.00		3.20		1.70		2.50		0.90		0.50		0.80

SG is Stroke gained against PGA Tour only on the approach shots. SG Real is the real amount of shots I take from 50 to 250 yards to hole out against the PGA Tour. I don't have chips/putts from each distance. I do have SG putting and around the green. I'm really good around the greens, not that good around 30ish yards (no stats for that, just a guess). Good lag putter but struggle inside 15/10 feet. 

Green Side			Putting
-0.5			-1.3
Putt	Chip	Sand	Short	Mid	Long
-0.1	-0.1	-0.3	-1.2	-0.1	0.0

From what you say, I guess on long shots I leave myselft too many 30sh shots and a bunch short putts for par in witch a loose a lot of partial shots. 

As i match myselft against the pga SG I do record the lie of the ball but I don't make a different category for it. On the 10 rounds of the data gathered (I delete the 11th every time a new round is played) I only took 1 OB from 160 in the rough.

[p1n9183]

In addition, I don't take in consideration Par 3s for the approach stat because I struggle more with irons and wood of the deck, from the tee is a completly different story so I don't want mix up the numbers and get to a wrong conclusion. Also don't consider shots from the trees, only fairway, rough or bunker. That's why my average of approach shots to the green is around 12.  

[iacas]

2 hours ago, p1n9183 said:

As i match myselft against the pga SG I do record the lie of the ball but I don't make a different category for it. On the 10 rounds of the data gathered (I delete the 11th every time a new round is played) I only took 1 OB from 160 in the rough.

Right, so how many shots do you have from 175-250? It's probably not a lot, and if you delete rounds after 10… you're probably looking at a smaller sample size than I'd be comfortable using to make judgments.

[Ty_Webb]

20 hours ago, iacas said:

Because if he's as good as a Tour player from 0-75 (which I'd argue is "short game" and obviously he has to putt and stuff in there), then his short game is pretty good… and when he's 200 yards out, he's hitting it in some really awful places.

He said starting at 50 yards. 50-75 is borderline between short game and approach IMO. It's certainly not indicative of full short game.

His handicap is also +1.4, which would tend to suggest not that many penalty shots, but I agree I had not thought of that as a possible reason.

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

He said starting at 50 yards. 50-75 is borderline between short game and approach IMO. It's certainly not indicative of full short game.

His handicap is also +1.4, which would tend to suggest not that many penalty shots, but I agree I had not thought of that as a possible reason.

Pretty moot at this point since he supplied more data, and he says his short game is pretty good (most +1.4s have a pretty good short game).

Though, again, he didn't share the number of shots hit from the various ranges.

@p1n9183, my two questions for you remain:

1. What are the number of shots hit from each of those ranges?
2. How are you classifying the results of the shots? Is everything just "rough" when you miss the green, or are you classifying things into different categories (i.e. if you hit your ball into a horrible spot, that's different than hitting it into typical greenside rough).

I'm still not super comfortable with deleting rounds after they're the 11th round, because you're looking at a pretty small sample size (particularly from some of the longer ranges), but too late for that now I guess.

Are you using GolfMetrics or something somewhat official?

[Ty_Webb]

6 hours ago, iacas said:

What are the number of shots hit from each of those ranges?

I think if you look at his "average shots per round" row and multiply by 10 that will give you how many shots are in each bucket

[iacas]

14 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I think if you look at his "average shots per round" row and multiply by 10 that will give you how many shots are in each bucket

I wanted to be certain, as those add up to less than 12. Take out the four (?) par threes, and he's still two short. Maybe they're drivable par fours?

Anyway, I was hoping he'd clarify. And, yes, those 75 yards account for only about 2 shots (2.2) per 18 holes, so… not super significant.

[Ty_Webb]

10 hours ago, iacas said:

I wanted to be certain, as those add up to less than 12. Take out the four (?) par threes, and he's still two short. Maybe they're drivable par fours?

Anyway, I was hoping he'd clarify. And, yes, those 75 yards account for only about 2 shots (2.2) per 18 holes, so… not super significant.

He said he also excludes shots from in the trees (I guess recovery shots). 2 of those seems like a lot, but a drivable four and one shot in the trees makes sense - or maybe his course has five par threes.

On a separate note, he also said his short game was good, but he posted that his short game is -0.5 strokes gained and his short putting is -1.2. If his short game is a little off, he's leaving himself lots of putts in the "short" range, where he is also losing strokes. So from 175-250, he's missing some greens (which PGA tour players do too, with some regularity) and leaving himself in the thick of his poor range with short game and therefore putts, which all adds up to another 0.2 strokes lost. 

If he's putting himself into penalty areas, that should be applied to the approach shot too, so that's clearly not what he's doing. 

Seems pretty clear to me that if he wants to improve that -0.35 from 175-250 then his approach play isn't the problem, it's his short game (mostly bunker play it seems) and short putting he needs to improve.

[iacas]

36 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

He said he also excludes shots from in the trees (I guess recovery shots). 2 of those seems like a lot, but a drivable four and one shot in the trees makes sense - or maybe his course has five par threes.

The point is that 75 yards covers about two shots on the 18 holes, and they're in an area where PGA Tour players separate themselves the most, so expecting him to get that closer to 0.2 or something is probably a fool's errand, particularly given:

He only carries his driver 260. Expecting him to get much better from 175-250 (250!) for 2 shots a round is quite likely a bad use of time.

36 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

On a separate note, he also said his short game was good, but he posted that his short game is -0.5 strokes gained and his short putting is -1.2.

-0.5 is not bad compared to a PGA Tour player, though 60% of it being in the sand probably warrants a little attention.

36 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

his short putting is -1.2

Yes, that's the discovery here: he needs to work on his short putting. I'd be curious to know how well he's estimating the distances of putts (people regularly call 12 footers 8 feet, etc. - see also Minjee Lee), but if there's an area to work on, that's it.

36 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Seems pretty clear to me that if he wants to improve that -0.35 from 175-250 then his approach play isn't the problem, it's his short game (mostly bunker play it seems) and short putting he needs to improve.

No, not the short game (except for spending 15 minutes in a bunker once, as a lot of that variance from the sand is due to the less ideal conditions we face over Tour players). Short putting, yes, with the caveat that I'd really want to know how accurate the estimated lengths are.

[Ty_Webb]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

The point is that 75 yards covers about two shots on the 18 holes, and they're in an area where PGA Tour players separate themselves the most, so expecting him to get that closer to 0.2 or something is probably a fool's errand, particularly given:

He only carries his driver 260. Expecting him to get much better from 175-250 (250!) for 2 shots a round is quite likely a bad use of time.

-0.5 is not bad compared to a PGA Tour player, though 60% of it being in the sand probably warrants a little attention.

Yes, that's the discovery here: he needs to work on his short putting. I'd be curious to know how well he's estimating the distances of putts (people regularly call 12 footers 8 feet, etc. - see also Minjee Lee), but if there's an area to work on, that's it.

No, not the short game (except for spending 15 minutes in a bunker once, as a lot of that variance from the sand is due to the less ideal conditions we face over Tour players). Short putting, yes, with the caveat that I'd really want to know how accurate the estimated lengths are.

I think he's already pretty good from 175-250 so little point in working too hard on that range (although you don't want to neglect it). 

You are certainly right about the distances. I think people underestimate the length of putts all the time. Frequently see strokes gained approach being way better than reality because they're "hitting it to 20 feet", when it's more like 30 and correspondingly strokes gained putting is worse than reality. 6-10 feet is a range where the slope is steep (by which I mean the make rates from 6' vs 7' are very different, where the make rates from 21' to 22' are virtually the same and from 1' to 2' are also virtually the same). Every inch in that range makes a difference to make rates and that means if you're off by 10% at 6' you have a marked impact on your strokes gained, while if you're off by 10% at 20' it won't really affect it much. 

It's not what we're talking about here, but I thought it was quite interesting. If you group first putts and second putts into feet, the make rates on second putts are better than first putts. There is potentially a little bit of that is from more knowledge from watching it break, but the main reason for that difference is second putts are more likely to be on the short end of the range and first putts are more likely to be on the long end of the range. So a putt from 3-4 feet if it's a first putt is more likely to be close to 4' than 3' where a second putt is more likely to be close to 3' than 4'. Those few inches closer make a difference in make rates. So could easily see the -1.2 being a measurement issue rather than a putting issue. If it is, then maybe it really is the approach shots that are the issue. 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

You are certainly right about the distances. I think people underestimate the length of putts all the time. Frequently see strokes gained approach being way better than reality because they're "hitting it to 20 feet", when it's more like 30 and correspondingly strokes gained putting is worse than reality. 6-10 feet is a range where the slope is steep (by which I mean the make rates from 6' vs 7' are very different, where the make rates from 21' to 22' are virtually the same and from 1' to 2' are also virtually the same). Every inch in that range makes a difference to make rates and that means if you're off by 10% at 6' you have a marked impact on your strokes gained, while if you're off by 10% at 20' it won't really affect it much. 

I chuckle as I read this because… I know that stuff as well as almost anyone else in the world. 😄 I appreciate that it's said so someone else reading it can learn some things, but… duh. 😄

2 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

So could easily see the -1.2 being a measurement issue rather than a putting issue. If it is, then maybe it really is the approach shots that are the issue. 

Yes, which is why I asked how he's estimating or measuring his putts. It's very easy to mis-estimate.

[saevel25]

43 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yes, which is why I asked how he's estimating or measuring his putts. It's very easy to mis-estimate.

Probably the best way is to learn how to pace off putts. If you become decent at it, it's pretty accurate. 

Even GPS units are not that accurate. Doing a google search....

GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius under open sky (view source at ION.org). 

It might be a bit stupid, but a good range finder will have 1 yard accuracy. So, 3-FT isn't maybe that bad at longer range putts. 

 

[Ty_Webb]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

I chuckle as I read this because… I know that stuff as well as almost anyone else in the world. 😄 I appreciate that it's said so someone else reading it can learn some things, but… duh. 😄

Yes, which is why I asked how he's estimating or measuring his putts. It's very easy to mis-estimate.

Just trying to edumacate 🙂 (and I know you know this stuff)

I'd say it's almost impossible not to. Unless you get a measuring tape out or use professional surveying equipment it's going to be off. 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Ty_Webb
Clarity

[iacas]

5 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

I'd say it's almost impossible not to. Unless you get a measuring tape out or use professional surveying equipment it's going to be off. 

You can pace it off and do a pretty good job.