Relative Importance of Driving/Approach Shots, Short Game, Putting, etc. (LSW, Mark Broadie, Strokes Gained, etc.)

[StuM]

@Alfonso you seem stuck on a hot putter helping in a single round.  Here’s the thing, We are not here because we want to get an occasional low round.  We want more frequent low rounds.

To me, a “Hot Putter” is when instead of sinking 6% of my putts from 20 feet I sink 25% of them.  And no matter how much I practice that is going to be a rare occurrence.  Sure if all of the planets align and I get that day and shoot much lower than normal I will be all over the “What did your shoot today” and “Claim your achievements” threads but if my next 10 rounds are back to 95 then I will be pissed.

I would much rather shoot under 90 Consistently than have an occasional Personal Best because of a hot putter.

we are here to get more consistently better and to do that we are not going to make putting our go to skill.

what we are trying to tell you is that to get more consistently low scores there are skill more important than putting.

if you want to rely on putting to get an occasional low round, that is your choice but you should not mislead others to think that putting is king.

[mdl]

One reason I think people have such a hard time rejecting the old school wisdom of drive for show, putt for dough is personal experience. It takes a long time and lots of work to make significant improvement in the long game. And if you've got a fundamentally bad or mediocre swing, you just aren't going to have any days where your long game is indistinguishable from a low handicapper's.

But you can make quick improvements in the short game and putting that are big enough to notice in how you score. And especially in putting, form matters less so for folks with decent to good general athleticism and hand-eye coordination, there can be random days where you're just feeling it and  also getting lucky and sink a bunch of 8-20 footers and score 5 shots better than you expect to given how you struck the ball that day. Which means on a random day you can beat someone who's better than you having an average day all around when you have an average ball striking day and an exceptional day with the putter.

All this adds up to the feeling that putting matters more because you experience it as changing your score more round to round and over shorter periods of practice.

 

5 hours ago, iacas said:

I LOVE the graphic in this post!

[Alfonso]

9 hours ago, StuM said:

We are taking the position that if you really want to lower scores consistently you want to put your self in a position to have more short putts.  

Thank you.  Ok.  I absolutely agree with this. 

Honestly, I don't think I ever said a golfer should put themselves in a position to have longer putts, but whatever.

So now, if I may ask a question, how does one find themselves in a position to "have more short putts"?

[iacas]

14 minutes ago, Alfonso said:

Thank you.  Ok.  I absolutely agree with this. 

Honestly, I don't think I ever said a golfer should put themselves in a position to have longer putts, but whatever.

So now, if I may ask a question, how does one find themselves in a position to "have more short putts"?

So… you're just gonna ignore everything else.

Cool.

[Darkfrog]

45 minutes ago, Alfonso said:

So now, if I may ask a question, how does one find themselves in a position to "have more short putts"?

I think it’s been presented as nauseam in this thread and the other linked threads/articles. 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Darkfrog

[StuM]

 

40 minutes ago, Alfonso said:

Thank you.  Ok.  I absolutely agree with this. 

Honestly, I don't think I ever said a golfer should put themselves in a position to have longer putts, but whatever.

So now, if I may ask a question, how does one find themselves in a position to "have more short putts"?

I will answer below but understand, being closer to the hole is only one benefit of having more skill getting to the green.

I said it before in post #935 but here it is again.  You get closer to the hole by have a better approach shots.  Get better off the tee and give yourself shorter approach shots.  It is all the shots before you get to the green that give you better chances to sink a putt or at least less risk of a 3-putt since nobody is always going to be 3’ from the hole.

This is why we are saying putting is less important than the shots leading up to the green.

Working on those shots not only gets you closer, it reduces lost strokes due to fewer OB, Hazards or being behind a tree requiring a recovery shot.

avoiding the lost strokes before getting on the green is more important than the shorter putts so you get a lot of benefit from working on those areas vs putting.

[Alfonso]

12 hours ago, StuM said:

 

I will answer below but understand, being closer to the hole is only one benefit of having more skill getting to the green.

I said it before in post #935 but here it is again.  You get closer to the hole by have a better approach shots.  Get better off the tee and give yourself shorter approach shots.  It is all the shots before you get to the green that give you better chances to sink a putt or at least less risk of a 3-putt since nobody is always going to be 3’ from the hole.

This is why we are saying putting is less important than the shots leading up to the green.

Working on those shots not only gets you closer, it reduces lost strokes due to fewer OB, Hazards or being behind a tree requiring a recovery shot.

avoiding the lost strokes before getting on the green is more important than the shorter putts so you get a lot of benefit from working on those areas vs putting.

I don't disagree with any of that.  In fact, the most important shot is the one before you.  So yes, the shot that gets one on the green, if that's the shot before you, than it absolutely is the most important shot.  That's also why I said putting is king, as it almost always is the last shot you hit on a hole, and can make up for mistakes made with prior shots.  There's no right or wrong, it just is.

And I still stand by my other statement, that a hot putter is trouble.  I'm about to go find out who has the hot putter today.  Hope it's me or my partner.

[GolfLug]

I mean why just putting? Anything 'hot' is king. My buddy Pete is a 17 handicap but every now and then he inexplicable throws darts at the greens and walks away with an 81. 

What are you supposed to do with 'hot'? 

[mdl]

3 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

I mean why just putting? Anything 'hot' is king. My buddy Pete is a 17 handicap but every now and then he inexplicable throws darts at the greens and walks away with an 81. 

What are you supposed to do with 'hot'? 

Sounds like he's got some natural talent and should get some lessons

[GolfLug]

45 minutes ago, mdl said:

Sounds like he's got some natural talent and should get some lessons

He knows. But it takes uhh.. ya know.. commitment amongst other things, something he is pathologically allergic to.

 

😉

Edited April 21, 2023 by GolfLug

[klineka]

2 hours ago, Alfonso said:

There's no right or wrong, it just is.

Yes there is, especially when there are facts to back up a statement.

It's wrong for me to state that the Earth is flat because there are facts that prove my statement wrong.

Just like it's wrong for you to state that putting is king because there are facts that prove your statement wrong.

 

2 hours ago, Alfonso said:

That's also why I said putting is king, as it almost always is the last shot you hit on a hole, and can make up for mistakes made with prior shots. 

One putting can't make up for blasting 2 balls O.B. off the tee. 

One putting can't make up for shanking an approach shot and then topping the next one into a bunker then taking 2 more strokes to get it onto the green. 

FFS this isn't that difficult to understand you're simply not willing to accept the facts and admit that you're wrong. Or even willing to directly engage in any of the dozens of in-depth replies that people have made towards you. 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Alfonso said:

That's also why I said putting is king, as it almost always is the last shot you hit on a hole, and can make up for mistakes made with prior shots.  There's no right or wrong, it just is.

There is a right and wrong, and you're wrong. Putting can make up for things, but on the whole… it does not. It contributes the smallest percentage of the four categories of shots to what separates one player group (say, 70s shooters) from another player group (90s shooters, perhaps).

In other words, if you have a group of 90s shooters and a group of 70s shooters, the 20-shot difference between them works out to about:

• Off the Tee: 5.6 shots
• Approach Shots: 7.8 shots
• Short Game: 3.8 shots
• Putting: 2.8 shots

Represented graphically:

Putting is not King nor Queen. Nor Prince/Princess. At best… it's a Count or something.

3 hours ago, Alfonso said:

And I still stand by my other statement, that a hot putter is trouble.  I'm about to go find out who has the hot putter today.  Hope it's me or my partner.

It's no more so than a hot approach shot player.

I'll take a "hot putter" every day if they're putting for par or bogey constantly. They're not going to beat me even if I have a below-average day putting.

---

Live look at @Alfonso when he hears anything that contradicts his anecdata:

[colin007]

18 hours ago, mdl said:

One reason I think people have such a hard time rejecting the old school wisdom of drive for show, putt for dough is personal experience.

I actually think people like to put the emphasis on putting because it deflects the attention away from the fact that their full swing is absolute garbage. They would like to think that if only they could improve their putting, their game would turn around, but they know subconsciously that them taking a full swing at the ball looks like an octopus having a stroke falling out of a tree.

[ChetlovesMer]

18 hours ago, mdl said:

One reason I think people have such a hard time rejecting the old school wisdom of drive for show, putt for dough is personal experience. It takes a long time and lots of work to make significant improvement in the long game. And if you've got a fundamentally bad or mediocre swing, you just aren't going to have any days where your long game is indistinguishable from a low handicapper's.

But you can make quick improvements in the short game and putting that are big enough to notice in how you score. And especially in putting, form matters less so for folks with decent to good general athleticism and hand-eye coordination, there can be random days where you're just feeling it and  also getting lucky and sink a bunch of 8-20 footers and score 5 shots better than you expect to given how you struck the ball that day. Which means on a random day you can beat someone who's better than you having an average day all around when you have an average ball striking day and an exceptional day with the putter.

All this adds up to the feeling that putting matters more because you experience it as changing your score more round to round and over shorter periods of practice.

I think you are hitting the nail on the head. 

But relying on a lucky day putting is like relying on men in the airport to wash their hands after using the restroom. It just isn't going to happen all that often. 

[StuM]

27 minutes ago, colin007 said:

them taking a full swing at the ball looks like an octopus having a stroke falling out of a tree.

I NEVER posted that to my "MySwing" page?  How did you know that is what I look like?

 

3 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

I think you are hitting the nail on the head. 

But relying on a lucky day putting is like relying on men in the airport to wash their hands after using the restroom. It just isn't going to happen all that often. 

OK, that just disgusts me

Edited April 21, 2023 by StuM
Corrected spelling of "Disgusts"

[mdl]

56 minutes ago, colin007 said:

I actually think people like to put the emphasis on putting because it deflects the attention away from the fact that their full swing is absolute garbage. They would like to think that if only they could improve their putting, their game would turn around, but they know subconsciously that them taking a full swing at the ball looks like an octopus having a stroke falling out of a tree.

Ha. Yeah that's probably part of it too. Weirdly, this is probably because people do actually know that the most important and hardest skill in golf is full shots. So they can pretend their real golf skill is higher than it is if they pretend they score badly only because they're too cool to be bothered to practice putting.

[Alfonso]

21 hours ago, GolfLug said:

I mean why just putting? Anything 'hot' is king. My buddy Pete is a 17 handicap but every now and then he inexplicable throws darts at the greens and walks away with an 81. 

What are you supposed to do with 'hot'? 

That';s the point.  If you  run into a hot putter, it's trouble.  The emphasis in these discussions seems to be on something that is measurable.  Broadie admits he can't measure why someone's putter gets hot (he uses the phrase streaky), although he's trying, and he does admit that is the formula for winning amongst ball strikers of similar talent.

You mentioning your 17 cap buddy gets hot and throws darts to the greens only conflates the issue.  In the context of my statement regarding putting, it is in relation to similar ball striking skills,  Thus, the ability to score ultimately ends with the putter.  And in this particular discussion, the emphasis seems to be placed on the professional game.  Of course those players are superior ball strikers.  I didn't need Broadies work to tell me that.

[Alfonso]

18 hours ago, mdl said:

Ha. Yeah that's probably part of it too. Weirdly, this is probably because people do actually know that the most important and hardest skill in golf is full shots. So they can pretend their real golf skill is higher than it is if they pretend they score badly only because they're too cool to be bothered to practice putting.

Of course the full shot is the most difficult skill.  It covers a greater distance than almost any putt.

The ability to physically putt the ball is relatively easy for most.  It's the skill of getting the ball in the hole that is difficult.  And once you are on the green, one has the opportunity to turn two strokes into one (the hot putter).  Doesn't happen very often that can be done from the fairway.