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

[Jack Watson]

8 hours ago, klineka said:

I know this is true for pretty much everyone, but based on these stats from my most recent scores, it doesnt appear that my score is really tied to GIR that much, I shot an 80 with 33% GIR and an 80 with 56% GIR, then a 78 with only 33% GIR (obviously putted well above average for me that day) I'm not sure how to interpret these numbers to tell what I need to work on, would it be working on getting the GIR shots closer to the pin so I have a higher chance of getting birdies on those, or is it the putting itself that needs work so I can get that under 30 putts per round, or is it the short game shots so that I can have more up and down 1 putts for par instead of chipping on and 2 putting for bogey?

 

Score	Putts	GIR
79	33	50%
80	32	33%
81	33	44%
86	36	39%
78	29	33%
80	34	39%
81	38	61%
85	35	28%
80	34	56%

I can only say I saw someone mention ngir from LSW.  Sounds like it could relate in this case.

I am not a stats guy really, but missing greens in the right places makes for easy up and down chances imo.  Maybe diff courses play into it also.  I play courses with very large greens where three putts can be easy to make and also a couple older courses with postage stamp greens.  Imo missing well is a bit of a skill also.

I am not the right guy to talk about this really,  but I do know when I hit 12 or more my score will be good for me.

To me 78 29 and 33% is not gonna happen.  Edit FOR ME.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Jack Watson

[JonMA1]

I understand why the GIR stat is regarded as King. But I don't believe you can concentrate on this one stat while neglecting other parts of the game and expect to become very good. (I realize no one is saying you can.)

It would be nice to have a great iron game. It would be even nicer to be accurate off the tee (keep it in play), have the ability to scramble and be a good putter to go along with that great iron game.

[MuniGrit]

High handicap players ball striking but Touring pros short game.

[Jack Watson]

@MuniGrit

sums it up well imo to a degree

I think Poulters flash at this last Open shows it off.  He got up there on the leaderboard by smoke and mirrors.  Lots of good chances at birdie putts is way way different from saving pars from the garbage imo.

Really I didn't look at stats but Kuuuuch had a lot of chances on the front last round to change the result.  He hit it pretty good from what I saw.  

Again on stats I shoot from the hip.

[saevel25]

5 minutes ago, MuniGrit said:

High handicap players ball striking but Touring pros short game.

The best short game on the PGA Tour only give the player a .6 to .7 stroke advantage over the field. The best long games on the PGA Tour gives the player a 1.7 to 1.9 stroke advantage over the field. 

Long game matters more. 

[The Recreational Golfer]

On 7/30/2017 at 8:00 PM, iacas said:

Tom Kite is, for the most part, wrong.

Have you read LSW?

Haven't read it. I doubt Tom Kite has, either.

[mvmac]

23 minutes ago, The Recreational Golfer said:

Haven't read it. I doubt Tom Kite has, either.

Not sure your point but the basic lesson from the thread is to illustrate that ball striking plays a larger role in determining your handicap than short game. The lower your handicap the more greens you probably hit compared to a golfer with a higher handicap.

When it comes to tour players, you have to be an awesome ball striker to survive and put yourself in contention. You can't "get by" on tour with sub-par ball striking and a great short game.

The typical response to what I posted is "well you also need to make putts to win tournaments" and obviously that's true if we're talking about players winning on tour. They tend to do everything fairly well that week. The players that win multiple times a year and consistently put themselves in contention are doing it more with their ball striking/long game than their short game. 

[b101]

2 hours ago, MuniGrit said:

High handicap players ball striking but Touring pros short game.

I disagree - their short games are all pretty good! Yes, it can make a difference as with Luke Donald c.2012, but it's not the biggest differential. See below.

2 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

@MuniGrit

I think Poulters flash at this last Open shows it off.  He got up there on the leaderboard by smoke and mirrors.  Lots of good chances at birdie putts is way way different from saving pars from the garbage imo.

Two examples to challenge this - Spieth (Open winner) and Koepka (US Open winner). Koepka missed very few greens and Spieth (bar the odd mishap) was on point with his approaches, leaving so many makeable birdie putts. His putting was actually pretty average, as was Koepka's. Both were ahead of the field because of their long game, not their short game.

A quick browse of the PGA Tour strokes gained brings up this as well, which I think speaks for itself. Some great putters are at the top of the strokes gained overall, but mostly it's those who are high on approach the green.

[iacas]

7 hours ago, MuniGrit said:

High handicap players ball striking but Touring pros short game.

No. Long game matters most at all levels of the game. Tee shots and approach shots account for 66% or so of the difference at all levels.

[MuniGrit]

4 hours ago, iacas said:

No. Long game matters most at all levels of the game. Tee shots and approach shots account for 66% or so of the difference at all levels.

What point do you consider it long game vs short game? I think of short game as inside of 100 yards when using your wedges.

Edited August 1, 2017 by MuniGrit

[saevel25]

10 minutes ago, MuniGrit said:

 I think of short game as inside of 100 yards when using your wedges.

The PGA Tour specifies "around the green" as with in 30 yards of the green for their short game stats.

The PGA Tour specifies "approach to the green" as shots not "around the green" and not "Off the Tee"

Though some stats do happen outside of 30 FT for their "around the green" stats. So, there are a few instances where there is some overlap. It is not all shots inside 100 yards.

[lastings]

I would venture to say that If I could have a pro hit all shots over 200 yds (about 18 shots) and I hit all shots under 200, that combo would fare better than if I hit all shots over 200 and the pro hit all shots under.  

even though in the first scenario the pro is only hitting 18 shots and I'm hitting 54 (if we shoot par).   but, my shots are so much easier..   or, more specifically, less likely to get us into trouble.  

 

[MuniGrit]

41 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

The PGA Tour specifies "around the green" as with in 30 yards of the green for their short game stats.

The PGA Tour specifies "approach to the green" as shots not "around the green" and not "Off the Tee"

Though some stats do happen outside of 30 FT for their "around the green" stats. So, there are a few instances where there is some overlap. It is not all shots inside 100 yards.

Well yeah If it is only with 30 yards of the green then I would say long game then. The ability to scratch out a couple under to even par during a round when you have your C or worse game is what separates the good pros from great pros. You are only as good as your worst shot or round which short 100 yards and in to make tough pars off bad shots is key. Spieth did that great in round 4 of British.

[14ledo81]

13 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

I understand why the GIR stat is regarded as King. But I don't believe you can concentrate on this one stat while neglecting other parts of the game and expect to become very good. (I realize no one is saying you can.)

It would be nice to have a great iron game. It would be even nicer to be accurate off the tee (keep it in play), have the ability to scramble and be a good putter to go along with that great iron game.

The thing is, so much goes into that one stat.  You can't really neglect much of your game if you want to have a lot of GIR.

[RandallT]

1 hour ago, MuniGrit said:

What point do you consider it long game vs short game? I think of short game as inside of 100 yards when using your wedges.

GAME GOLF uses 100yds as well, but LSW uses 60yds. This discussion pops up once in a while on TST.  Here's an example:

 

[saevel25]

19 minutes ago, MuniGrit said:

The ability to scratch out a couple under to even par during a round when you have your C or worse game is what separates the good pros from great pros.

You'd be wrong.

What separates the good pros from the great pros is their superior long game. What is Tiger known for? His long game. He was bombing past people with accuracy. His ability to his precise iron shots.

What separated Jack from the rest of his opponents. His dominant long game. His ability to bomb it past his opponents. His ability to hit precise iron shots.

What made Hogan better than his opponents. His precise long game.

All three have the same traits, a superior long game. They would not be great otherwise.

Jason Day has the best short game on the PGA tour. He hasn't been relevant all year. Jason Rahm, who has an average short game has been more relevant than Jason Day. Rahm is averaging near 1.7 strokes better off the tee and approach shots than the field.

[RandallT]

23 hours ago, klineka said:

Thanks for taking the time to put that together, its much different seeing it visualized compared to just numbers in columns. I definitely did not think that my numbers negated the idea of GIR and scoring, it was just interesting that it wasnt as strict as a direct relationship (like lowest score was highest GIR, highest score was lowest GIR) that is what I would have expected to see. I will continue to track these over time and see what trend emerges.

Since your data set of 9 points didn't show too much of a relationship, I also tossed in the 16 rounds of data that I did for analyzing @Fairway_CY and @Slowcelica in two TST blog articles here:

Your data are the blue X's mostly on the right side of the chart. Their (FairwayCY/SlowCelica) GIR and scores were not as good, so they mostly make up the points on the left side. But I wanted to see how they all tie in together. 

I think the picture starts to emerge as we add different golfers. @DeadMan may add his too.

The red line is just what my spreadsheet says is the best fit polynomial (I should've chose linear, because at 100% GIR, I don't like the final score if you follow this one out to the right. I'm too lazy to redo!).

The green line is the thumbrule I've seen mentioned a few times of:  Score = 95 - (2 times GIR)

From what I can tell, the data we are collecting on ourselves might show slightly higher scores than that thumb rule.  But the overall relationship is the same, even if the scores are off by several strokes.

Interestingly, I found this in 2007, where @iacas said the thumbrule was off for him over 4 strokes in the OPPOSITE direction! That is, his scores were better than predicted. 

Perhaps you fall above or below the thumb rule based on your short game and putting skills. That's probably a no-brainer.

None of this is earth-shattering stuff, but I thought it was interesting after messing with the data I've seen recently to see if it all jives, since you brought it up your data earlier. 

 

23 hours ago, DeadMan said:

I have a couple of years worth of data that has both GIR and nGIR for me. If I get a chance tonight or tomorrow I will post a plot of GIR and nGIR versus my score. Could be interesting to see.

Definitely. nGIR might have less "noise" and outliers on the graph. Maybe you can work up a new "thumb rule" based on nGIR, not GIR! 

 

[DeadMan]

And I forgot to get that data from my stats last night. It's in my phone as a reminder, so I should have something to post tonight.