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

[RFKFREAK]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RFKFREAK

Depends on the person.

I have a really high handicap and I would never tell anyone I have a good swing.

I would love to have a round where I didn't chunk or top a ball.  I say I hit my 3 wood pretty well but that's only because I don't seem to chunk it as much as I will an iron shot.  Then again, I use my 3W less than I do my irons, too.  Haha.

For those of you lower handicappers, how often do you find yourself chunking shots off the fairway?  I'm hoping by practicing my long game that I'll stop doing that.

I don't consider myself a "lower handicap" (that's a scratch to about a 3 to me) but I really don't "chunk" shots very much at all or hit shots thin very much at all. Maybe a few times per year.

What I do plenty of is miss right or left (and usually left). Misses to the right are straight balls and misses to the left are normally draws or hooks.

Oh, to have such problems.  Haha.

I'm envious and hoping to find myself in a similar position next year.

[Club Rat]

Most low handicappers rarely have "fairway chunked shots." When they do it usually is a "chili dipper" around the green and more often on wet turf.

Many of the low handicap guys I golf with, usually only have a few really bad shots per round.

A bad shot for them would be a push or block shot which enters into a hazard or green side bunker or area which they commonly would not miss.

I've also seen a rare pulled hook in a round.

I'm not saying they never chunk any shots, but very rarely it will happen.

Club Rat

[M2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RFKFREAK

For those of you lower handicappers, how often do you find yourself chunking shots off the fairway?  I'm hoping by practicing my long game that I'll stop doing that.

I'm not lower handicap but the original study referenced by the article cited in this thread had a formula to estimate how many awful shots would be considered acceptable for the score recorded. From the paper: "The awful shots could come from bad swings or from a strategy that is too risky, e.g., attempting shots with a low probability of success."

Quote:

"For amateur golfers a significant contributor to high scores is a relatively small number of awful shots. Equation (2) relates awful shots to score and gives a benchmark to measure golfer consistency."

Awful Shots = 0.24*Score – 17.1

I thought there might be some excitement to have an objective measure of how many awful shots is acceptable as a tool for self assessment. But I also though the statement below would generate some controversy so ... IDK!

Quote:

Across golfers it is shown, somewhat surprisingly, that longer hitters tend to be straighter than shorter hitters.

[MS256]

But I also though the statement below would generate some controversy so ... IDK!

~~Quote: Across golfers it is shown, somewhat surprisingly, that longer hitters tend to be straighter than shorter hitters.

I'm not around enough golfers to know if that is true across all golfers or not, but it's true among the golfers I play with.

Most of the longer hitters in our groups are also the straightest hitters in our groups. The old adage that "It's better to be short and in the fairway than long and in the woods" is certainly true but being long and in the fairway beats either one of them.

[M2R]

I'm not around enough golfers to know if that is true across all golfers or not, but it's true among the golfers I play with.

Most of the longer hitters in our groups are also the straightest hitters in our groups. The old adage that "It's better to be short and in the fairway than long and in the woods" is certainly true but being long and in the fairway beats either one of them.

I bet it is like the ball striking thing then, as high handicappers we just don't see it because we play with the wrong class of players.

As a sub 7 I guess you might tend to play with better players as well?

[MS256]

I bet it is like the ball striking thing then, as high handicappers we just don't see it because we play with the wrong class of players.

As a sub 7 I guess you might tend to play with better players as well?

Yeah, I'm usually the worst in my group of "regulars" (and I hate it). Hahaha!

But they make a living teaching golf and were college and pro golfers and my hacking will never catch up to them.

[iacas]

Tiger's round today is an example of how important the long game is (at the PGA Tour level).

[mvmac]

Tiger's round today is an example of how important the long game is (at the PGA Tour level).

Yeah when Tiger is #1 in driving accuracy, watch out

[Righty to Lefty]

Yeah when Tiger is #1 in driving accuracy, watch out

Oh my goodness could you imagine that !

[colin007]

Oh my goodness could you imagine that !

Makes my nipples hard just thinking about it... :-P

[David in FL]

Makes my nipples hard just thinking about it...

I worry about you sometimes, Colin...

[colin007]

I worry about you sometimes, Colin...   ;-)

Did my wife tell you to say that?

[David in FL]

Did my wife tell you to say that?

No, but she did tell me that she's concerned too! :-)

[MS256]

Makes my nipples hard just thinking about it...

When I first saw that comment I thought it must be from one of the Cold Weather threads.

[iacas]

Okay boys…

[colin007]

Okay boys…

LOL!!!!

so....long game!!  anyone want to argue that short game costs more strokes after watching todays debacle at the 15th hole at Sherwood?

[M2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

Tiger's round today is an example of how important the long game is (at the PGA Tour level).

Interesting and unexpected line I just stumbled across in the Broadie Golfmetrics paper:

Comparing the Pro1 and Pro2 groups shows differences of 1.8, 2.1, 1.1 and 0.3 shots per round in the putting, long, short and sand games, respectively. For PGA tour players, putting is relatively more important and is nearly as important as the long game in explaining scoring differences.

[Mr. Desmond]

Key words below:

For PGA tour players...