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

[Fourputt]

29 minutes ago, iacas said:

He uses 100 yards. I don't particularly think a 95-yard shot is "short game," not even for a PGA Tour player.

In my opinion, little value though it may have in the greater scheme, anything that requires a full swing is not short game.

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

In my opinion, little value though it may have in the greater scheme, anything that requires a full swing is not short game.

That's why we defined it as about 60 yards and shorter.

[Aflighter]

It might just be me but last weekend in tournament my driving was poor, irons not much better but my putting was red hot.Shot 81 scrambling my butt off.Day 2 I fixed my driver and was ripping some long straight drives leaving myself usually no more than 7iron-pw but unfortunately my putting had disappeared.I shot 89, blew tourny.You can talk all you want bout long game but in my case without putts falling your not gonna score well.Granted my irons were pathetic day 2.Not sure if you count 120 yd shots as long game.I do know a hot driver will break 90 but it wont go low.

[Abu3baid]

8 hours ago, Aflighter said:

It might just be me but last weekend in tournament my driving was poor, irons not much better but my putting was red hot.Shot 81 scrambling my butt off.Day 2 I fixed my driver and was ripping some long straight drives leaving myself usually no more than 7iron-pw but unfortunately my putting had disappeared.I shot 89, blew tourny.You can talk all you want bout long game but in my case without putts falling your not gonna score well.Granted my irons were pathetic day 2.Not sure if you count 120 yd shots as long game.I do know a hot driver will break 90 but it wont go low.

Yes anything outside the 100 is long game mechanics..  

[iacas]

8 hours ago, Aflighter said:

It might just be me but last weekend in tournament my driving was poor, irons not much better but my putting was red hot.Shot 81 scrambling my butt off.Day 2 I fixed my driver and was ripping some long straight drives leaving myself usually no more than 7iron-pw but unfortunately my putting had disappeared.I shot 89, blew tourny.You can talk all you want bout long game but in my case without putts falling your not gonna score well.Granted my irons were pathetic day 2.Not sure if you count 120 yd shots as long game.I do know a hot driver will break 90 but it wont go low.

Full swing mechanics count as "long game." That's usually outside 60 yards or so.

[JonMA1]

All I ever hear from good players -  even PGA pros - is how I have to work on my short game and putting if I want to improve. As though my full swing is good enough to get me in the 80's. I've been told this by those who have never seen me swing a club.

I don't believe that's true - and this is coming from someone who is TERRIBLE at putting.

To reach our potential, we have to be good at every aspect. For most (certainly me), the full swing is more difficult to learn than the short game. And while I don't get into the statistics of the pros, failing to keep my full swings in play or hitting my distances is at least as costly as my 2.3 putts per hole.

Both seem important at my level.

[Fourputt]

1 hour ago, JonMA1 said:

All I ever hear from good players -  even PGA pros - is how I have to work on my short game and putting if I want to improve. As though my full swing is good enough to get me in the 80's. I've been told this by those who have never seen me swing a club.

I don't believe that's true - and this is coming from someone who is TERRIBLE at putting.

To reach our potential, we have to be good at every aspect. For most (certainly me), the full swing is more difficult to learn than the short game. And while I don't get into the statistics of the pros, failing to keep my full swings in play or hitting my distances is at least as costly as my 2.3 putts per hole.

Both seem important at my level.

The point is that the the first focus is on the long game.  That doesn't mean ignoring short pitching, chipping and putting, but that those skills won't do you a lot of good if you aren't mostly getting near the green in regulation.  Getting up and down for a double is still a double, and it was poor full shots that put you in that position.  

Having those short game skills is never a bad thing, but thinking that you can become a single digit handicapper exclusively by improving short game while ignoring the full swing is delusional.  There are a frightening number golfers who have been deluded by reading the offerings of several short game gurus and have bought into the idea that short game is the Shangri La of golf.  Short game won't help you achieve any real goals in golf if you are rarely in play off the tee, or if you are missing greens regularly by a significant margin.

[Patch]

2 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

All I ever hear from good players -  even PGA pros - is how I have to work on my short game and putting if I want to improve. As though my full swing is good enough to get me in the 80's. I've been told this by those who have never seen me swing a club.

I don't believe that's true - and this is coming from someone who is TERRIBLE at putting.

To reach our potential, we have to be good at every aspect. For most (certainly me), the full swing is more difficult to learn than the short game. And while I don't get into the statistics of the pros, failing to keep my full swings in play or hitting my distances is at least as costly as my 2.3 putts per hole.

Both seem important at my level.

I think the pros pushing the short game to save strokes is based on them already having a decent long game. The use their short game work to "fine tune" their games, score wise. 

Myself, my long game is about as good as it's going to get. I just don't get the distance anymore like I use to. So, due to my loss of distance, (for various reasons) I have to depend on a better short game to save strokes. Because of that, I put more practice effort into pitches, chips, and putts way more than my driver, and my other metal woods and/or long irons. 

Now that I think about it, I probably work on a "longer" short game than most folks do. I spend a lot of time on 60-80 yard half swing, punch shots. 

What ever it takes.

 

[JonMA1]

Thanks @Fourputt and @Patch. You did a better job of articulating my thoughts.

[natureboy]

6 hours ago, Patch said:

I think the pros pushing the short game to save strokes is based on them already having a decent long game. The use their short game work to "fine tune" their games, score wise. 

Myself, my long game is about as good as it's going to get. I just don't get the distance anymore like I use to. So, due to my loss of distance, (for various reasons) I have to depend on a better short game to save strokes. Because of that, I put more practice effort into pitches, chips, and putts way more than my driver, and my other metal woods and/or long irons. 

Now that I think about it, I probably work on a "longer" short game than most folks do. I spend a lot of time on 60-80 yard half swing, punch shots. 

What ever it takes.

You could work on grooving the swing for consistency / accuracy. That's also worth strokes and may compensate for your lost distance if you improve it enough.

[RandallT]

23 hours ago, Fourputt said:

The point is that the the first focus is on the long game.  That doesn't mean ignoring short pitching, chipping and putting, but that those skills won't do you a lot of good if you aren't mostly getting near the green in regulation.  Getting up and down for a double is still a double, and it was poor full shots that put you in that position.  

Yes, agreed. And if you go back to the original post, the point of the NY Times article was that when you compare the broad performance of PGA players against the broad performance of amateurs, the long game is where most of the separation occurs. That matches the results I've seen whenever comparing shot-by-shot analysis against the PGA. 

 

Some additional thoughts (I forget if this has been repeated on this old thread):

 

The discussion about who wins on the PGA tour is largely a different discussion to me, as these players are all at the pinnacle of the sport. Who wins week to week and what skills got them that separation from the field on that course for that given week, well, that's another interesting debate (and not really mentioned in the OP article about Broadie). 

 

It wouldn't make sense to me that pro's would separate themselves week to week (hence, somewhat anecdotally) at the same skills that pros separate themselves from amateurs broadly across thousands of rounds. For one, there would be more variability in the week-to-week results. Secondly, it is a different mix of comparison: one is PGA-PGA, one is PGA-amateur.

 

On 7/1/2016 at 10:47 PM, Aflighter said:

It might just be me but last weekend in tournament my driving was poor, irons not much better but my putting was red hot.Shot 81 scrambling my butt off.Day 2 I fixed my driver and was ripping some long straight drives leaving myself usually no more than 7iron-pw but unfortunately my putting had disappeared.I shot 89, blew tourny.You can talk all you want bout long game but in my case without putts falling your not gonna score well.Granted my irons were pathetic day 2.Not sure if you count 120 yd shots as long game.I do know a hot driver will break 90 but it wont go low.

I hear what you're saying, but this is also a bit of a different argument than the OP/Mark Broadie finding. His premise was not that going low needed a strong long game every time, nor was it that you couldn't go low by getting hot in and around the greens. Nobody will challenge these anecdotes, nor will anyone deny that many people go low on days where their short game is on fire.

So yes, I see what you're saying, but I don't think the anecdote is quite a direct rebuttal to the broad statistical analysis.  

 

On 6/30/2016 at 4:10 PM, iacas said:

Just another one-off stat (one tournament), but still… this is more typical than leading in short game and putting.

The winner each week is often the best putter OF the really good ball strikers that week.

 

Maybe you've got the data somewhere, but the PGA publishes pages like these below, showing where the Top 10 of each tournament separated themselves from the field each week. It might be interesting that I could take every page I see like these (and not just Quicken Loans), and see where the percentages lie.

 

	QUICKEN LOANS 2015 Strokes gained per round (ranks in parentheses)
Golfer	Total	Drive	Appr	Short	Putt
Troy Merritt	3.8 (1)	-0.1 (44)	2.4 (1)	0.3 (29)	1.2 (10)
Rickie Fowler	3.0 (2)	0.5 (15)	1.4 (8)	-0.2 (55)	1.3 (9)
David Lingmerth	2.8 (3)	0.7 (7)	0.0 (48)	0.4 (25)	1.8 (3)
Carl Pettersson	2.3 (T4)	0.0 (39)	1.1 (11)	-0.6 (68)	1.7 (4)
Jason Bohn	2.3 (T4)	0.1 (36)	1.0 (14)	-0.5 (66)	1.7 (5)
Bill Haas	2.3 (T4)	0.5 (18)	1.4 (7)	0.6 (15)	-0.2 (52)
Danny Lee	2.3 (T4)	0.5 (13)	1.0 (16)	0.3 (28)	0.4 (31)
Justin Thomas	2.3 (T4)	0.5 (17)	0.5 (27)	0.3 (27)	0.9 (15)
Justin Rose	2.3 (T4)	0.8 (4)	1.0 (17)	0.5 (20)	0.0 (45)
Ryo Ishikawa	2.0 (10)	0.1 (34)	0.5 (26)	1.0 (3)	0.3 (33)
Top 10 average	2.5	0.4	1.1	0.2	0.9
Fraction of total	100%	14%	41%	8%	36%

QUICKEN LOANS 2014 Strokes gained per round (ranks in parentheses)

Golfer	Total	Drive	Appr	Short	Putt
Justin Rose	2.7 (1)	0.5 (20)	1.8 (1)	0.2 (39)	0.2 (38)
Shawn Stefani	2.7 (2)	0.6 (9)	1.0 (9)	0.8 (8)	0.2 (40)
Charley Hoffman	2.4 (T3)	1.4 (1)	1.5 (4)	-1.2 (75)	0.7 (26)
Ben Martin	2.4 (T3)	0.5 (17)	-0.2 (53)	1.2 (2)	1.0 (17)
Andres Romero	2.2 (T5)	0.5 (15)	-0.1 (49)	0.5 (24)	1.2 (9)
Brendon Todd	2.2 (T5)	-0.3 (58)	-0.8 (67)	1.3 (1)	1.9 (1)
Brendan Steele	2.2 (T5)	0.0 (40)	1.4 (6)	0.6 (23)	0.2 (39)
Marc Leishman	1.9 (T8)	0.5 (14)	1.6 (2)	-0.1 (50)	0.0 (50)
Billy Hurley III	1.9 (T8)	-0.3 (60)	0.9 (11)	0.8 (9)	0.5 (33)
Brendon de Jonge	1.9 (T8)	0.5 (19)	0.4 (30)	-0.1 (48)	1.1 (14)
Top 10 average	2.2	0.4	0.8	0.4	0.7
Fraction of total	100%	17%	34%	18%	31%

Generally, across multiple tournaments I've seen the area that most separation in the top 10 of various tournaments occurs is roughly ranked:

1. Approach,
2. Putting,
3. Driving,
4. Short Game.

Disclaimer: this is just me eyeballing across the data week to week, after searching "strokes gained" at pga.com on these separate tournament result pages. You'll see tons of tournament results published the day after each tournament back through 2015.

Typically, Approach + Driving is greater than Putting + Short Game. Maybe 55% to 45%? Just a guess. But it's not like 80-20, or anything that drastic. The top 10 players each week tend to separate themselves with long game.

Often the winner is a guy who did well in putting, and yes, often the best of the week. Jordan Spieth, for example, I've noticed wins a lot with huge strokes gained putting numbers;  Brian Stuard at the Zurich gained almost 3 strokes per round on the field putting alone! That was nuts.

But those anecdotes of great putters for the week don't take away from the broad story of looking at the Top 10 each week.

And those amazing putting performances also can be offset by other tournaments like the Honda Classic where Adam Scott and Sergio each gained over 3 shots to field per round in long game, but didn't have a great short game/putting performances for the week.

As i said above, I've got no hard stats handy, but I'd be willing to bet that overall the top 10 players each week across all tournaments gain more strokes in the long game (Approach + Driving) than in the short game (Putting + Short Game). That's what I tend to see week in, week out. (And like you see in the Quicken Loans above). This is all broadly speaking, as there is variation week to week. And as mentioned, this is a different topic than the OP. Likely  (but related?)  

Whatever the numbers are for how PGA players tend to separate from the field, they would not match the same "relative importance" as in the OP, because that was about how pros separate from amateurs. Totally different, of course.

Lastly:

The video of Bailey Mosier in a previous post saying that we should look to the top scramblers for the winner of the 2016 Quicken Loans.... did that make sense? Looking at 2014 and 2015, I don't see the top scramblers as filling the top of the leaderboards. In 2016, Billy Hurley III won and he won it with long game. So much for their thesis, although it was a nice try.

Edited July 3, 2016 by RandallT
changed "say" to "deny" to fix the meaning of a sentence! It said opposite of what i intended. Oops

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Maybe you've got the data somewhere, but the PGA publishes pages like these below, showing where the Top 10 of each tournament separated themselves from the field each week. It might be interesting that I could take every page I see like these (and not just Quicken Loans), and see where the percentages lie.

I believe that he has some charts in his book. I too am not terribly interested in the very short term, small sample size type of situation. Often putting contributes 35% or so to the winner's performance, but you can't teach having a "hot" putting week. You can become a good putter so putting exceptionally well becomes more likely, but you can also spend more time on your full swing so that having a great ball-striking week becomes more likely, too.

Putting gets weighted heavily because in part due to the small sample size and because you can make up half a stroke or a full stroke quite easily. Make a 33-footer? Bam, you've made up a full stroke. Make an eight footer - just an eight footer - and you make up half a stroke. The gains are large, and over the course of about nine putts that matter (the rest of the putts are tap-ins that nobody misses, basically, or putts long enough nobody makes and everyone two-putts), if you're supposed to make 3 and you make 6, you'll gain 2.5 strokes just on that alone. But then the next week, because the hole is so small, maybe you putt just as well but make 1 of those 9.

9 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Generally, across multiple tournaments I've seen the area that most separation in the top 10 of various tournaments occurs is roughly ranked:

1. Approach,
2. Putting,
3. Driving,
4. Short Game.

That's probably accurate for winners. Probably less so for the top 10 finishers. Pretty sure this data's in the book though.

The point remains: the best ball strikers that week are in a position to win, typically, and then the best putter among those good ball strikers is often the winner. Great putting is a less repeatable skill than good ballstriking. It's more luck based than ballstriking and even depends somewhat on ballstriking since it cares only about distance to the hole: not all eight-foot putts are equal (though at the same time they're closer than most people think).

9 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Typically, Approach + Driving is greater than Putting + Short Game. Maybe 55% to 45%? Just a guess. But it's not like 80-20, or anything that drastic. The top 10 players each week tend to separate themselves with long game.

Sounds about right. Maybe 60/40.

But again, I'll emphasize that this is a small sample size/short term thing, too. People who play consistently well, that formula tips heavily toward the full swing, as you know @RandallT.

9 minutes ago, RandallT said:

And those amazing putting performances also can be offset by other tournaments like the Honda Classic where Adam Scott and Sergio each gained over 3 shots to field per round in long game, but didn't have a great short game/putting performances for the week.

Or Billy Hurley III, above.

9 minutes ago, RandallT said:

The video of Bailey Mosier in a previous post saying that we should look to the top scramblers for the winner of the 2016 Quicken Loans.... did that make sense? Looking at 2014 and 2015, I don't see the top scramblers as filling the top of the leaderboards. In 2016, Billy Hurley III won and he won it with long game. So much for their thesis, although it was a nice try.

Watch the video more… she contradicts herself several times. That video makes no sense.

[colin007]

I feel like talking about who's winning on the PGA tour is doing a disservice to our expectations. Not a single one of us is in the same boat as they are. They're trying to separate themselves from the rest of their "pack", all of whom are phenomenal full swing golfers. When they have a hot week putting, they win. But whether they win or not, they are still phenomenal golfers. Just because they had a bad week putting doesn't make them bad golfers. We need good full swing mechanics to even be called mediocre golfers. I'm probably doing a terrible job explaining myself LOL..

[RandallT]

28 minutes ago, iacas said:

Watch the video more… she contradicts herself several times. That video makes no sense.

I kinda like Bailey too, even if she's not the most hard-hitting or experienced golf journalist. She's pleasant and had a nice, easy-going style with the Big Break series when she was part of that. She let me down on that video! I wonder how much was handed to her to read the script, or if she was providing her own editorial there. Probably Michael Breed set her up with the bogus info!  

1 minute ago, colin007 said:

I feel like talking about who's winning on the PGA tour is doing a disservice to our expectations. Not a single one of us is in the same boat as they are. They're trying to separate themselves from the rest of their "pack", all of whom are phenomenal full swing golfers. When they have a hot week putting, they win. But whether they win or not, they are still phenomenal golfers. Just because they had a bad week putting doesn't make them bad golfers. We need good full swing mechanics to even be called mediocre golfers. I'm probably doing a terrible job explaining myself LOL..

You make sense to me 

[colin007]

2 hours ago, RandallT said:

You make sense to me 

Thanks bro! It just never ceases to amaze me how some people just don't understand that you'll rarely be in position to make pars if your full swing sucks.

[iacas]

An article from Golf Magazine that is important to understand…

Quote

In mid June, after years of close calls, Dustin Johnson won his first major: the U.S. Open, at Oakmont. Then, after a week of R & R, he closed out the Bridgestone Invitational for back-to-back victories. In both events, he ranked No. 1 in Strokes Gained driving. It made me wonder how typical or unusual this is: winning on the strength of driving.

There are, of course, many different ways to win a golf tournament, but a clear pattern emerged when I analyzed a large sample of results on the PGA Tour since 2013. The typical winner is a better-than-Tour-average player whose primary strength is great approach play. For the season, golfers who've won on Tour play 1.1 strokes better per round than the field, with 42 percent of that gain coming from approach shots, 35 percent from driving, 22 percent from putting and 15 percent from the short game. Do the math, and you'll see that superior ballstriking (driving and approach play) accounts for a significant 77 percent of the typical winner's advantage.

During the week of a typical Tour winner's victory, that player gains about 3.6 strokes per round on the field, so he has to play about 2.5 strokes per round better than his season average to win. Where do these additional strokes come from? First and foremost, from better putting. That contributes an additional one stroke per round (that is, a two-putt is replaced with a one-putt). Better approach play contributes another 0.8 strokes (by, for example, knocking one approach shot to five feet instead of 35 feet). An improved short game accounts for 0.4 strokes (sticking one wedge shot to five feet instead of 10 feet, for instance). And better drives are good for 0.3 strokes (such as hitting one more fairway per round).

Week in and week out, the best ball strikers tend to rise to the top of the leaderboard. Winners, on the other hand, are usually the best putters among the best ballstrikers. Putting is so highly regarded because a drained putt here or there often determines the outcome in a given week. What's the message for weekend golfers, and those trying to hammer it like DJ? Consistently good approach play is the key to scoring throughout the season — and those times when you putt great, you'll really clean up against your pals.

If you're a great ballstriker, you'll have a chance to win each and every week you get hot with the putter.

[iacas]

#DriveForDough #PuttBecauseYouHaveToFinishTheHole?

[CR McDivot]

Played this week with a fellow who consistently drove a good 30-40 yards further than I. He was long and mostly accurate.

His approaches were not as good, but not that bad. Probably hit 60% GIR, and the misses were close, but his chipping and putting hurt. From a greenside chip to holeout typically 3 strokes.

He, of course, scored better than I - but could have cut another 6-8 strokes with better approaches and short game.

BTW- I did manage to get an attaboy for a punchout with a fair cut from 200 from under and around trees (yeah, the drive sucked). Greenie and saved par!

Edited October 27, 2016 by CR McDivot