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

[Ks golf]

I feel there is a mutual and symbiotic relationship between the long and the short game. Practicing short game more has really helped me swing all the other clubs with better tempo and rhythm, bunker play I feel is especially helpful in this regard for some reason.

However, if you're a high handicapper, it would behoove you to practice more on your long game mechanics and technique in my opinion.  Learning to use the correct mechanics and establishing proper contact goes a long way in lowering your handicap. 

It's different for every player and what level he/she is at.

[saevel25]

3 hours ago, Ks golf said:

I feel there is a mutual and symbiotic relationship between the long and the short game. Practicing short game more has really helped me swing all the other clubs with better tempo and rhythm, bunker play I feel is especially helpful in this regard for some reason.

It's different for every player and what level he/she is at.

For me the short game technique is completely different than the long game. With the short game I'm trying to engage the bounce and glide the club more under the ball. I am less concerned with hitting the ball first because the bounce helps out.

With the long game I am making sure the ball is being hit first. With a slightly downward strike. 

[Ks golf]

4 hours ago, saevel25 said:

For me the short game technique is completely different than the long game. With the short game I'm trying to engage the bounce and glide the club more under the ball. I am less concerned with hitting the ball first because the bounce helps out.

With the long game I am making sure the ball is being hit first. With a slightly downward strike. 

Oh I agree the techniques are different, it's just that the short game really helps me with the tempo and rhythm in the long game. Especially the basic chip shot and for some reason, basic bunker shots. 

[natureboy]

On 7/3/2016 at 9:19 AM, 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.

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.

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).

Your eyeballing is pretty accurate. I did an average of those Top 10 charts for 49 tournaments across a few years. It agreed with your ordinal ranking of disciplines. There was a fair bit of variance with an avg sigma of ~ 7% within categories but the magnitude of the variance also aligned with your category rankings.

The overall balance between long and short game was about 51% / 49% (for avg of those in the Top 10).

I expect that the specific course influences and extreme tournament conditions (high wind e.g.) which discipline contributes to success. Valspar, for example seemed to have a lower average influence from driving than others. Both Valspar and Honda Classic seemed to have a consistently high approach premium in 2 different years. The Tour Championship seemed pretty balanced among categories 2014-2015 (possibly a selection effect from the limited field).

I agree it doesn't invalidate the long game emphasis. What it means is that peaking for a top 10 or a win means you can't really afford much liability against the field. To score well relative to a 'peer' in skill, you need to put the ball close to the hole consistently and convert a lot, while avoiding dropped shots on misses.

To peak relative to your peer group, you ideally want above average play in all aspects of the game, or be exceptional in one or two to mask deficits relative to the field. To improve your game by multiple HCP categories, long game is even more critical.

Edited October 27, 2016 by natureboy

[RandallT]

49 tourneys. That's a fair amount of top 10 strokes gained tables! 

Interesting results- thanks for doing the legwork. I had forgotten about this post. Glad my eyeball was ballpark, but it was such a guess cuz some tourneys seemed to value putting, some tourneys other facets of the game. 

Within each leaderboard too, there was all kind of variation on the top players. I remember a big takeaway for me was that the variability was fascinating to see. 

[iacas]

Yes, of winners, putting contributes about 35%. We've been over this before… good ballstriking gets you into the top 20 or 30 so, and then a good week of putting gets you on the first page of the leaderboard.

Generally speaking.

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, RandallT said:

49 tourneys. That's a fair amount of top 10 strokes gained tables! 

Interesting results- thanks for doing the legwork. I had forgotten about this post. Glad my eyeball was ballpark, but it was such a guess cuz some tourneys seemed to value putting, some tourneys other facets of the game. 

Within each leaderboard too, there was all kind of variation on the top players. I remember a big takeaway for me was that the variability was fascinating to see. 

Sorry, typo. 39 tourneys. My info is average of each Top 10 average (short on time for what I was doing it for). I'll let you know if the player specific changes things.

Zurich Classic & RBC Heritage seemed to put a premium on putting, Wells Fargo on driving.

Edited October 28, 2016 by natureboy

[The Recreational Golfer]

Another way of looking at this is to get a copy of Dave Pelz's Putting Bible. He has a chart in there showing history's best ball-strikers and best putters. The ball-striking list has won many more major championships than the putting list. It's not even close.

For recreational golfers, a better short game will get you from 95 to 90, but to get to 80, you need a new swing.

 

[mvmac]

Just sharing a couple other tweets/responses to Broadie's post

[iacas]

37 minutes ago, mvmac said:

Just sharing a couple other tweets/responses to Broadie's post

When are people gonna get it? They're not the exceptions.

[mvmac]

7 hours ago, iacas said:

When are people gonna get it? They're not the exceptions.

Was thinking the same thing. I guess it's just tough to break what you originally were told was correct. 

Or maybe they just really want to avoid working on their full swings.

[boogielicious]

13 hours ago, iacas said:

When are people gonna get it? They're not the exceptions.

It's denial. Being great at approach shots is hard. Very hard. It takes being proficient at all five keys to become great. Short game shots are a bit easier and certainly easier on the body to practice. Short game shots don't take exceptional athletic ability either like driving 300+ or hitting your 8 iron 170 with only a small shot zone. So they get to thinking that short game is more important because they can do it as well as the very best. Plus when you 'save' par, you feel good about it.

[iacas]

8 hours ago, boogielicious said:

It's denial. Being great at approach shots is hard. Very hard. It takes being proficient at all five keys to become great. Short game shots are a bit easier and certainly easier on the body to practice. Short game shots don't take exceptional athletic ability either like driving 300+ or hitting your 8 iron 170 with only a small shot zone. So they get to thinking that short game is more important because they can do it as well as the very best. Plus when you 'save' par, you feel good about it.

The thing is, the proportions that they're off are pretty consistent. It's almost always pretty close to 25%, 40%, 20%, 15% (IIRC)… whether you're comparing a guy who shoots 110 to one who is on the PGA Tour or one who shoots 100. As a large enough group, those ratios are pretty consistent.

I do agree that the short game is easier to do, but most people are pretty bad at the short game, too, relatively speaking.

[iacas]

I'm hoping the ostrich is taken in the funny way in which I meant it.

Oh, the story is on Facebook here: 

I forgot Facebook now embeds, too.

[mvmac]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

 

Holy shit......I don't know what else to say. How can people be this dumb?

They basically think all the pros hit the ball about the same and what separates them is the putting. Do they ever watch golf on TV? LOL

[natureboy]

On 10/27/2016 at 10:50 PM, natureboy said:

Sorry, typo. 39 tourneys. My info is average of each Top 10 average (short on time for what I was doing it for). I'll let you know if the player specific changes things.

Zurich Classic & RBC Heritage seemed to put a premium on putting, Wells Fargo on driving.

 

On 10/27/2016 at 9:34 PM, RandallT said:

49 tourneys. That's a fair amount of top 10 strokes gained tables! 

Interesting results- thanks for doing the legwork. I had forgotten about this post. Glad my eyeball was ballpark, but it was such a guess cuz some tourneys seemed to value putting, some tourneys other facets of the game. 

Within each leaderboard too, there was all kind of variation on the top players. I remember a big takeaway for me was that the variability was fascinating to see. 

I finished the individual entries (~428 ~ top 10 finishers). Relative results were about the same.

However, the percent contributions were slightly lower overall, because by individual SG can be negative while the average of several players is usually going to be positive for the category. Percent contribution by category was highly variable around the means. The mean and standard deviation were pretty close in value across the categories.

I think to some extent what it reflects is that approach play and putting are the categories with more variance. So during the tournaments when a player is 'on' these facets of the game tend to be near their positive strokes gained extremes while the potential +/- SG for driving and short game is more limited in range (on average).

Edited November 16, 2016 by natureboy

[carpediem4300]

For me its all relative and completely dependant on each individual players gained.

If a player misses 75% of fairways and that results in strokes lost by not hitting/reaching the green, but single putts everything, the only place they can gain strokes is by hitting fairways

conversely if they hit every fIr/GIR but 3 putt everything, the only place they can gain strokes is in putting (or proximatey to hole on approach shots)

Giving weight to long shots v short shots v putting as a blanket for the game of golf or based on your relative handicap i dont think really covers just how intricate and hard this game is, 

In august Rory finally got some advice on his putting after leaving it ages and not putting well, after the advice he wins the irish open and fedex cup gaining strokes on the green,...its certainly not his long game that changed

[iacas]

4 hours ago, carpediem4300 said:

If a player misses 75% of fairways and that results in strokes lost by not hitting/reaching the green, but single putts everything, the only place they can gain strokes is by hitting fairways

conversely if they hit every fIr/GIR but 3 putt everything, the only place they can gain strokes is in putting (or proximatey to hole on approach shots)

Possibly.

I could hit almost every fairway if I just hit 6-iron off every tee.

I think you'll get where I'm going…