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

[carpediem4300]

17 minutes ago, iacas said:

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…

nope, no idea at all 

[iacas]

[dennyjones]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I'd take that bet.    Let the tour player hit the long shots...yep... No question in my mind.  

[RandallT]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

In unrelated news, 55% of people have extremely poor capability of analytic thought.

[Shindig]

1 hour ago, dennyjones said:

I'd take that bet.    Let the tour player hit the long shots...yep... No question in my mind.  

I remember reading about this proposed experiment for the first time in... I want to say it was a Bob Rotella book.  I absolutely had it in my (delusional) mind that Stan Utley or someone would turn my third and fourth shots on a bunch of holes into pars and I'd only have to focus on keeping the ball in play.  Meanwhile I figured I wouldn't get Tiger's misses up and down nor would I make any birdie putts.  This convinced me that I needed to work on my short game and probably stagnated me for way too long.

[The Recreational Golfer]

Tom Kite said in his instruction book something like a better long game lowers high scores, but a better short game lowers low scores. That's my experience. I didn't go from 88-92 to the low 80s until my swing got better. From there I didn't start breaking 80 until my short game got better.

[iacas]

29 minutes ago, The Recreational Golfer said:

Tom Kite said in his instruction book something like a better long game lowers high scores, but a better short game lowers low scores. That's my experience. I didn't go from 88-92 to the low 80s until my swing got better. From there I didn't start breaking 80 until my short game got better.

Tom Kite is, for the most part, wrong.

When I shoot good scores, I don't use my short game very much. I hit greens, and I hit a few shots closer to the hole.

If you're using your short game much, you're not having a good day. You're missing greens. You're having to scramble for par.

Have you read LSW?

[Jack Watson]

Kites wrong unless talking about great striker vs great striker.  In that case best putter that day is likely to win.

For myself gir is the king stat.  

[dennyjones]

8 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

For myself gir is the king stat.

+1

[klineka]

12 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

For myself gir is the king stat.  

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%

[saevel25]

13 minutes ago, klineka said:

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 would be careful taking a small sample size like that. It is true, a bad short game for a round can skew the score. Over the long term, you'll see lower scores with higher GIR.

15 minutes ago, klineka said:

I shot an 80 with 33% GIR and an 80 with 56% GIR, then a 78 with only 33% GIR

Your 78 also came with 29 putts, which is nearly 5 strokes better than your average putts per round. I might call that an outlier round.

If you take the 5 rounds near your average of 81. You'll see that your putts per round go down as your GIR go down. You are making more putters, probably because you are closer to the hole due to hitting more short game shots.

If you are averaging 43% GIR, you should be scoring better than a 13 handicap. You should have a handicap in the single digits. Also, hitting 43% GIR, you are giving yourself opportunity to hit that many greens. So your tee shots should be pretty decent. Averaging 34 putts isn't particularly good. The two areas that are costing you strokes have to be either your putting, your short game, or your on course game planning.

 

 

[klineka]

5 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I would be careful taking a small sample size like that. It is true, a bad short game for a round can skew the score. Over the long term, you'll see lower scores with higher GIR.

Your 78 also came with 29 putts, which is nearly 5 strokes better than your average putts per round. I might call that an outlier round.

If you take the 5 rounds near your average of 81. You'll see that your putts per round go down as your GIR go down. You are making more putters, probably because you are closer to the hole due to hitting more short game shots.

If you are averaging 43% GIR, you should be scoring better than a 13 handicap. You should have a handicap in the single digits. Also, hitting 43% GIR, you are giving yourself opportunity to hit that many greens. So your tee shots should be pretty decent. Averaging 34 putts isn't particularly good. The two areas that are costing you strokes have to be either your putting, your short game, or your on course game planning.

 

 

Thanks for the insight, this season is the first season I have kept any stats other than just my score so it is good to hear some insight behind the numbers and what they could mean. 

I definitely agree that my short game was costing me a good amount of strokes. I have worked on that a good bit and have gotten a 60 degree wedge that has helped me out significantly, the most recent round I had there were 0 duffed chips, even managed to hole a chip for a birdie from just off the back of the green, so I think the short game is definitely going in the right direction. I can hit shots around the green with the 60 that I never would have even thought to attempt with my previous highest lofted wedge, a 56 degree.

I had always thought of myself as a decent putter, but seeing that 34 putt average isnt as good as I thought it was. I think I am pretty solid at 2 putting, I dont 3 putt all that frequent, but at the same time I rarely make putts outside of about 5-6 feet. I think spending time on the 6-10 foot putts will help me. I have now made that the goal for the rest of this season, to drop the average number of putts per round down to 32.

[RandallT]

1 hour ago, klineka said:

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)

Here's your data visualized. I think with the small data set, you can squint and say that generally more GIR is helping your score. Not always clear cut, but broadly the relationship is there, I think. If you plot more and more and more, you'll probably see a darker area emerge such that the higher the GIR, the lower the score. 

But your results certainly don't negate the idea, if that's what you were thinking.

[klineka]

3 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Here's your data visualized. I think with the small data set, you can squint and say that generally more GIR is helping your score. Not always clear cut, but broadly the relationship is there, I think. If you plot more and more and more, you'll probably see a darker area emerge such that the higher the GIR, the lower the score. 

But your results certainly don't negate the idea, if that's what you were thinking.

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.

[b101]

9 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Here's your data visualized. I think with the small data set, you can squint and say that generally more GIR is helping your score. Not always clear cut, but broadly the relationship is there, I think. If you plot more and more and more, you'll probably see a darker area emerge such that the higher the GIR, the lower the score. 

But your results certainly don't negate the idea, if that's what you were thinking.

@klineka - it would also help to know your nGIR (near Green in Regulation). Some of my really good rounds will include a fair number of nGIR as I may be more confident firing at certain flags where I think I can 'safely' short side myself. My bad rounds come when I'm not around the green in two. Get me greenside, but not necessarily on, in two for every hole and most days I'll break 80. 

Edit: Implied, but not maybe obvious - would you take just off the fringe at 6 foot or a 40 foot sloping putt? One is GIR, the other isn't. I know it's circumstantial and sometimes the 6 foot nGIR is impossible to get up and down, but it's worth realising that not all GIRs are equal.

Edited July 31, 2017 by b101

[DeadMan]

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.

[klineka]

2 minutes ago, b101 said:

@klineka - it would also help to know your nGIR (near Green in Regulation). Some of my really good rounds will include a fair number of nGIR as I may be more confident firing at certain flags where I think I can 'safely' short side myself. My bad rounds come when I'm not around the green in two. Get me greenside, but not necessarily on, in two for every hole and most days I'll break 80. 

What is considered nGIR? On the fringe, or is it like within 2 feet of the green, 4 feet, etc?

[b101]

5 minutes ago, klineka said:

What is considered nGIR? On the fringe, or is it like within 2 feet of the green, 4 feet, etc?

From LSW, which I thoroughly recommend you get, read and then re-read, nGIR is defined as "within the relatively safe areas around the green up to about 20 yards from the green. It does not include bunkers."