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

[Phil McGleno]

I know a 9 handicapper that could outputt DJ just about any day of the week-Guy is just deadly.-He would have helped DJ win by ten or eleven.

He is a 9 because he takes about four penalty strokes per round-Which is rare for a guy playing the forward tees who is 62.

Oh and it is not like he is the best putter I know.-He is just good for the scores he shoots.

Edit: Just saw the chart there.-Yeah Eddie could out-putt that by a few strokes. And DJ was lucky to make that ten-foot come back putt.

Edited January 12, 2018 by Phil McGleno
saw chart of round

[MuniGrit]

2 hours ago, kpaulhus said:

Assumptions all over the place. I do not 3 putt very often, and yes, I’ve played on plenty fast greens. Like @iacas says, the most important aspect of a tour players game is his long game. Even I could make the 4” eagle putt he almost made for a 1. He holes out for eagle. No putter needed. Long game > putting every day of the week. 

I agree. Those greens aren't the easiest to putt and iacas who loves stats said DJ putted bad yet he was 6th in the field last week in SG. As I said a many posts ago, you won't change my mind and we will never see the experiment. I'm not arguing that putting is a larger margin than ballstriking from touring pros & single digit handicap players. I know ballstriking is king. I also know the difference between what many call a poor putter on tour and an 8 handicap is larger than people realize. Throw in the pressure of TV, crowds and millions of dollars and it would be even bigger.

Edited January 12, 2018 by MuniGrit

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, MuniGrit said:

I agree. Those greens aren't the easiest to putt and iacas who loves stats said DJ putted bad yet he was 6th in the field last week in SG.

False. Never said that. You're seeing what you want to see or something, man.

12 minutes ago, MuniGrit said:

As I said a many posts ago, you won't change my mind and we will never see the experiment.

I acknowledged that:

1 hour ago, iacas said:

And no, I don't expect you'll be convinced even in the slightest. I'm posting this here so others with open minds can see, and learn.

Anyway…

12 minutes ago, MuniGrit said:

I also know the difference between what many call a poor putter on tour and an 8 handicap is larger than people realize.

@MuniGrit, this is where you are wrong. Putting is not a difficult skill. For all we know, the 200 best putters in the world don't include a single PGA Tour player. In fact, I could easily make the case that it's not only possible, but likely.

So, with all due respect, just stop posting about this topic. You're close-minded and are not going to be convinced. You've said as much, and we're not trying to convince you, as I said up above.

13 minutes ago, MuniGrit said:

Throw in the pressure of TV, crowds and millions of dollars and it would be even bigger.

Millions of people perform under pressure every day of their lives.

[GolfLug]

21 minutes ago, MuniGrit said:

Throw in the pressure of TV, crowds and millions of dollars and it would be even bigger.

...and given the same pressure, as an 8 HCP, I think I would be lucky to make contact with the ball on the first tee. That difference would be even more bigger. No? 

Putting purely as a skill differentiates less than ball striking as a skill. Much less. 

I think I can 2 putt tour greens from let's say 50 feet about 40-50% of the time and I am a very mediocre putter by Sunday afternoon league standards. Ball striking OTOH, well, one or two GIRs (10-15%) on a tour course would be a credible accomplishment for me. 

[MuniGrit]

1 hour ago, GolfLug said:

...and given the same pressure, as an 8 HCP, I think I would be lucky to make contact with the ball on the first tee. That difference would be even more bigger. No? 

Putting purely as a skill differentiates less than ball striking as a skill. Much less. 

I think I can 2 putt tour greens from let's say 50 feet about 40-50% of the time and I am a very mediocre putter by Sunday afternoon league standards. Ball striking OTOH, well, one or two GIRs (10-15%) on a tour course would be a credible accomplishment for me. 

Not arguing ballstriking vs putting.

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

Millions of people perform under pressure every day of their lives.

Which has nothing to do with how they play golf on the course.

[iacas]

Right, as I suspected, no acknowledgement of the flat out lie from the previous post, and just more close-minded rhetoric.

Just stop posting. You're not at all open minded on this. You think what you think and nobody's going to change your mind. That's fine, no judgment here - it's just golf. But stop posting on this topic, because it's going nowhere. You're not willing to see it.

[dennyjones]

39 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

...and given the same pressure, as an 8 HCP, I think I would be lucky to make contact with the ball on the first tee. That difference would be even more bigger. No? 

Putting purely as a skill differentiates less than ball striking as a skill. Much less. 

I think I can 2 putt tour greens from let's say 50 feet about 40-50% of the time and I am a very mediocre putter by Sunday afternoon league standards. Ball striking OTOH, well, one or two GIRs (10-15%) on a tour course would be a credible accomplishment for me. 

For your viewing pleasure....

[NM Golf]

Man I play a ton of golf with guys in the 6-10 handicap category. Most if not all are just as good or better putters than I am. The difference in our game is the long game. Most struggle to hit drives 225 yards so they have long irons and hybrids into greens when I have wedges. On the greens there is literally no difference in our skill levels. 

I can think of 5 guys off the top of my head in the 8 handicap range that could have putted DJ to a win.

Edited January 13, 2018 by NM Golf

[kpaulhus]

Pga tour playoff. Best players in the world. Absolutely awful putting. 

[mvmac]

Inside Tiger’s Farmers wins:

In ‘06 his av. approach shot @ Farmers was from 170 yards
That year he was the best by 3’10” from that distance on tour

‘07 av appr. 171, that year he was 2nd from that distance

‘08 av appr 171,he was the best by 3’10” from that distance pic.twitter.com/8DYlirPXDD

— Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) January 12, 2018

[iacas]

13 minutes ago, mvmac said:

Off topic for this thread but I suggest you check this out.

Right. It's highly unlikely your putting costs you six to eight strokes per round.

[Nutsmacker]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Right. It's highly unlikely your putting costs you six to eight strokes per round.

It sure seems like it sometimes.  I am definitely a 3 putt person...I can count the times I have not 3 putted in a round on one hand.  I also have 4 putts many times.  I am usually getting on in regulation most of the time...but the mindset when I get on a green is to get par, not birdie...and quite often I walk off with bogey.  When I am 2 putting and making the occasional birdie is when the good rounds come in.  I have no problem with the way I play from a full swing and I am not even interested in getting help with that part of my game.  But I have never really studied or tried to get a consistent putting stroke and am not really sure what I am doing when it comes to putting.  I read your post on the acceleration during the stroke and I don't even know how to quantify it...but I know I am probably accelerating through the ball because my control is awful.  -  And this is off topic.  sorry.  

[klineka]

35 minutes ago, Nutsmacker said:

I also have 4 putts many times.  I am usually getting on in regulation most of the time... 

Words like "many" and "most" are so arbitrary its hard to define if you really are bad at putting or not. One person could read most of the time and think "55% of the time" and another person could read most of the time as "80% of the time" I highly recommend keeping track of your stats throughout your round, even just the number of putts you do on each hole and a simply checkmark if you got GIR or not can be very valuable in assessing weaknesses in your game.

Things like putts per round and GIR % are easy to define and can be quantified in numbers and percentages. Its much more difficult to assign percentages or a number to how much of the game is mental vs physical, which I think is why there are so many different opinions where one person thinks its 20 mental and 80 physical and another person thinks its 40 mental and 60 physical.

[mvmac]

Moved the recent posts from the mental game thread here.

1 hour ago, Nutsmacker said:

It sure seems like it sometimes.  I am definitely a 3 putt person...I can count the times I have not 3 putted in a round on one hand.  I also have 4 putts many times.  I am usually getting on in regulation most of the time...but the mindset when I get on a green is to get par, not birdie...and quite often I walk off with bogey.  When I am 2 putting and making the occasional birdie is when the good rounds come in.  I have no problem with the way I play from a full swing and I am not even interested in getting help with that part of my game.  But I have never really studied or tried to get a consistent putting stroke and am not really sure what I am doing when it comes to putting. 

So you're hitting around 13 greens a round and shooting about 80?

17 minutes ago, klineka said:

Words like "many" and "most" are so arbitrary its hard to define if you really are bad at putting or not. One person could read most of the time and think "55% of the time" and another person could read most of the time as "80% of the time"

Right.

[iacas]

36 minutes ago, mvmac said:

So you're hitting around 13 greens a round and shooting about 80?

And if you are, uhhhh, #GlaringWeakness.

Fix that.

[Nutsmacker]

2 hours ago, mvmac said:

So you're hitting around 13 greens a round and shooting about 80?

I would say that is about right.  My average according to myscorecard.com is 80.7.  

3 hours ago, klineka said:

Words like "many" and "most" are so arbitrary its hard to define if you really are bad at putting or not. One person could read most of the time and think "55% of the time" and another person could read most of the time as "80% of the time" I highly recommend keeping track of your stats throughout your round, even just the number of putts you do on each hole and a simply checkmark if you got GIR or not can be very valuable in assessing weaknesses in your game.

Yea, I know.  I try to keep stats.  Its hard for me to stick to it though.  The data I have collected is sparse.  I might keep a full round of data on my phone app a few times...and when I finish a round I try to load in all of the shots from memory when I get home.  From the limited data that I have, I am hitting 68 percent of fairways and am at 74% greens in regulation.  My average putting is 2.1 putts per hole.  But there is only about 18 rounds of data for those stats and I played 68 rounds last year.  I am relatively new at keeping a handicap, logging statistics, etc.  My lady got me the arrcos thingie...but to be honest, I have never really gotten it to work right and I find it to be a pain while I am trying to focus on my round.  I have been playing golf on/off for the last 13 years but only started keeping a handicap in 2016.  When I started keeping the handicap I started out at around a 9.5 and have gotten it down to a 6.4...but that will jump back up once I can start loading scores again as the last official round I played I shot an under par round for the first time in my life...that got me from like a 7.1 down to what it is today.  I would say that I should be in between a 7-8.  My better rounds tend to be in tournaments and I think are weighted on the handicap system I use.  Edit- looking at what my handicap site says...it says my biggest weakness is long irons...but I am also way above the average on putting in comparison to other similar handicaps and my putting average is more in line with a 25 handicap.  My GIR is in 93rd percentile and Fairways is 85th percentile while my putting is in the 4th percentile in comparison to other 6 handicaps.  So, my putting is atrocious.  hahaha.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Nutsmacker

[cutchemist42]

As someone who didnt watch golf during the 90s/2000s, where was Tiger gaining his strokes against the field?

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, cutchemist42 said:

As someone who didnt watch golf during the 90s/2000s, where was Tiger gaining his strokes against the field?

The full swing.

Pretty big stuff there.