Professors Who Analyzed 1.6 Million Putts

[shankapotamus]

So where are all of the naysayers to decry this study? All everybody talks about when practice regimes come up is short game and how dang important it is. Yes, it's bad to 3 putt, so you don't want to not practice putting, after that, in my world at least, it's distance and accuracy with 5-8 iron, then distance and accuracy with "Mr Taylormade."

No. You can pick any pro from off of the tour and have him putt from twenty feet, I'll take any random guy off of the local muni putting five footers, and the random guy would have the advantage in my book.

[DaveLeeNC]

I have some data relevant to this conversation. I use my own "home-brewed" stats system (MS Access based) and this doesn't represent all the stats that I generate. But I have listed some of the ones that fit in this conversation.

First a couple of definitions.

Error at Par - how far you are from the pin after 1 stroke on a par 3, 2 on a par 4, and 3 on a par 5. This is independent of position (20 yards from the pin on the green or in a bunker - it is just 20 yards)

Net Putting - I have a table that defines how many strokes I think that I should average to hole out from every distance from 1' to 99'. 1' and 2' is 1.0 (I should make all my 1 and 2 footers). 3' is 1.1. 5' is 1.5 (I should make half my 5 footers - no 3 putts). 20' is 2.0. 50' is 2.25, etc. So two putting from 50' is 0.25 strokes "under par". 3 putting from 50' is 0.75 strokes "over par".

What I have is roughly 325 rounds in my database where my index varied between a low of 3.7 and a high of 7.5.

What I have done is to find the correlation coefficient between a bunch of parameters and the resulting score vs. par. A correlation of 1.0 means that the two parameters are perfectly correlated (if you know one you know the other). A correlation coefficient of 0 means that there is no correlation. I expressed all correlations as positive numbers just for convenience, even though some of the correlations are negative - for example the higher the GIR's the lower the Score Vs. Par.

All that said, here are the correlations of "Score Vs. Par" against ..

Number of Putts - .50
Net Putting - .56
Number of 3 putts - .37
Lag Putting Error - .22
Driving Distance - .21
GIR's - .59
Error at Par - .67
Fairways - .29
UpDowns - .43
Number of Birdies - .48
Birdie Opportunities - .47 (birdie putts of 15' or less)
Number of Double Bogeys or worse - .62

When I look at this data I come to the conclusion that it is all important. Driving distance and accuracy clearly being the least important of the measured parameters. The correlation with number of double bogeys was interesting as I only average 1.13 doubles per round in this data (I am a pretty steady golfer and gnerally play from the middle rather than back tees). Still interesting.

I would also conclude from this that the Net Putting measure that I use is somewhat better than number of putts. And the Error at Par measure is somewhat better than GIR's.

FWIW.

dave

[DaveLeeNC]

Interesting look at some critical stats of the game. Rings true...

FWIW, I have noticed in my own putting data that I putt short putts measureably better when they are second putts (typically a par putt for a pro) vs. first putts (typically a birdie putt for a pro). I assume that this is because I have additional information about speed and break on second putts.

I wonder how much this might affect the referenced data. dave

[uttexas]

Good stuff there Dave. Pelz uses a similar statistic error from target divided by distance of club. This was the basis of his short game bible that showed largest error with short irons.

I agree with the following.
Get as close as you can to the pin on par 5s with the second shot. Do not lay up to a comfortable distance. The only time I'll lay up these days to 110-125 (my comfortable distance) is if there are water hazards just in front of the green.

I disagree with the following:
Don't spend more time practicing your short game than full swing.
Practicing pitching, chipping, and 50%-75% shots not just improves your short game, but also your ball striking/swing path/and club release. Beating balls with the full swing typically does not improve your swing mechanics. Bottom line--the quickest way to better ball striking and GIR or (error from the pin) is to practice the short game. I define short game as <150 yards

Personal experience-I dropped from shooting 88-94 to 77-83 by practicing just putting and chipping for six months. I have now plateud, so in the process of my first full swing lessons

[iacas]

I disagree with the following:

Agreed. Geoff Ogilvy said in his Playing Lessons that he practices chipping and pitching when he's in a slump because it really forces you to strike down on the ball with a flat left wrist, etc. etc.

[Zeph]

I concur with the above. Chipping and full wedge swings demands you to hit the ball first and down on it. Makes it much easier to transfer those feelings to the other clubs.

[NotAStick]

I concur with the above. Chipping and full wedge swings demands you to hit the ball first and down on it. Makes it much easier to transfer those feelings to the other clubs.

I also agree. Warmups for me are always most successful when it's 50% wedge shots. I move around between my various wedges and it really grooves my contact.

Referencing the study, I notice that when I'm trying to get "up and down" (usually done for par), I make a concerted effort in thinking about "where I want to miss". that is... I would wager that more than 2/3 of my par putts are easier than average.. up-hill, soft break etc. My birdie putts from the same range are likely to be much more random as I'm not quite good enough with most approach shots to be planning to miss it 6-feet on the downhill side (like I often can do chipping). Wouldn't that strongly bias the results?

[TheNatural]

well for me its driving distance hands down. You cant get a GIR lying 1 from the ladies tee, but pitching from 50-75 yards on a par 4 is fairly easy. Its feast or famine with a driver.

[RC]

For me it begins with the driver, then long and mid irons. If those are going well, it will be a good day. Scoring irons and putting are usually going to be within a stroke or two of the same, day after day, so if accurate length is there, it allow attack mode.

So my ranking of golf skills:

1. Knowing how to play your way around a course
2. Distance off the tee in the fairway
3. Chipping and putting
4. Long, middle and short irons, in that order.

I feel a lot more confident standing over a Sand Wedge from 100 yards, or closer, than beyond 150 yards out. The closer, the better, even on flops.

[HytrewQasdfg]

"Drive for show, putt for dough" - let's put this old chestnut to bed, once and for all. For everyone except a tour pro, driving and approach shots are where most gains can be made.

I don't have to read any farther (or is it further) into the thread to know you have just opened a huge can of worms.

IMHO, the most important part of any hole is hitting a good tee shot. No, I don't mean distance, but hitting the fairway. It doesn't matter how good your short game/putting is if you continually put your tee shot into the woods (or worse.)

[Zeph]

Distance is a good point if you play out of the rough well and your misses are not into woods and waters. Many pros take the risk of finding the rough because they can hit it out of it just as easy as the fairway. For an average golfer, it's better to find the short grass and maybe put a hybrid in the bag to be able to hit longer shots to the green.

[shortstop20]

I disagree with the following:

I would agree with that. A large majority of my range time is spent hitting shots less than 150 yards. Hitting to flagsticks and yardage markers, Between yardage markers

[DavidFehertysBike]

I disagree with the general asumptions of that study. The game of golf is played 50 yards and out from the green, IMO. Putting and short game can mask poor ballstriking and lack of lenth, the reverse cant be said.

[zeg]

This is a scatter plot of the data Iacas posted earlier, showing the clear trend of decreasing differential with increasing GIR %. The red line is a best fit line. If you convert from GIR % to number of greens hit, it shows that his differential improved by 0.42 strokes per green hit (on average).

[plop]

Interesting look at some critical stats of the game. Rings true...

I found this paper very interesting. Does anybody know where to obtain the data they used? The paper just says that the data source is PGA. Does PGA have a public database?

BTW. is there any economist or OR guy around?

[zeg]

By the way, I just eyeballed Iacas' data, so there may be some errors there, but the trend seems pretty obvious anyway. Also, thanks for relocating the attachment, Iacas. Sorry about that...

[mruseless]

I have some data relevant to this conversation. I use my own "home-brewed" stats system (MS Access based) and this doesn't represent all the stats that I generate. But I have listed some of the ones that fit in this conversation.

Wow Dave, and I thought I was a golf nerd! (I say that affectionately!)

Good stuff!

[pittpanther]

I don't have to read any farther (or is it further) into the thread to know you have just opened a huge can of worms.

As Tiger showed us today... Low fairway % and low GIR meant Tiger spent all day today "scrambling" to make par, and could not make up any ground on the leaders. You can't count on a constant stream of miracle chips and 40-foot putts, to keep your scores low.

I am amazed at the number of responses in this thread that just flat out said "I disagree." The paper made a simple statement about the improvement the average golfer would get if a Pro took their shots above 100 yards, or inside 100. I know if I had to make the choice, I would rather have Tiger driving and hitting approach shots, than pitching, chipping, and putting. His long drives, and more accurate approach shots, would make a much larger difference in my final score.