Stop generalizing about people based on their handicap.

[nevets88]

Another visualization I try to use is when CBS shows you the close up of impact on an iron shot. You see the leading edge contact the equator or higher part of the ball first and the clubhead "drives" through the ball, then hits the ground. If I only saw that when I first started playing.

[CarlSpackler]

My advice to the higher HCs is to listen to the lower HCs and not take things personally. I thought my posture and swing was fundamentally sound until I went for a video lesson back in May. That session was a serious wake up call since I saw that I was very upright and swinging very flat. My point is, I didn't take it personally and have been working on correcting these issues and am striking the ball much better now. For the higher HCs, there is a good chance that a lower HC player has been through what you are going through now and have conquered it.

[Tomboys]

Golf is one of many things in life that often have people who are lying to themselves. I'm not saying you - just making another generalization. A lot of the times you'll find a bogey golfer who hits three good shots a round say "that's the golfer I am - why can't I do that more often?" when in reality those three shots are the anomalies - like the good player's bad shots - and not indicative of anything but luck or something. The better the player is, the more likely he is to be well aware of his deficiencies and to think they're worse than they are. The worse the player is - in general - the more likely they are to think they're really close to seeing a massive improvement in their game and that they're really much better than they are....

A lot of truth here. I'm a recovering flipper and with the help of my instructor and forums such as this one, I'm learning the truth about the state of my game. For instance, yesterday I played a 517 yard par 5. Hit a 287 yard drive and a 230 yard 3 wood to the green. From there, two putted for birdie. The score (for that hole at least) suggested that I'm way better than I really am. First off, I caught my driver a little low with a draw. So, since the fairway was firm and fast, I probably carried it 215 -220 at most. The rest was just run. The second shot I caught a little heavy, but it took a nice bounce and ended up middle of the green. I had about a 20 footer for eagle and pooched the first putt leaving myself a 6 footer for birdie. The only good shot of that hole was the 6 footer I drained for birdie (the contact was solid and I hit it exactly with the speed and line that I envisioned).

So, with my previous mindset, I would've said to myself that I just need to play like that all the time and I will end up becoming a single-digit handicap player soon--in fact, that's exactly what my playing partners were saying to me. Well, now, with more knowledge, I know that I just had 2 lucky shots, a bad shot, and a good shot. While my playing partners are high-5ing me for the birdie, the only thing that I felt--aside from relief, was that I had better get to the range soon to do some more contact (flying wedge) and putting drills.

[iacas]

A lot of truth here. I'm a recovering flipper and with the help of my instructor and forums such as this one, I'm learning the truth about the state of my game. For instance, yesterday I played a 517 yard par 5. Hit a 287 yard drive and a 230 yard 3 wood to the green. From there, two putted for birdie. The score (for that hole at least) suggested that I'm way better than I really am. First off, I caught my driver a little low with a draw. So, since the fairway was firm and fast, I probably carried it 215 -220 at most. The rest was just run. The second shot I caught a little heavy, but it took a nice bounce and ended up middle of the green. I had about a 20 footer for eagle and pooched the first putt leaving myself a 6 footer for birdie. The only good shot of that hole was the 6 footer I drained for birdie (the contact was solid and I hit it exactly with the speed and line that I envisioned).

Good post. The people who are most honest with themselves will be the golfers who will be the least frustrated (because they don't have grand delusions about how good they are) and they'll be the most likely candidates to improve.

And FWIW, I'm incredibly hard on myself. I can tell you six things that I do poorly, but in the end I can still scrape the ball around the course in par most of the time. And my flaws are "I'm an inch off here, or six degrees inside here, or another inch off here" or something. They're small, and I notice them because I'm at that level where I need to notice them to get that much better... but at the same time I have to remind myself that I've put in some good work and I'm really pretty decent, and there's a difference between "looking at flaws to get better" and "just being negative." I never want to be the second. In the end, everyone needs to remember it's an incredibly difficult game. I like to remind myself of this... if you took an alien or a person who'd never even heard of or seen "golf" and you gave them a bunch of screwed up looking sticks, a ball, and told them "there's a hole barely four inches across 450 yards away, and you've gotta get this ball to fall into it with these screwy looking sticks" and then asked them to guess how many it'd take, they'd probably guess 30 or 50 or something. We get pissed if we don't do it in 4 or 5. Or 3. So in the end, EVERYONE is pretty good at golf... if you think about it that way.

[Chas]

Indeed, why would it NOT make sense to show handicap? It's an important piece of information about someone's game (if given honestly), and nothing to get defensive about. It is what it is - hopefully it's at least trending down ......

As Erik says, the best correlate (predictor, if you like ...) of the quality of someone's game is the nature of the divot in relation to where the ball was lying. My divots tend to start just before the ball, hence I still hit too many thick or thin shots. When I really get it right and hit ball then turf (with head in good position, not having drifted in front of the ball), with a nice longish divot BEYOND the ball (i.e. nearer the target), I've usually hit one of my best shots. Good trajectory, spin, control - aaaah.

Show me a man's divot and I can predict his HI +/- 5% (95% confidence interval 3.5% to 8.7%). Or to use Erik's methodology, R-squared = 0.75. I like to watch the pros on the range at Torrey before they start their rounds. The consistency and quality of their divots is a marvelous, truly amazing thing to behold. I watched Cink hit about 8 balls lined up close together once, one after the other, same club. Each divot was essentially identical, starting just after the ball was struck and of equal length/angle. Every ball had essentially the same trajectory. After he did that he must have known he was ready to boogy ....

[plop]

Indeed, why would it NOT make sense to show handicap? It's an important piece of information about someone's game (if given honestly), and nothing to get defensive about. It is what it is - hopefully it's at least trending down ......

That's a big IF. Given that people are skeptic about handicap shown here, it's just like a lemon market. With an assumption that it's biased downward (not follow the rules strictly, delusion or whatever), it however serves as a nice lower bound.

As Erik says, the best correlate (predictor, if you like ...) of the quality of someone's game is the nature of the divot in relation to where the ball was lying. My divots tend to start just before the ball, hence I still hit too many thick or thin shots. When I really get it right and hit ball then turf (with head in good position, not having drifted in front of the ball), with a nice longish divot BEYOND the ball (i.e. nearer the target), I've usually hit one of my best shots. Good trajectory, spin, control - aaaah.

Do you actually have data and run some regressions? If so, could you give me to the data source or the article about this estimation? I would like to do some econometrics as well. I suspect there are tons of endogeneities so that R-square means nothing but I might be wrong.

[Shanks A Million]

I like to judge myself by my worst shots, not my best. When I go to the range, and just can't catch it solid to save my life, those are the days that I pay attention to. It used to be, on those days, it would be duffs, shanks, etc. Now, it's 20 yards left or right, and maybe 20 yards short at most on bad shots with a shorter iron. There still are the occasional duffs and shanks, but they're pretty rare. Even my really bad drives go about 220 yards, and reasonably straight (albiet, not in the fairway straight, but not in the next zip code straight).

[Stretch]

Do you actually have data and run some regressions? If so, could you give me to the data source or the article about this estimation? I would like to do some econometrics as well. I suspect there are tons of endogeneities so that R-square means nothing but I might be wrong.

Sorry, you'll have to get your own research grant.

[Shanks A Million]

How about this? I'm pretty sure iacas is right, so I want to play a little game to prove it.

I would be willing to bet that if we put up videos of our swings (we can start a thread even, like "swing vs handicap"), and I'll bet they would almost universally be fairly accurate to handicap.

For example, I know my swing bottoms out a little ahead of the ball, maybe a few inches or so at best. I flip more than I should, that's for sure. I have a chicken wing, which is seriously bugging me. I have all the hallmarks that say "high single digit." My swing could probably be stretched from a 5 to a 15 handicap or so, depending on age and physical condition.





Now, (and this will be fun...) When I was a, say, a 20 handicap? What did my positions look like? I happened to have kept a meticulous record of my swings dating back for several years:





Now, do you see the difference? Instructors know what to look for, and they can usually guess within a few strokes of someone's handicap. Now, some of you may ask well, what about short game, course management, etc? Well, those don't mean much if you can't even get the ball to the green, or have no choice but a pitch out.

Even so, the confidence of a good swing means a lot to course management. Short game is also highly dependent on a good swing. If you flip in the full swing, odds are you flip on the shorter ones. For these reasons, I'm led to believe that the single, most important thing in all of golf is a solid move through impact. I don't believe there is a tour pro without it, and a high handicap with it.

I'd like to see. We can make a new thread, we can post it here. Let's take a look, and besides, it could be fun.

[Lefty-Golfer]

good post Shanks...the swing changes are certainly dramatic. I wish I had those of my swing. The guys i play with tell me it has changed a tremendous amount but i have no frame of reference for it.

[ghalfaire]

I have read several articles in various publications stating that studies show many double digit handicap golfers are that way because of what I call train wrecks. They have 14-16 holes of decent scores, not worst than bogie, but 2-4 disasters (double and worst) in their typical round. These articles imply if these golfers, of which I'm one, would handle the mental game or course management differently and not make bad shots worst by selecting very difficult recovery shots that they could shave 3-6 strokes off their handicaps. I guess the only way to determine if you are in this group is to keep some statistics on your game. How many birdies, pars, bogies and others do you typically have in a round? So if your typical round is pretty much devoid of pars then probably that is one kind of problem, but if you find you have 35-50% pars/birdies and maybe the same percentages of bogies and the rest of the holes are double or worst that is another kind of problem. So, again, I encourage all golfers that want to improve to keep track of just where in their rounds they are "leaking" stokes. While most generalizations of high handicap golfers are accurate as a group average, e.g. the math is done correctly and there is some probably you fit the "average profile", it is also possible these averages may not have any relation to where you personally are losing stokes in a typical round.

[bplewis24]

Shanks, I'm down to post my swing video in that thread. I'll get to the range today before my round and take some video.

ghalfaire, that would apply to my last round. I couldn't get in a full 18 holes (I got in about 14), so I'll only talk about the front 9.

Couldn't get up and down from a relatively easy spot, so ended up with bogey. GIR on next 3 holes, bogie (3-putt), par and one birdie. Couldn't get up and down on the next hole, bogey. Up and down successfully on the 6th hole for par. GIR on 7th hole, for par.

Now, I'm hitting the ball well in terms of fairways and greens at this point, and on pace for my best ever 9-hole round. On the 8th tee I hit it just a bit right of the fairway, unfortunately directly behind a tree. Have to punch out and sort of shank it, so it's not back in the fairway, but I now have a clear shot at the green. Next shot chunky, 10 feet short of the hole. Bad chip leads to a 3-putt, and I just went from 2-over through 7 holes to 5-over. And this was on one of the easiest par 4s on the course. Ugh.

Par the next hole (missed a 10-foot birdie putt after probably the best iron shot of the day) for a +5 on the front. Now, this is some of the best golf I've played in a while, as evidenced by the fact I recovered from the triple-bogey to go +1 over the next 3 holes on the back 9. However, I still had that 1 blowup hole (and likely would have had another one on the back 9) that puts my overall score at just about what my handicap is. +10 for 18 holes and my handicap is +13.

Brandon

[sean_miller]

I have read several articles in various publications stating that studies show many double digit handicap golfers are that way because of what I call train wrecks. They have 14-16 holes of decent scores, not worst than bogie, but 2-4 disasters (double and worst) in their typical round.

Turning my triples into doubles helped me get to a 15.0. Making more pars got me to a 10.0. Turning my remaining double bogeys into bogeys helped me get from a 10.0 to single digits.

[kafka01]

I have read several articles in various publications stating that studies show many double digit handicap golfers are that way because of what I call train wrecks.

We in Germany mostly play stableford, which pretty much filters out these trainwreck holes. In our handicap distribution there are 20x more double digit hcps than single hcps. And if you look at USGA distribution charts, its a bit better, but not by that much.

So, just throwing out 1-2 trainwreck holes doesnt make you a single hcp.

[James_Black]

We in Germany mostly play stableford, which pretty much filters out these trainwreck holes. In our handicap distribution there are 20x more double digit hcps than single hcps. And if you look at USGA distribution charts, its a bit better, but not by that much.

we use that system in ireland as well.

[kafka01]

we use that system in ireland as well.

Ireland doesnt count - you guys are born with golfclubs out of your b.... so you have to have a better ratio than 20:1...

[James_Black]

Ireland doesnt count - you guys are born with golfclubs out of your b.... so you have to have a better ratio than 20:1...

I'll take that as a compliment lol.

[mjtoal]

It seems like in almost every thread here you will find someone talking down about another based on their handicap or making some sweeping generalization about them. "You're a xxx handicap so there's no way you do this, you probably can't do that, it's not possible that you don't/do..."

Typical mid-high handicapper complaining about people generalising.