What should I work on the most?

[saevel25]

How can it be fabricated when short games shots are directly related to GIR's, if you don't have a GIR you have a short game shot. Unless your graeme mcdowell who's hitting over 93% of greens this year.

What i dont get is why you group anything with in 80 yards short game shots. Wouldn't it be more beneficial to break things down and know what your bad at. If you say your bad at short game, i have no clue what that means. Is it chipping, sand shots, pitch shots.. I would never put putting in short game, like i said, Putting is its own beast. The better you are the narrow the scope in which you have to look at your game. If he's constantly hitting chip shots then he should work on that the most, then work on other shots. Like i always work on my wedge distance since i hit alot of wedge to half wedges.

I don't Tiger goes out and says, I will work on short game today, I think he goes out and says, I will go work on chipping, flop shots, bunker shots. You got to know what to work on to work on it. Generalizations wont do anybody any good.

[johnthejoiner]

A wee tip for you about putting, its essential that you build yourself  a solid simple putting stroke, one you can remember and repeat without thinking.  Things to note  when practicing is how far  the ball is away from your feet, ball position in your stance from center, how much flex in you knees, how far down the shaft your gripping, try and remember everything  and when you've found something your comfortable with, practice it over and over again until its second nature

[wackyclubber]

thanks for all of your tips

[sean_miller]

That a missed green in regulation means a short game shot is required is exactly what I said already, so stop reiterating it for heaven's sake!

Forget about professional golfers for a moment (or longer). A high handicapper missing 18 greens in regulation likely has far more than 18 short game shots, not including putts. If you want to to further classify short game shots he messes up into flubbed flops, chili dipped chips, pathetic pitches, botched bump and runs, or whatever there's a very good chance he's thrown away at least as many shots around the green and on the green as he did off the tee and from his second shot on the fairway.

Originally Posted by saevel25

How can it be fabricated when short games shots are directly related to GIR's, if you don't have a GIR you have a short game shot. Unless your graeme mcdowell who's hitting over 93% of greens this year.

[riddenhard]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnthejoiner

If you took the top ten golfers in the world and gave them the original posters short game and putting, they wouldn't be playing golf professionally for much longer. If you gave the same top ten the  long game of the OP and combine it with their own short game and putting, they would still be making money on one of the pro tours

The OP needs to work on everything. What he needs to work on "first" and "most" may not be the same thing and are open to interpretation. Your analogy is stretching the truth. The former professional would in a hazard or OB more often than he'd be 290 down the middle. He'd be hitting fewer than < 20% greens in regulation.  He'd be living in a pipe somewhere.

This is true, the answer is to "work on everything". I have been advising him to try to fly every green and get every thing to the hole in order to quickly lower his score...we all want lower scores.

But I must admit I did not answer the original question, and the answer is everything......just try to eliminate as many mistakes as possible and ....practice, practice

[colin007]

Originally Posted by johnthejoiner

If you gave the same top ten the  long game of the OP and combine it with their own short game and putting, they would still be making money on one of the pro tours

thats not even close to being true.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by colin007

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnthejoiner

If you gave the same top ten the  long game of the OP and combine it with their own short game and putting, they would still be making money on one of the pro tours

thats not even close to being true.

That's not even close to true if by "pro tours" you meant your local sectional PGA events...

[riddenhard]

Originally Posted by iacas

Quote:

Originally Posted by colin007

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnthejoiner

If you gave the same top ten the  long game of the OP and combine it with their own short game and putting, they would still be making money on one of the pro tours

thats not even close to being true.

That's not even close to true if by "pro tours" you meant your local sectional PGA events...

while the quote streches the reality, great short games can erase many tee bal and second shot mistakes, and that was his point. Just look at the reality of why Tiger is no longer superman, when he was winning it was because he dropped impossible long putts, and never missed a short one. He chipped close or in. Even when he was winning he missed fairways but recovered. Now his magic short game is average and he can't cover his errors, just like us amateurs. The pro's the poster says would still make money would not save par from the lake or deep trees, but his point is well made, you can still score with a hot putter.

[saevel25]

Probably the best years of golf Tiger ever had, 2001-2002, when he had his tiger slam..

2001

GIR: 72%

Fairways: 67%
Distance: Tied 3rd

Putting: 29.25 #134

Scrambling: 70% #1

2010

GIR: 64.07%

Fairways: 57.21%
Distance: Tied 26th

Putting: 29.07

Scrambling: 54.30% #166

Yea his stats took a hit, except his putting was beeter in 2010, which is strange since he hit less fairways so you would think he would be further away from the hole and miss more putts. But yea, his scrambling just dive bombed. I think he's to caught up on his full swing to practice his short game like he use to. Its all the little things that are getting to him. I truely think his touch around the green was because of practice and not a superior sense of feel like some other players have. Makes him more human eh.

[Shanks A Million]

Originally Posted by johnthejoiner

If you took the top ten golfers in the world and gave them the original posters short game and putting, they wouldn't be playing golf professionally for much longer. If you gave the same top ten the  long game of the OP and combine it with their own short game and putting, they would still be making money on one of the pro tours

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?

Are you kidding me?  You think Tiger could score the way he does if he was putting for double bogey on every hole?  That's the reality, high handicappers have bad swings, period.  I too have seen many scratch golfers with ugly swings, but they are UGLY, not bad.  An ugly but on plane swing with a forward leaning shaft at impact is fine.

Too many people believe in the short game fantasy.  If you're taking 5 shots to reach a par 4, forget it, you have no chance.  When a tour pro misses the green, it's nearly always because their approach was off line.  They get it up and down because they're near the green.  When you're 200 yards out and you're hitting 3 on a par 4, you've got no chance.

I've got a better idea.  Go look at videos of tour pros, and find me a tour pro who's hands are behind the ball at impact.  I'll be waiting.

[Deryck Griffith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by riddenhard

while the quote streches the reality, great short games can erase many tee bal and second shot mistakes, and that was his point. Just look at the reality of why Tiger is no longer superman, when he was winning it was because he dropped impossible long putts, and never missed a short one. He chipped close or in. Even when he was winning he missed fairways but recovered. Now his magic short game is average and he can't cover his errors, just like us amateurs. The pro's the poster says would still make money would not save par from the lake or deep trees, but his point is well made, you can still score with a hot putter.

Considering that you are a 1 handicap, I am a little surpirsed at your post; specifically, your analysis of Tiger Woods in which you basically called him a poor ballstriker.  If that is what you really meant, then that might be the most lucrative thing I have heard on this forum and proves that you have a VERY short memory.  I agree that Tiger has obvious issues off of the tee and I also agree that he is a wizard at scrambling but I refuse to grossly disregard the MANY moments where he showed excellence in all aspects of ballstriking which caused him to dominate everyone on the PGA tour.

[Shanks A Million]

Originally Posted by Deryck Griffith

Considering that you are a 1 handicap, I am a little surpirsed at your post; specifically, your analysis of Tiger Woods in which you basically called him a poor ballstriker.  If that is what you really meant, then that might be the most lucrative thing I have heard on this forum and proves that you have a VERY short memory.  I agree that Tiger has obvious issues off of the tee and I also agree that he is a wizard at scrambling but I refuse to grossly disregard the MANY moments where he showed excellence in all aspects of ballstriking which caused him to dominate everyone on the PGA tour.

Saying Tiger is a bad ballstriker is simply silly.  That's like saying that Dominick Miller is a bad guitar player because he's not as good as Lee Ritenour.  Both are among the best on earth, but one is a little ahead of the other.

Here's perhaps a bold claim.  Tiger Woods is a better ballstriker than anyone on this forum.  He tears courses apart.  They had to invent the phrase "Tiger proofing" because of him.  Do you think a putter did that?  No way.  He was #1 in par 5 scoring for many years.  None of us could even DREAM of pulling off the types of crazy shots he does.  For the love of god, he's won 14 major championships.  A +13 handicap a bad ballstriker... That's, at best, laughable.

[Harmonious]

Certainly compared to us all, Tiger is a great player, no doubt.  But anyone who has followed his career should have noticed the incredible number of times he made par from the woods or the deep rough or the fairway bunkers.  A large percentage of these were by sinking that 10 footer for par.  Last year, we saw that those 10 footers were no longer "gimmes" for him. And really, up until today's round in Dubai (except for one round in San Diego) he has still had problems with putting and/or his short game.

I don't know where the +13 hdcp came from (I saw it once calculated at +9 at the most), but he's no longer there.  Maybe he should write in to the Sandtrap and ask for tips, or maybe some drills, to drop those last few strokes to get his hdcp back down the where it was before.

[zeg]

This is an instance where looking at the pros for evidence isn't helpful.  I feel pretty confident saying that every pro is probably better at every aspect of the game than 99.9% of the members of this forum.  Whether Tiger's putting or his ballstriking is "more better" than that of the average Tour pro's is irrelevant to someone struggling to break 100 from the white tees.

If you want to shave 5-10 strokes off your high-scoring game, I stand by my (and others') claims that putting and short game are the place to start.  In addition to the arguments before and independent of what is *ultimately* the most important, it's simply easier to improve those skills from n00bish to adequate than it is to make a major improvement in ballstriking.  Both are skills that a lot of new players never practice, so there's often a lot of quick payoff just waiting to be found.

[saevel25]

I would say putting, but also look at better ball striking. Its been proven that if your closer to the hole its easier to make a putt. So ball striking will decrease that distace, decrease short game attempts, and increase your likely hood of making more putts. Just my opinion

[Shanks A Million]

Handicap is almost universally related to ballstriking up to about scratch.  The difference between +2 and +5 is going to be more short game.  My local pro here played for a while with a guy who was ranked dead last on the PGA tour's putting stats for two years.  He said to call the guy a bad putter was ludicrous.  His putting was far and away better than his.  The difference?  One is about a +3, the other a +5.

The PGA tour represents the top 1% of 1% of 1% in the entire known universe.  We're splitting hairs comparing them.  The difference between the best and worst putters and ballstrikers on tour is infinitely small compared to us.  How often does a tour pro shank, duff, top, or severely mishit a ball?  Not often.  Maybe 1 in 10,000 shots?  These guys are like machines.  The reason they are pros is because of their ability to hit the ball so well.  The reason some of them win is their ability to sink putts.

[Unkynd]

Based on the advice in this thread, I went to the range today and had a 2 hour session.  I divided it 40% ball striking, 40% putting, and 20% chipping/pitching.

Does that sound good to everyone?

I'm going to play 9 holes tomorrow, and I'll try to keep good track of where my strokes are spent.

I'll track Fairways, GIRs, putts, penalty strokes, and total strokes.  Anything else I should track?

[zeg]

I'd personally count putts, maybe fairways hit, penalties, and "decent shots."  In the latter, I mean shots that aren't necessarily on target or the right distance, but are at least well-struck golf shots.  Hopefully this is the majority, so maybe it's easier to count the bad ones, but might as well keep it positive.  :-)

The fairways hit stat and GIR is really of limited value, IMO, until you are consistent enough that you're not just hitting them on flukes.  For you and me, it's probably better to know that we hit a tee shot cleanly rather than worrying about whether it was technically on the fairway.