Why have I always been told to work most on my short game?

[The Recreational Golfer]

Originally Posted by x129

To be clear, you should say "to explain a PGA player scoring", GIR isn't important.  The PGA guys are all in a  pretty narrow range of ability (something like +4 to +8). The top guys will be just over 70% (~12.5 greens)   GIR and the bottom guys are down at 60% (~11).

First of all, I did say that. I said there is no correlation in this data set, which I took from the PGA tour. The statement I tested came right on the heels of a statement about PGA players.

If there is a correlation between GIR and scoring in the amateur game, let's see the data that shows it. I'm not saying there is or isn't a correlation. Just, let's see the data.

[LongballGer]

Your average hacker doesn´t miss greens because he is afraid of bunkers or missing the green, he misses greens because he has a crappy technique/lacks distance.

The GIR stat is a little misleading IMO. Guy A barely misses the green and has a 5 footer from the fringe for birdie while guy B hits the green, but has a 50 foot downhill birdie putt with double break ahead of him. According to the GIR stat B is a better ballstriker then A which is BS.

Having said that, the long game IS the most important thing for scoring and consistency.

The guys that win on the PGA Tour are the ones who hit it the closest and drain the birdie putts. They don´t win because they hit 5 GIR and chip in 8 times.

[LfSideStrngSide]

Originally Posted by LongballGer

Your average hacker doesn´t miss greens because he is afraid of bunkers or missing the green, he misses greens because he has a crappy technique/lacks distance.

The GIR stat is a little misleading IMO. Guy A barely misses the green and has a 5 footer from the fringe for birdie while guy B hits the green, but has a 50 foot downhill birdie putt with double break ahead of him. According to the GIR stat B is a better ballstriker then A which is BS.

Having said that, the long game IS the most important thing for scoring and consistency.

The guys that win on the PGA Tour are the ones who hit it the closest and drain the birdie putts. They don´t win because they hit 5 GIR and chip in 8 times.

Have not read this entire thread but I will tend to disagree with this statement. It doesn't matter how many birdies you make in a round if you can't get up and down for par when you don't hit the green. Being a great short game player doesn't ask you to chip in 8 times a round. It means you can save strokes that could be costly if you don't get up and down. Look at tour events and the winner's scores. Most of the time they only win by a few, if not one or even a playoff, strokes. The best players get up and down usually 2/3 times when they missed the green. There is your margin right there

[LongballGer]

Tour average for scrambling is 56.71%.

The winners on tour usually average 14+ greens per round in a tournament when they win.

Of course you can lose strokes if you can´t scramble.

However on tour you don´t win by making pars. You have to make birdies. You can only do that when you hit it close and hit a lot of greens. If scrambling was the most important thing for scoring Mickelson would have won the US Open instead of Rory.

[LfSideStrngSide]

Yeah I see what you are saying. I guess I misinterpreted your first statement. My philosophy is just that if you can't scramble you will shoot 70 instead of 67-68 you know?

[ochmude]

Originally Posted by LfSideStrngSide

Have not read this entire thread but I will tend to disagree with this statement. It doesn't matter how many birdies you make in a round if you can't get up and down for par when you don't hit the green. Being a great short game player doesn't ask you to chip in 8 times a round. It means you can save strokes that could be costly if you don't get up and down. Look at tour events and the winner's scores. Most of the time they only win by a few, if not one or even a playoff, strokes. The best players get up and down usually 2/3 times when they missed the green. There is your margin right there

And it doesn't matter how many times you get up and down if it's always to save double bogey.

[max power]

Obviously-just like you'll shoot 100 instead of 97 or 98.  But this thread isn't about shaving 1-3 strokes off of a scratch golfer's round-it's about what the vast majority of golfers should focus on to improve their game the most.

Originally Posted by LfSideStrngSide

Yeah I see what you are saying. I guess I misinterpreted your first statement. My philosophy is just that if you can't scramble you will shoot 70 instead of 67-68 you know?

[LfSideStrngSide]

I was just responding to the comment from longball about the pga tour guys

Originally Posted by max power

Obviously-just like you'll shoot 100 instead of 97 or 98.  But this thread isn't about shaving 1-3 strokes off of a scratch golfer's round-it's about what the vast majority of golfers should focus on to improve their game the most.

[Paradox]

Its a fairly simple concept..if you can hit more GIR, you chip less.  I can't understand why there are 11 pages on this, haha.  The weekend golfer who can't develop a long game swing to hit several GIR is also just as unlikely to develop a short game that gives him tap-ins or hole outs every time.

The weekend golfer who is proficient with his long game is not gonna have some ridiculous proximity to the hole when he hits a green.  The chances of making par by hitting two putts is greater than hitting a great chip and a putt.

[Shindig]

Its a fairly simple concept..if you can hit more GIR, you chip less.  I can't understand why there are 11 pages on this, haha.  The weekend golfer who can't develop a long game swing to hit several GIR is also just as unlikely to develop a short game that gives him tap-ins or hole outs every time.

The weekend golfer who is proficient with his long game is not gonna have some ridiculous proximity to the hole when he hits a green.  The chances of making par by hitting two putts is greater than hitting a great chip and a putt.

There's more to it: when you have a good long game, you're chipping from easier spots more often. Some swing changes I've been working on for about half a year finally clicked in recently, and while I'm "only" hitting another green or two a round beyond the past, I'm chipping more from fairway or putting from the fringe. I've barely been in bunkers or heavy rough green-side. My good drives are going a little bit further and my bad drives are getting better. Anyone watching me the past few rounds would have left with the impression that I was a good chipper, seeing as how many short putts I left myself (not always for par, particularly on my bad holes). It's not so much that I'm a good chipper as much as I'm good at easy chips.

[McKee]

Originally Posted by ochmude

You lost me.  Okay, just to make sure I'm understanding you, you're saying that if I'm not afraid to miss greens I'll hit them more often.  Is that correct?

Take an island green for example.  The fact that you cannot miss the green without going in a water hazard puts extra stress on the shot.  Therefore it makes it a more difficult shot.  Same thing goes if you don't have confidence in your short game.  Not being able to get up and down adds strokes to your game just as hazards do.  You may not be conscious of it when your about to hit your approach shot but the stress of missing the green is there.  Not being confident in your ability to get up and down makes the approach shot more difficult.

The pros may not have to chip very often but they still need to be prepared.  Most police officers go through their career without ever drawing their gun, let alone firing it.  But they still practice, just in case.

Players who can't get to the green in regulation would benefit from pitching practice since the full swing is probably a very daunting task for them.  It would help them develop some solid, basic technique.  Give them a long club and everything goes out the window.

I am trying to make a case for why the short game should be practiced as much as the long game.  Give or take a few percent.

Call me crazy.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by The Recreational Golfer

The boldfaced statement is testable. I got current data from the PGA Tour web site for 188 players on GIR and scoring average, and ran a correlation. The correlation coefficient is -0.00039. This means there is NO relationship between GIR and scoring in this data set. NONE. Another way of saying it is, if you want to explain a player's scoring average, GIR contributes nothing to the explanation.

I think you did it wrong. Clearly, as GIR goes up, scores go down.

If you normalize some of that data, you get even tighter correlations. And I assure you... I'm not making up that GIR is the single most relevant number to the score you shoot - regardless of your playing level (within reasonable limits... if you're comparing a guy who shoots 140 and hits 0 GIR to a guy who shoots 110 with 0 GIR, that's pointless, and they'd both be in a "95+" group or something.).

http://thesandtrap.com/b/the_numbers_game/formulating_a_formula

There are plenty of other sources out there about this. Look some up. Mark Sweeney's list (he's a geek, so he does analysis of more than putting) put GIR at the top, too, followed by PPGIR (which says a lot about proximity to the hole , because PGA Tour players are surprisingly close to each other in putting ability), double-bogey-or-worse rate, scrambling, go-for-its, PPR, and driving distance, and driving accuracy.

Originally Posted by McKee

Call me crazy.

Already did. You're content to tell everyone they've got the yips.

[The Recreational Golfer]

Originally Posted by iacas

I think you did it wrong. Clearly, as GIR goes up, scores go down.

Not in the data set that I worked with: GIR the independent variable, and scoring average the dependent variable. I spent my career as a statistician. I know what I'm doing.

Please calculate r for the data set you graphed above and tell me what you get. If it is true that GIR is the major determinant of score, the value you get will show it.

[NM Golf]

Originally Posted by McKee

Take an island green for example.  The fact that you cannot miss the green without going in a water hazard puts extra stress on the shot.  Therefore it makes it a more difficult shot.  Same thing goes if you don't have confidence in your short game.  Not being able to get up and down adds strokes to your game just as hazards do.  You may not be conscious of it when your about to hit your approach shot but the stress of missing the green is there.  Not being confident in your ability to get up and down makes the approach shot more difficult.

The pros may not have to chip very often but they still need to be prepared.  Most police officers go through their career without ever drawing their gun, let alone firing it.  But they still practice, just in case.

Players who can't get to the green in regulation would benefit from pitching practice since the full swing is probably a very daunting task for them.  It would help them develop some solid, basic technique.  Give them a long club and everything goes out the window.

I am trying to make a case for why the short game should be practiced as much as the long game.  Give or take a few percent.

Call me crazy.

If the fear of having to chip has any effect what-so-ever on a golfer's psyche and their ability to hit a golf shot then they need to hang up the clubs and take up tennis.

This has to be the most ridiculous theory I have ever heard. Now I can certainly see someone yanking their approach shot left when there is a hazard or something on the right, but to suggest that a overall paralyzing fear of chipping has anything to do with an approach shot is....well....crazy for lack of another word.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by The Recreational Golfer

Not in the data set that I worked with: GIR the independent variable, and scoring average the dependent variable. I spent my career as a statistician. I know what I'm doing.

Please calculate r for the data set you graphed above and tell me what you get. If it is true that GIR is the major determinant of score, the value you get will show it.

You'll have to ask the several statisticians with whom I've talked. Talk to Mark Sweeney, too. GIR is his top predictor for scores, and the man knows his math. I've never cared much for the hard-core statistical analysis, but I still think you goofed something in your table. Sorted by GIR %, the scoring average forms a fairly good line.

I'm not entirely sure what it is, but the R^2 value for that line is 0.33975 according to Excel with a linear fit. Logarithmic is 0.37603, polynomial is 0.35686, power is 0.37441, and exponential is 0.34068.

Again, you'll have to talk to the several statisticians who have all said "GIR is important."

I do know this about statistics: if the data seems really, really wonky... really out there... then you've probably done something wrong. Consider what you're saying: hitting greens in regulation has ZERO to do with the score a person is likely to shoot? That doesn't even make sense. A golfer who hits 0 GIR is going to lose a lot more than half the time to the golfer who hits 18 GIR. Chipping, pitching, bunker play, etc. (not to mention hitting a ball OB from the tee, hitting it into water, etc. that make getting a GIR impossible) are more difficult and lead to higher scores than putting for birdie.

[McKee]

Originally Posted by NM Golf

If the fear of having to chip has any effect what-so-ever on a golfer's psyche and their ability to hit a golf shot then they need to hang up the clubs and take up tennis.

This has to be the most ridiculous theory I have ever heard. Now I can certainly see someone yanking their approach shot left when there is a hazard or something on the right, but to suggest that a overall paralyzing fear of chipping has anything to do with an approach shot is....well....crazy for lack of another word.

You can see how a hazard can create apprehension but not how a lack of confidence can?

[iacas]

Originally Posted by McKee

You can see how a hazard can create apprehension but not how a lack of confidence can?

As he explained it, uhhhhhh, yes.

[x129]

Whats the quote "Lies, damned lies, and statistics". I look at that graph and see a pretty straight line as far as score goes. The data probably needs to be normalized for courses (different courses have different sized greens) but a .37 correlation is a moderate one. You would have to put in things like scrambling (which has a long game component), driving accuracy, and whatever else you want to see if GIR is more important than anything else. I expect that a lot of pros could increase there GIR by 5-10 points if they wanted to. It would probably hurt there score as they would be aiming for the fat part of the green instead of pin.

Personally I would take 100% scrambling over 100% GIR any day of the week. Not having to worry about bogey would be great......

Originally Posted by iacas

You'll have to ask the several statisticians with whom I've talked. Talk to Mark Sweeney, too. GIR is his top predictor for scores, and the man knows his math. I've never cared much for the hard-core statistical analysis, but I still think you goofed something in your table. Sorted by GIR %, the scoring average forms a fairly good line.

I'm not entirely sure what it is, but the R^2 value for that line is 0.33975 according to Excel with a linear fit. Logarithmic is 0.37603, polynomial is 0.35686, power is 0.37441, and exponential is 0.34068.

Again, you'll have to talk to the several statisticians who have all said "GIR is important."

I do know this about statistics: if the data seems really, really wonky... really out there... then you've probably done something wrong. Consider what you're saying: hitting greens in regulation has ZERO to do with the score a person is likely to shoot? That doesn't even make sense. A golfer who hits 0 GIR is going to lose a lot more than half the time to the golfer who hits 18 GIR. Chipping, pitching, bunker play, etc. (not to mention hitting a ball OB from the tee, hitting it into water, etc. that make getting a GIR impossible) are more difficult and lead to higher scores than putting for birdie.