Thoughts on putting stats.

[CreamerFan]

Trying to best understand all the putting stats and how they tell the whole picture of how well a player is putting, esp putts per/gir.  If a player misses all but one green and 1 putts that 1 hole their percentage is 1.0.  If a player hits all 18 greens and 2-putts all 18, their percentage is 2.0.  Doesn't tell the whole story.  What about total putts stat?  Looking at a lot of tour players stats and they might have 25-27 putts but missed a lot of greens so that must mean they usually got up and down for a 1 putt or chiped in.  If your hitting 16 or more greens and putting more than 33 strokes that's probably not good i'm thinking.  Interested in anyones thoughts on all the putting stats and how misleading they can be.

[Aging Boomer]

That's a depressing subject.  If our greenskeeper started sinking 55 gallon industrial drums into our greens, I'm still not sure that I'd want to know my putting stats.

People ask me how I played, and I say..."I really hit the ball well today."   Upon hearing that, they know enough not to ask a second question.

[Mr3Wiggle]

I think putting stats are like fielding stats in baseball.  Someone can have a great fielding percentage or a low number of errors and really not be all that great at fielding, because they have a very limited range to the number of balls they can reach.  Likewise in putting someone could have a low number of putts per greens hit in regulation, but that might be a better measure of how close they hit the ball to the hole.  I guess you can tell a good putter just by watching them make good putts, just like you can tell a good fielder by watching them make good plays.

[dsc123]

Instead of looking at total putts per round, per hole, or per GIR,  it would make more sense to look at % of putts made from x feet.  As for PGA Tour stats, this is probably the most useful. http://www.pgatour.com/r/strokes-gained-putting-insidethenumbers/index.html

As for tracking your own stuff, I now try to note the length of all my putts on my scorecard and after each round I put it into a spreadsheet.  It tells me how often i make from each distance (3 yard intervals), how often I 1-putt, 2-putt, or 3-putt, from each distance, and the average miss distance.

btw, Baseball fielding stats have evolved past "i know good fielding when i see it."  they can now look at where the player started, where the ball landed, the trajectory and velocity of the ball etc. it just hasn't become mainstream yet.

[Mr3Wiggle]

Originally Posted by dsc123

Instead of looking at total putts per round, per hole, or per GIR,  it would make more sense to look at % of putts made from x feet.  As for PGA Tour stats, this is probably the most useful. http://www.pgatour.com/r/strokes-gained-putting-insidethenumbers/index.html

As for tracking your own stuff, I now try to note the length of all my putts on my scorecard and after each round I put it into a spreadsheet.  It tells me how often i make from each distance (3 yard intervals), how often I 1-putt, 2-putt, or 3-putt, from each distance, and the average miss distance.

btw, Baseball fielding stats have evolved past "i know good fielding when i see it."  they can now look at where the player started, where the ball landed, the trajectory and velocity of the ball etc. it just hasn't become mainstream yet.

Oh I know about UZR and the fielding bible and all that stuff.  My problem with most of the fielding stats is that they require such large sample sizes that it is very difficult to know what is what.  I'd say similarly with putting stats.  I think the reason is that putting and fielding tend to be more of an art than a science.