Golf stats and correlation to average score vs. handicap

[natureboy]

I've been tinkering with some of the published stats to help refine a progress tracking spreadsheet. I don't think I will discover any universal truths or perfect formula for describing scoring - or publication. Good enough for personal use is fine.

One thing struck me about stats. Past efforts by professional statisticians and analysts have found some stats very well correlated with scoring and some not as much. I wondered if one of the real problems in their data was they would be comparing groups playing applying different ranges of skills across different course difficulties. For example, GIR is very well correlated with average score as most players hit from tee distances appropriate to their skill level. Number of putts isn't well correlated with scoring average, because pros for example are applying their very high skills on much longer & demanding courses so are hitting approaches from farther (with longer clubs) and therefore have longer initial putt distances than they would on a shorter course. Some of Mark Broadie's new metrics like 'degrees offline' are really good at hitting at the underlying skill curves.

With this thinking I categorized some of the available stat categories based on whether it reflected an underlying skill or was reflective of a skill set as applied to the context of course difficulty. Please let me know if you agree / disagree / and by how much based on your experience in playing golf on different courses and as you have improved skill:

Stats that likely reflect skill independent of Course Rating / Length (~ relate to handicap not score avg)

Putting make % per distance from hole

Driving distance / swing speed

Degrees offline / avg shot dispersion / proximity per target dist / grouping pattern size

# Awful & doubly awful shots (consistency)

Stats that likely reflect skill as applied per Course Rating / Length (relate to score avg not HCP)

# Strokes / Scoring avg & differential per hole par / pars, bogies, birdies, etc.

# GIR / # GoFIR / # GIRP / # Par3 GIR

# Chip-Pitch-Sand

Stats possibly part (midway) independent - part dependent on both skill level and Course Rating / Length

Greenside U&D; % / Scrambling

Fairway %

3-Putt % / Lag Putting

# Putts

# PPGIR / PPmGIR

# Penalties incurred

[NJpatbee]

Those are a lot of stats and all correlate to how well you are playing, however I could never track that many.  The most I could track are GIR, FIR, putts, penalties, and only if someone was paying me to do it.   I normally track the score, penalties, and putts, but I think just mental notes such as "I could not get out of the sand today",  "I pulled everything left", or "I putted like I was vision-impaired"  tell where I need work.  You would need more patience than I have to keep such detailed stats as you suggested.  But if it works for you have at it!

[natureboy]

Those are a lot of stats and all correlate to how well you are playing, however I could never track that many.  The most I could track are GIR, FIR, putts, penalties, and only if someone was paying me to do it.   I normally track the score, penalties, and putts, but I think just mental notes such as "I could not get out of the sand today",  "I pulled everything left", or "I putted like I was vision-impaired"  tell where I need work.  You would need more patience than I have to keep such detailed stats as you suggested.  But if it works for you have at it!

Yes it's a lot. I don't actually track all that on course. I made a scorecard that lets me just record a simple code for what each shot was on the hole and I can reconstruct the stats afterward. If I could afford it, I would get game golf.

The idea was to clearly identify what my weaknesses were and by how much, and also to learn something about golf in the process.

The real question I have is that while every statistic is somewhat correlated with score, I want to tease out which ones are fundamental underlying skills that track tightly with handicap, which ones reflect handicap as applied to course difficulty, and which ones are in-between and by about how much.

So far I think Broadie has been the closest (haven't read Lowest Score Wins yet) to capturing some of that with his 75% drive distance, degrees offline, 75% proximity from a set distance, and putting make percentage and lag percentage from set distances.

[Harp stein]

I would expect that putts are not well correlated with scores because average number of putts is very tightly grouped no matter the skill-level. PGA pros stick their approach shots close and 2-putt for par, hack golfers stick chips close then 2-putt for 7s. Very different scores, same # of putts.

Most (maybe all) of the counting stats you have listed can be tracked pretty easily with a $30 app on your phone. I've been waffling on Game Golf for over a year now, to track the distance and dispersion stuff.

I'm a huge stats geek, but I question whether I can actually make use of the information that would come out of a product like Game Golf. The disconnect for me is, there's no stats on the range (unless you can afford to buy/rent a TrackMan type device). So maybe I see something in my stats from Game Golf, but I can't actively work on fixing it at the range and see real-time results.

So all that is to say, I'm curious how you see yourself using all of this data to get better?

[kpaulhus]

If you have t read Lowest Score Wins, you should. Distance and accuracy correlates almost directly with handicap. A 24 handicap has a better chance at beating a tour pro on the putting green than he does from tee to green.

[ghalfaire]

I like this system but now sure how an amateur would ever implement this.  But an interesting article for those trying to take meaningful stats.

http://www.golfdigest.com/golfworld/2014-01/gwar-shotlink-feature-david-barrett-0113

[Moppy]

353 yard drive? That doesn’t suck – and this was one of the accurate ones :)

Which, I must add according to the system is farther than both Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell’s farthest drives "

I got a kick out of the above review of Game Golf.

[natureboy]

I would expect that putts are not well correlated with scores because average number of putts is very tightly grouped no matter the skill-level. PGA pros stick their approach shots close and 2-putt for par, hack golfers stick chips close then 2-putt for 7s. Very different scores, same # of putts.

Most (maybe all) of the counting stats you have listed can be tracked pretty easily with a $30 app on your phone. I've been waffling on Game Golf for over a year now, to track the distance and dispersion stuff.

I'm a huge stats geek, but I question whether I can actually make use of the information that would come out of a product like Game Golf. The disconnect for me is, there's no stats on the range (unless you can afford to buy/rent a TrackMan type device). So maybe I see something in my stats from Game Golf, but I can't actively work on fixing it at the range and see real-time results.

So all that is to say, I'm curious how you see yourself using all of this data to get better?

Yes very different scores and usually very different course / tee length and difficulty. After playing with it a bit it looks like total putts and PPGIR correlation with score is more dependent on course length. They don't really track much by handicap. On a regular track with a course rating of 72 they would be scoring around 68 and actually hitting fewer total putts with fewer PPGIR & PPMGIR because with their accuracy at a distance they would be hitting more greens and be closer to the hole than on a tour course, and their misses would be closer too so their underlying short game skill would get a boost and they would hit it closer and make more putts.

The information is to refine a stats table that will help me track progress and highlight strengths / weaknesses in my game.

If you have t read Lowest Score Wins, you should. Distance and accuracy correlates almost directly with handicap. A 24 handicap has a better chance at beating a tour pro on the putting green than he does from tee to green.

Yep, I knows. I may read LSW at some point. I am happy with Broadie's 'Every Shot Counts' for now. It's not only the distance and accuracy, but it's combined with freakish consistency. They operate in such a tight envelope it's sick.

I like this system but now sure how an amateur would ever implement this.  But an interesting article for those trying to take meaningful stats.

http://www.golfdigest.com/golfworld/2014-01/gwar-shotlink-feature-david-barrett-0113

Strokes Gained is brilliant, but hard to implement on the course without technology. Tracking starting and ending positions relative to the hole is time consuming and distracting if you are also trying to play golf well too. That's why I'm looking to polish the info for my tables. Then I can track my shots using a low tech pencil and still get some insights.

[ghalfaire]

Strokes Gained is brilliant, but hard to implement on the course without technology. Tracking starting and ending positions relative to the hole is time consuming and distracting if you are also trying to play golf well too. That's why I'm looking to polish the info for my tables. Then I can track my shots using a low tech pencil and still get some insights.

I would agree without a army of statistics in the computer you could never implement strokes gained.  But I do think we could use a more specific set of stats.   There is a difference in a missed fairway between OB and in the first cut even though they are missed fairway.  If one reads and understands the article it should be possible to come up with a more meaningful set of statistics for our own game that is quick and easy to record and that doesn't distract us from playing golf while on the course. For example when I miss a fairway I record a L or R for the miss and if I don't have a shot other than chip back to the short grass I put a circle around the L or R.  So we could be more precise that the traditional stats with just a little thought and no real distraction from playing golf.

[Phil McGleno]

Yep, I knows. I may read LSW at some point. I am happy with Broadie's 'Every Shot Counts' for now. It's not only the distance and accuracy, but it's combined with freakish consistency. They operate in such a tight envelope it's sick. Strokes Gained is brilliant, but hard to implement on the course without technology. Tracking starting and ending positions relative to the hole is time consuming and distracting if you are also trying to play golf well too. That's why I'm looking to polish the info for my tables. Then I can track my shots using a low tech pencil and still get some insights.

LSW is a better book for everyone who is not on the PGA Tour. Strokes gained is difficult to implement-You said it. Every Shot is mostly about PGA Tour players and as a 23 you are not one of them.

[natureboy]

LSW is a better book for everyone who is not on the PGA Tour. Strokes gained is difficult to implement-You said it. Every Shot is mostly about PGA Tour players and as a 23 you are not one of them.

There's enough reference to higher handicap data in 'Every Shot Counts' for the information to be relevant to me, the untouchable 23 - 'Unclean, Unclean!'. While the pro game is alien to me in skill level and course difficulty, the comparisons of concepts underlying the game and a lot of the strategy in the book is still relevant.

I'm pleased with my progress so far. I respect the difficulty of the game.

[Nosevi]

Personally I do track my stats and use them to focus my practice. I use game golf more just as a memory tool so I can then enter the stats into Golfshots afterwards which I find records them in a better way to chart improvement. I find the Gamegolf club performance next to useless - it has no idea how far I can hit a 9 iron, only how far I have hit it and that includes cut down shots, deliberate fades, wind against.......basically I hit it as far as I need to hit it on the course, not as far as I can hit it. I use a launch monitor to track my performance club to club.

My stats apparently most closely corespond to a USGA plus 2 player right now (our handicap system is utterly bonkers and doesn't show your current level, the faster you're improving the more your handicap drags behind your current ability) with driving being a tad above (not too bad in distance either so think this is accurate - it's a strength of mine and that shows up in the stats), GIR and scrambling being a tad above but putting being about 0.9 shots lost to a plus 2 player per round. This has prompted me to look to my putting as a focus at the moment hence the graph is now creeping up towards plus 2 level. This tells me what I'm doing is working, if the graph at the bottom of the second image wasn't climbing towards the plus 2 line I'd change what I was doing in my practice until it was.

Keeping stats can be a powerful way to focus your practice in areas that make a difference on the course but merely 'tracking' them is pretty pointless IMO - you have to track them with a purpose and use the information they give you in order to focus your practice and assess whether it's having the desired effect.

[natureboy]

Personally I do track my stats and use them to focus my practice. I use game golf more just as a memory tool so I can then enter the stats into Golfshots afterwards which I find records them in a better way to chart improvement. I find the Gamegolf club performance next to useless - it has no idea how far I can hit a 9 iron, only how far I have hit it and that includes cut down shots, deliberate fades, wind against.......basically I hit it as far as I need to hit it on the course, not as far as I can hit it. I use a launch monitor to track my performance club to club.

My stats apparently most closely corespond to a USGA plus 2 player right now (our handicap system is utterly bonkers and doesn't show your current level, the faster you're improving the more your handicap drags behind your current ability) with driving being a tad above (not too bad in distance either so think this is accurate - it's a strength of mine and that shows up in the stats), GIR and scrambling being a tad above but putting being about 0.9 shots lost to a plus 2 player per round. This has prompted me to look to my putting as a focus at the moment hence the graph is now creeping up towards plus 2 level. This tells me what I'm doing is working, if the graph at the bottom of the second image wasn't climbing towards the plus 2 line I'd change what I was doing in my practice until it was.

Keeping stats can be a powerful way to focus your practice in areas that make a difference on the course but merely 'tracking' them is pretty pointless IMO - you have to track them with a purpose and use the information they give you in order to focus your practice and assess whether it's having the desired effect.

Is that +2 per the USGA label - as in 2 over (higher average score) than scratch? With the commonplace reference to better than scratch as  'plus' handicaps (actually negative per USGA) I sometimes get lost as to what handicap someone is referring to. If you mean +2 'worse' than scratch then the PPGIR rating seems accurate since on a standard difficulty course (rated 72) that would be about a 5 handicap.

I think most of the stats folks would say that sand doesn't deserve it's own column separate from the general short game category. Surprising that the Driving tab doesn't have some distance tracking (total distance, fraction of hole length covered, etc.) since distance and accuracy are both critical to lower handicap.

Also, the GIR seems a bit low considering how good the driving rating is. That could mean you are either a bit shorter than typical for your handicap, you are playing pretty long courses, or the iron game might need some work too.

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nosevi

Personally I do track my stats and use them to focus my practice. I use game golf more just as a memory tool so I can then enter the stats into Golfshots afterwards which I find records them in a better way to chart improvement. I find the Gamegolf club performance next to useless - it has no idea how far I can hit a 9 iron, only how far I have hit it and that includes cut down shots, deliberate fades, wind against.......basically I hit it as far as I need to hit it on the course, not as far as I can hit it. I use a launch monitor to track my performance club to club.

My stats apparently most closely corespond to a USGA plus 2 player right now (our handicap system is utterly bonkers and doesn't show your current level, the faster you're improving the more your handicap drags behind your current ability) with driving being a tad above (not too bad in distance either so think this is accurate - it's a strength of mine and that shows up in the stats), GIR and scrambling being a tad above but putting being about 0.9 shots lost to a plus 2 player per round. This has prompted me to look to my putting as a focus at the moment hence the graph is now creeping up towards plus 2 level. This tells me what I'm doing is working, if the graph at the bottom of the second image wasn't climbing towards the plus 2 line I'd change what I was doing in my practice until it was.

Keeping stats can be a powerful way to focus your practice in areas that make a difference on the course but merely 'tracking' them is pretty pointless IMO - you have to track them with a purpose and use the information they give you in order to focus your practice and assess whether it's having the desired effect.

Is that +2 per the USGA label - as in 2 over (higher average score) than scratch? With the commonplace reference to better than scratch as  'plus' handicaps (actually negative per USGA) I sometimes get lost as to what handicap someone is referring to. If you mean +2 'worse' than scratch then the PPGIR rating seems accurate since on a standard difficulty course (rated 72) that would be about a 5 handicap.

I think most of the stats folks would say that sand doesn't deserve it's own column separate from the general short game category. Surprising that the Driving tab doesn't have some distance tracking (total distance, fraction of hole length covered, etc.) since distance and accuracy are both critical to lower handicap.

Also, the GIR seems a bit low considering how good the driving rating is. That could mean you are either a bit shorter than typical for your handicap, you are playing pretty long courses, or the iron game might need some work too.

That's the first thing I noticed as well. Are we reading it correctly? I think we need the actual stats, and not the "above or below" to a "+2 handicap".

[natureboy]

That's the first thing I noticed as well. Are we reading it correctly? I think we need the actual stats, and not the "above or below" to a "+2 handicap".

I think in this context his +2 means what we would say is a USGA "2", not a USGA -2, which is often referred to as a 'plus' handicap because they would be adding strokes to their score. Otherwise his putting is more atrocious for his handicap than mine.

[iacas]

I think in this context his +2 means what we would say is a USGA "2", not a USGA -2, which is often referred to as a 'plus' handicap because they would be adding strokes to their score. Otherwise his putting is more atrocious for his handicap than mine.

The USGA calls a +2 someone who is better than scratch. Those who shoot above par are technically "minuses" - they need to subtract strokes from their score. It's not ambiguous. I'm not sure why there are even posts on this… we all know it, no?

[Nosevi]

Is that +2 per the USGA label - as in 2 over (higher average score) than scratch? With the commonplace reference to better than scratch as  'plus' handicaps (actually negative per USGA) I sometimes get lost as to what handicap someone is referring to. If you mean +2 'worse' than scratch then the PPGIR rating seems accurate since on a standard difficulty course (rated 72) that would be about a 5 handicap.

I think most of the stats folks would say that sand doesn't deserve it's own column separate from the general short game category. Surprising that the Driving tab doesn't have some distance tracking (total distance, fraction of hole length covered, etc.) since distance and accuracy are both critical to lower handicap.

Also, the GIR seems a bit low considering how good the driving rating is. That could mean you are either a bit shorter than typical for your handicap, you are playing pretty long courses, or the iron game might need some work too.

Hi there. To answer a few questions, it's just using the golfshots feature and comparing your basic stats (and they are very basic) to others at whatever handicap you put in. "+2" is 2 shots better than scratch - it tells you to put a "+" symbol before the number if you are better than scratch so was merely comparing my basic stats to players using the golfshots app. I've said a number of times on different threads how barking mad our handicap system is and that it can't keep up with a rapidly improving golfer - this is an example.

Driving distance isn't covered in this but I use a launch monitor pretty much every day so know the sort of distances I hit - 300 yards is a good one but in stilll air I'm normally more like 280 or a tad over. These are me in still air when I open my shoulders a bit but I rarely hit them quite this far on the course (disregard the clubhead speed - my kit estimates it from the ball speed and how good it thinks the contact is. It tracks the ball):

Regarding GIR being lower than fairways, yep I need a lot of work everywhere but over here in the UK that is almost always the case on a halfway tough golf course. This is the rough at my home course in the winter, in the summer it grows up a lot. Go in there and it's 99% of the time a hack out, don't care who you are but you're not going for the green the majority of times - not sure if it shows it but the grass is full of what we call 'tussocks' small mounds of thick grass. (That's not the fairway next to it btw, the fairway is just the other side of the track :) ). That means your GIR is only realistically taken from the par 3s and the times you hit the fairway, if you've missed the fairway you've blown it. To answer Lihu my actual stats for GIR is 59.7% so when you disregard the times I miss the fairway and take the times I hit the green from the tee or fairway it's not terrible but yep, 'could do better' goes on the report card.

Putting, again was just showing how I track improvement (although I'll be using a spreadsheet next year that looks at strokes gained etc). As I said it needs improvement but the caveat to that is it's the dead of winter here and all our greens are spiked  - the ball bobbles a lot but I don't do 'gimmee's' so if it bobbles and misses, it misses. Golfshots says I'm losing 0.9 strokes a round there to all players using golfshots who are actually at a plus 2 handicap. Golfshots says with my putting I'm about on par with others at a 5 handicap which is hardly surprising - it's been winter here and I've worked on pretty much everything except my putting as the greens have been frozen then spiked.

Anyway, was using myself as an example of tracking stats rather than going into the nitty gritty of ine but also showing that, dependant on handicap system, they can often not fully correlate to your official handicap particularly if you are improving (or going the other way I guess) rapidly

[Lihu]

Regarding GIR being lower than fairways, yep I need a lot of work everywhere but over here in the UK that is almost always the case on a halfway tough golf course. This is the rough at my home course in the winter, in the summer it grows up a lot. Go in there and it's 99% of the time a hack out, don't care who you are but you're not going for the green the majority of times - not sure if it shows it but the grass is full of what we call 'tussocks' small mounds of thick grass. (That's not the fairway next to it btw, the fairway is just the other side of the track :) ). That means your GIR is only realistically taken from the par 3s and the times you hit the fairway, if you've missed the fairway you've blown it. To answer Lihu my actual stats for GIR is 59.7% so when you disregard the times I miss the fairway and take the times I hit the green from the tee or fairway it's not terrible but yep, 'could do better' goes on the report card.

Yeah, this answers the question. Thanks.