Strokes Gained Analysis For Average Golfers

[natureboy]

I'm not sold on strokes gained for recreational golfers. Touring pros are trying to shave maybe one stroke per round. Two would be huge. We're trying to get rid of two fists full of strokes.

If you're trying to break 90, there shouldn't be any doubt that you don't hit the ball straight that often, your short game needs work, and you are a below average putter. How many strokes you gain or lose, to the second decimal place, won't tell you anything you don't already know. Strokes gained makes a lot more sense once you get into the mid-low single digits, in my opinion.

Below average relative to what?

[Dave2512]

I'm not sold on strokes gained for recreational golfers. Touring pros are trying to shave maybe one stroke per round. Two would be huge. We're trying to get rid of two fists full of strokes.

If you're trying to break 90, there shouldn't be any doubt that you don't hit the ball straight that often, your short game needs work, and you are a below average putter. How many strokes you gain or lose, to the second decimal place, won't tell you anything you don't already know. Strokes gained makes a lot more sense once you get into the mid-low single digits, in my opinion.

I agree seems like an inefficient way for rec golfers to assess what they do. It will always come down to ball striking. A guy with a range of scores that vary 15 strokes in their last 20 rounds should understand this.

I thought maybe something like this could be used for course strategy but you still need to execute. If I birdie hole X today and double it tomorrow I know why it happened, and some of it could be luck.

[logo]

I'm not sold on strokes gained for recreational golfers. Touring pros are trying to shave maybe one stroke per round. Two would be huge. We're trying to get rid of two fists full of strokes.

If you're trying to break 90, there shouldn't be any doubt that you don't hit the ball straight that often, your short game needs work, and you are a below average putter. How many strokes you gain or lose, to the second decimal place, won't tell you anything you don't already know. Strokes gained makes a lot more sense once you get into the mid-low single digits, in my opinion.

This. I need help with everything. My drives are hardly ever straight, my iron shots are good distance wise but I cannot aim worth squat or make the right club choice half the time, my chipping needs tons of work, and my putting could be much better. Essentially I need to work on everything. Now, once I get to a place where I am not improving major flaws, this kind of thing would be extremely useful.

[SCC4380]

Quote:

From my reading of the SGG site, they do not account in any way for course rating. It is strictly distance and lie.  If you are in the US Open with deep rough, or whether you are in the sparse rough of a local muni, SGG would use the same numbers for calculation from what I can tell.

The strokes gained calculations are based distance and lie. It is true that the US Open has deep rough, but there is such a large number of shots that went into the strokes gained calculations that I don't think it alone would have much of an effect. There are also tour events with fairly light rough. Users of the system need to use good judgment. I have been in the "rough" a couple of times this spring but marked it as a fairway lie because the grass was so short that it didn't affect my shot.

Quote:

My goal for golf is to improve. I mentioned earlier in the thread that the answer remains the same no matter what stats I see. To play better gol I need to become a better ball striker. There isn't any hidden message in my stats.

I agree that there are no hidden messages in the statistics and that the greatest improvement will come by becoming a better ball striker.

Here is how I look at it: some people like to keep score, others don't; some people like to keep stats, others don't; for those who like to keep stats, there are traditional statistics (FIR, GIR, # of putts) and now strokes gained statistics. It isn't for everyone, but if someone wanted to have a good way to measure their performance and track their progress as they improve, this might be of interest. If someone is not interested, I would recommend that they not do it.

At any rate, here are a couple of figures from the three rounds that I have played since I signed up for Strokes Gained Golf. This first one is the overall strokes gained for my three rounds. As you can see, I didn't actually gain any strokes against a tour pro, so really these are my strokes lost. I have had trouble off the tee and have putted poorly.

Each of the bars in the figure allow the user to look at the shots in that category. Here is my putting performance.

I haven't missed a 1' or 2' putt, but there isn't much separation value there. I have putted poorly from 5' and had poor putting from middle distances (10' - 30').

I will make another post about Shot by Shot another time.

[RandallT]

Here is how I look at it: some people like to keep score, others don't; some people like to keep stats, others don't; for those who like to keep stats, there are traditional statistics (FIR, GIR, # of putts) and now strokes gained statistics. It isn't for everyone, but if someone wanted to have a good way to measure their performance and track their progress as they improve, this might be of interest. If someone is not interested, I would recommend that they not do it.

Great post.

I agree- stat tracking is not for everyone. I'm even stranger in that I love the idea of stat tracking, but for myself- meh. I don't play consistently enough where I think any of it really means much. I stink at most areas of golf, and am happy knowing I just need to improve it all. But I love creating spreadsheets and doing the analysis.

In my mind, strokes gained is the best method of analyzing your game. The idea that it is compared against the pros, rather than amateurs at your level, is just fine with me. It's just a baseline after all. While it is interesting to compare yourself against the pros, you also get a measure of each aspect of your game over time. You can see how each area of your game is doing relative to the others... in the same units (strokes).

I'll say that again for emphasis: the unit of measure is key: STROKES.  The same unit of measure as is on your scorecard.

It's not % this, or % that.  You can get a rough idea for how many actual strokes different aspects of your game are costing you (ballpark anyway). Over time, if you go from losing 7 strokes to 5 strokes putting overall, you can be satisfied that you are shooting 2 strokes better per round just in your putting (whether or not the 7 or 5 is precise).  That's better than distance of feet made, or total numbers of putts per round- any day. Those measurements of putting don't necessarily translate to score.

But yes, I get that it is not for everyone. Just my 2 cents.

[natureboy]

The strokes gained calculations are based distance and lie. It is true that the US Open has deep rough, but there is such a large number of shots that went into the strokes gained calculations that I don't think it alone would have much of an effect. There are also tour events with fairly light rough. Users of the system need to use good judgment. I have been in the "rough" a couple of times this spring but marked it as a fairway lie because the grass was so short that it didn't affect my shot.

I agree that there are no hidden messages in the statistics and that the greatest improvement will come by becoming a better ball striker.

Here is how I look at it: some people like to keep score, others don't; some people like to keep stats, others don't; for those who like to keep stats, there are traditional statistics (FIR, GIR, # of putts) and now strokes gained statistics. It isn't for everyone, but if someone wanted to have a good way to measure their performance and track their progress as they improve, this might be of interest. If someone is not interested, I would recommend that they not do it.

At any rate, here are a couple of figures from the three rounds that I have played since I signed up for Strokes Gained Golf. This first one is the overall strokes gained for my three rounds. As you can see, I didn't actually gain any strokes against a tour pro, so really these are my strokes lost. I have had trouble off the tee and have putted poorly.

Each of the bars in the figure allow the user to look at the shots in that category. Here is my putting performance.

I haven't missed a 1' or 2' putt, but there isn't much separation value there. I have putted poorly from 5' and had poor putting from middle distances (10' - 30').

I will make another post about Shot by Shot another time.

Interesting report. One way I would want to tweak it is to figure out the strokes gained per stroke made at each distance. I expect you don't hit as many shots per round at 200+ as you do inside 100 yards. That might better indicate relative strentghs / weaknesses.

[kickingwater]

I'm very late to the conversation, but wanted to point out that strokesgainedgolf.com does include all it's stats on a per stroke basis as well as a per round basis.  Sometimes the results are interesting, since as you point out you may have far more strokes in a round of one type (i.e. putting) than another (i.e. 200-250 yards).

[brettfan]

I've taken several strokes off my HC this year and got to the point where I really didn't know what to work on.  I felt like I did everything pretty well, nothing great but nothing horrible.  I found an easy spreadsheet at another website (golfrwx I think) where you could input your data and find your strokes gained really quickly.  All you have to put in is your club, lie, and distance and it spits everything out.  I found it really helpful.  I would have never guessed that long-iron shots were the weakest part of my game but its pretty consistent that this is the area that I need to work on.

In terms of the idea that this isn't useful because you are comparing yourself to professionals I think this misses the point a bit.  Of course, in every one of my scoring categories I'm "losing strokes" compared to the pros but I can now see which ones I am losing strokes the most and which ones I'm closer to treading water.

[kickingwater]

brettfan,

I agree with you.  The point of the benchmark being the average of PGA Tour Pros is that it establishes a consistent benchmark establishing the highest level of play.  Against this, all results are relative to that benchmark and can be compared.  A 10-handicapper could still compare results with other golfers of similar skill level to see how he stacks up with them, using the PGA Tour Pro benchmark.  I think that your personal example tells the story well.  You never would have known for sure the part of your game that was costing you the most strokes without using this stat. The really interesting thing is, even the best golfers in the world experience similar ignorance with their own games until they look at strokes gained results.

The complaint against using the PGA Tour benchmark is just one of many misunderstandings about strokes gained that I often hear.  I think the fact is that there is no other golf stat in existence that reveals as much about one's golf game.  I've been tracking strokes gained stats on one of the websites available and it has revealed much about my game.  Driving kills me!  My short game around the green is nearly as costly.  My putting has actually been improving, with many rounds right at or even better than the benchmark lately, even though the season average in this graph is still showing a 3.49 stroke loss.

This next graph shows that although my driving is still awful, it is on a strong upswing (revealing how loathsome it was before).  I find this all to be very good info and I can tell my golf pro what areas I most need help with and whether or not I'm showing any improvement after he works on fixing me.

[kickingwater]

Natureboy,

Thought you might like to see that strokes gained stat per stroke that you were asking for.  Here's my putting results this year per stroke. the image is a bit compressed, but it reads well enough on the site.  Just look a the different tabs along the top of the graph you posted and you'll see the per stroke options.  Per stroke tabs are there for progress over time graphs also.

[RandallT]

Natureboy,

Thought you might like to see that strokes gained stat per stroke that you were asking for.  Here's my putting results this year per stroke.  the image is a bit compressed, but it reads well enough on the site.  Just look a the different tabs along the top of the graph you posted and you'll see the per stroke  options.  Per stroke tabs are there for progress over time graphs also.

Great to see other strokes gained enthusiasts around. Yes, the WRX guys are very good, very collaborative. One gentleman there reached out to me, and we enjoyed some sharing of ideas.  Their approach was very in-depth: tracking every club used, retention of every shot, very detailed charts (like the one you show above). In fact, I learned a lot more from them than they learned from me. Their spreadsheet is very good!

I was also a member of strokesgainedgolf.com for a while, and I think they're pretty good. We SG geeks gotta stick together.

While I'm a great supporter of strokes gained, I tend to take a MUCH higher level view of things. While I think it's incredible at getting an approximate assessment of where you are, there are limits to how far I'd want to go with it.  I see no need for precision, and from those I've helped use some of my spreadsheets, there is general agreement that an assessment is best interpreted as a blurry snapshot because of many caveats, rather than gospel worthy of micro-analysis.

Anyway, here are some examples of where I'd take a high level view of it all:

Would I want to know my strokes gained numbers for those tight ranges in the graphic above? No. I'll batch them into very broad buckets. Long, medium, and makable putts. Good enough for me. Would I ever look and say "wow, I'm 4.4 strokes lost for 9 footers, but 2.1 strokes on 8 footers... I better go practice my 9 footers." No.

Would I want to know the strokes gained for every single club in my bag? No- rough distances are fine. It'll be up to me to hit the right shot for that distance, but I do not care if my 5-iron has 3.3 strokes lost, but my 6-iron has 1.1. I'm not going to work on my 5-iron based on that. I lump that all in a "full swing" stuff. If I find an anomaly, I'd rather know it by which distance range that is, not the club I use.

There is a large lack of precision in any analysis. I once tracked Rickie Fowler's round the week he won a recent tournament. I used his exact PGA Shotlink values for distance and lie of every shot.  Then I compared that to the PGA's site analysis of his strokes gained. There were substantial differences:

http://thesandtrap.com/t/80312/strokes-gained-tee-fairway-rough-sand-and-green/0_30#post_1197402

(by my analysis, Rickie did best in driving and then putting (relative to the field). For that week, Rickie excelled in his approach shots.  Both assessments agreed that short game was least important to his victory, however.

Week to week, course to course, hole to hole, there would be different values to use as the expected "hole out" number, but we are simply using some generic overall number that Mark Broadie published a while back.  So when we use those numbers on our courses, they are only extremely rough approximations. Using two significant digits of accuracy in any output is a bit absurd when we look at our performance.

I've taken several strokes off my HC this year and got to the point where I really didn't know what to work on.  I felt like I did everything pretty well, nothing great but nothing horrible.  I found an easy spreadsheet at another website (golfrwx I think) where you could input your data and find your strokes gained really quickly.  All you have to put in is your club, lie, and distance and it spits everything out.  I found it really helpful.  I would have never guessed that long-iron shots were the weakest part of my game but its pretty consistent that this is the area that I need to work on.

In terms of the idea that this isn't useful because you are comparing yourself to professionals I think this misses the point a bit.  Of course, in every one of my scoring categories I'm "losing strokes" compared to the pros but I can now see which ones I am losing strokes the most and which ones I'm closer to treading water.

Yes exactly. Pick a benchmark to compare against, and then you can make measurements against that. Just because it is pros doesn't mean much to me. It's just a baseline.

One cool thing I have learned is that this is a very effective scoring system. If you log every shot by distance and lie from the pin, it enables you to do a lot of other cool stuff, unrelated to strokes gained.

What is your average proximity to the flag from 120-150yds away in the fairway? How does that compare to 120-150 in the rough?  Would you rather by 150 in the fairway or 120 in the rough?  Your numbers can then be calculated for YOUR performance on your courses.  You can individually assess how you do from range yourself and create your own benchmarks.  I find this WAY more useful than tracking FIR/GIR/putts per round, etc.  The key is making note of every shot's distance and lie.

Here's the coolest chart I'm able to get that sums up 20 rounds from SandTrappers of various skill levels:

Each point is a range of values (0-20yds, 20-60yds, 60-120yds, 120-170yds, 170-220yds, 220-250yds).  It is straightforward to keep track of every shot in those ranges to compute the average proximity to the flag after the shot, as well as the average number of shots to hole out from there.

The blue circles are higher than the green circles, meaning it takes more strokes for us to hole out from each distance than PGA players.  The blue circles are larger than the green circles, meaning our average proximity is larger.  (this is a summary of mostly 90/100 scoring rounds, but there are a few 70s rounds thrown in).

Without going to strokes gained at all, you can visually see by the heights and sizes of the circles how you're doing from various ranges- all because you track distance and like of each shot. I think that's kinda cool.

[saevel25]

My only major concern for SGG is that are they taking the information from Mark Broadie and trying to make a profit out of it? I am not sure how much they are borrowing from his book or if they actually went and did their own data analysis like Broadie. Has Broadie OK'd them to use his information?

If you look at their charts here, http://www.strokesgainedgolf.com/How-Strokes-Gained-Works.html#calculating. The values intervals of 20 are a match to what Broadie has in his book.

I am just a bit skeptical with their use of Broadie's information when they are matching his values and just interpolating the in between values.

[natureboy]

Natureboy,

Thought you might like to see that strokes gained stat per stroke that you were asking for.  Here's my putting results this year per stroke.  the image is a bit compressed, but it reads well enough on the site.  Just look a the different tabs along the top of the graph you posted and you'll see the per stroke  options.  Per stroke tabs are there for progress over time graphs also.

Okay. That's a valuable option to have. I would personally like tighter distance bins, but there is only so much screen width. Also I think the 'ideal' display would be a dual variable display that had SG per stroke on a y-axis (height off the baseline) and a SG per round via the size of the dot so you can see both your distance strengths / weaknesses and their relative contribution to your scoring on one chart. A bit like how RandallT does it.

Great to see other strokes gained enthusiasts around. Yes, the WRX guys are very good, very collaborative. One gentleman there reached out to me, and we enjoyed some sharing of ideas.  Their approach was very in-depth: tracking every club used, retention of every shot, very detailed charts (like the one you show above). In fact, I learned a lot more from them than they learned from me. Their spreadsheet is very good!

I was also a member of strokesgainedgolf.com for a while, and I think they're pretty good. We SG geeks gotta stick together.

While I'm a great supporter of strokes gained, I tend to take a MUCH higher level view of things. While I think it's incredible at getting an approximate assessment of where you are, there are limits to how far I'd want to go with it.  I see no need for precision, and from those I've helped use some of my spreadsheets, there is general agreement that an assessment is best interpreted as a blurry snapshot because of many caveats, rather than gospel worthy of micro-analysis.

Anyway, here are some examples of where I'd take a high level view of it all:

Would I want to know my strokes gained numbers for those tight ranges in the graphic above? No. I'll batch them into very broad buckets. Long, medium, and makable putts. Good enough for me. Would I ever look and say "wow, I'm 4.4 strokes lost for 9 footers, but 2.1 strokes on 8 footers... I better go practice my 9 footers." No.

Would I want to know the strokes gained for every single club in my bag? No- rough distances are fine. It'll be up to me to hit the right shot for that distance, but I do not care if my 5-iron has 3.3 strokes lost, but my 6-iron has 1.1. I'm not going to work on my 5-iron based on that. I lump that all in a "full swing" stuff. If I find an anomaly, I'd rather know it by which distance range that is, not the club I use.

There is a large lack of precision in any analysis. I once tracked Rickie Fowler's round the week he won a recent tournament. I used his exact PGA Shotlink values for distance and lie of every shot.  Then I compared that to the PGA's site analysis of his strokes gained. There were substantial differences:

http://thesandtrap.com/t/80312/strokes-gained-tee-fairway-rough-sand-and-green/0_30#post_1197402

(by my analysis, Rickie did best in driving and then putting (relative to the field). For that week, Rickie excelled in his approach shots.  Both assessments agreed that short game was least important to his victory, however.

Week to week, course to course, hole to hole, there would be different values to use as the expected "hole out" number, but we are simply using some generic overall number that Mark Broadie published a while back.  So when we use those numbers on our courses, they are only extremely rough approximations. Using two significant digits of accuracy in any output is a bit absurd when we look at our performance.

Yes exactly. Pick a benchmark to compare against, and then you can make measurements against that. Just because it is pros doesn't mean much to me. It's just a baseline.

One cool thing I have learned is that this is a very effective scoring system. If you log every shot by distance and lie from the pin, it enables you to do a lot of other cool stuff, unrelated to strokes gained.

What is your average proximity to the flag from 120-150yds away in the fairway? How does that compare to 120-150 in the rough?  Would you rather by 150 in the fairway or 120 in the rough?  Your numbers can then be calculated for YOUR performance on your courses.  You can individually assess how you do from range yourself and create your own benchmarks.  I find this WAY more useful than tracking FIR/GIR/putts per round, etc.  The key is making note of every shot's distance and lie.

Here's the coolest chart I'm able to get that sums up 20 rounds from SandTrappers of various skill levels:

Each point is a range of values (0-20yds, 20-60yds, 60-120yds, 120-170yds, 170-220yds, 220-250yds).  It is straightforward to keep track of every shot in those ranges to compute the average proximity to the flag after the shot, as well as the average number of shots to hole out from there.

The blue circles are higher than the green circles, meaning it takes more strokes for us to hole out from each distance than PGA players.  The blue circles are larger than the green circles, meaning our average proximity is larger.  (this is a summary of mostly 90/100 scoring rounds, but there are a few 70s rounds thrown in).

Without going to strokes gained at all, you can visually see by the heights and sizes of the circles how you're doing from various ranges- all because you track distance and like of each shot. I think that's kinda cool.

Cool chart. And I agree about using the info as a snapshot. That said, I personally like to see more 'bins' or even individual data points so I can see the overall curve shape relative to the baseline.

My only major concern for SGG is that are they taking the information from Mark Broadie and trying to make a profit out of it? I am not sure how much they are borrowing from his book or if they actually went and did their own data analysis like Broadie. Has Broadie OK'd them to use his information?

If you look at their charts here, http://www.strokesgainedgolf.com/How-Strokes-Gained-Works.html#calculating. The values intervals of 20 are a match to what Broadie has in his book.

I am just a bit skeptical with their use of Broadie's information when they are matching his values and just interpolating the in between values.

One of the original SG charts was in a published academic paper which was part of the 'deal' / understanding for sharing the Shotlink data. I think that the interpolation is generally 'close enough' to work for a basic assessment. More accuracy is nice, but the baseline itself shifts a bit from year to year so that adds a variability too.

Here is a rough breakdown of "expected" SG by HCP using Broadie's averaged ratios of contribution to score difference from driving, approach, short game (

[iacas]

Okay. That's a valuable option to have. I would personally like tighter distance bins, but there is only so much screen width.

Why? It's one foot on the short end and five feet when you get out to 10-15 feet. If you improve at your 12 footers, you're gonna improve at your 14-footers, too. Nobody is awesome from 13 feet but shit from 11 feet (unless there's a very small sample size).

SG is cool and all, but I'm with what I think @RandallT is saying: the broader picture is where relevance is found, not the tiny little details.

[Harp stein]

I would love to do this, but the logistics of tracking distance/lie/club on every shot seem tough without noticeably slowing down the round.

Do you laser everything or approximate from phone/watch GPS to center of the green?

How do you (quickly) measure distance on putts?

Do you write this all down on paper/notepad, put it in your phone, use an app?

[RandallT]

I would love to do this, but the logistics of tracking distance/lie/club on every shot seem tough without noticeably slowing down the round.

Do you laser everything or approximate from phone/watch GPS to center of the green?

How do you (quickly) measure distance on putts?

Do you write this all down on paper/notepad, put it in your phone, use an app?

I've gone tech free for this season (played fewer than 10 rounds or so, unfortunately), but I've managed to enter in a few rounds from memory, as long as I jot down my recollections within a day or so.  I can usually recall the tee distances. I can usually recall the number I have in my head for the approach. Around the green, I guess a lot. Actually I learned not long ago that my guesses were HORRIBLE- my "15yds" was more like 9 yds.  But now that I've paced off a few diligently around the green, I can eyeball better.  For putts, I use 2.5ft per moderate step. Round everything- keep it ballpark.

If you are off by 20yds, you could throw off a calculation by 0.1 strokes. If off by 5, then you could be off by 0.05 or so.

As you can tell, I'm a big believer in this just being very general anyway. Errors might even out over time, but just make your best estimate. Chance are you'll be close enough to get a sense of which aspects of your game need the most work- and the magnitude of the difference.

[natureboy]

Why? It's one foot on the short end and five feet when you get out to 10-15 feet. If you improve at your 12 footers, you're gonna improve at your 14-footers, too. Nobody is awesome from 13 feet but shit from 11 feet (unless there's a very small sample size).

SG is cool and all, but I'm with what I think @RandallT is saying: the broader picture is where relevance is found, not the tiny little details.

I get your point, and actually didn't see that it got to 1 foot close in. I'm not saying 5' bins all the way across isn't useful. I just personally prefer to see scatter plot with all the data points and a fit trendline alongside the smooth baseline curve.

[saevel25]

I get your point, and actually didn't see that it got to 1 foot close in. I'm not saying 5' bins all the way across isn't useful. I just personally prefer to see scatter plot with all the data points and a fit trendline alongside the smooth baseline curve.

I would go,

3-5

6-9

10-15