Longer or More Accurate?

[Lihu]

33 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

I would tell the Genie I want 2 wishes:

- 10% more distance off the tee

- 10% more accurate on my approaches, then I would make 25% more putts

 

But if I only had one it would be distance, I hit the fairway with regularity so I would want to have a more lofted club in my hands for my approach

I was going to mention that your second wish looked pretty much like this, so it ends up being just more distance again. . .

[ZappyAd]

3 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I believe it's from LSW, but 20 yards of distance equals 1 degree of accuracy for a PGA Tour player. I am not sure if accuracy and strokes gained are a linear relationship. As the handicap goes up the amount you can gain from 1 degree of accuracy does not increase as much as the strokes saved by increasing distance by 20 yards.

So for a tour pro 10yds = 0.4 strokes gained and 10% accuracy = 0.23 degrees (assuming a pro has 8% dispersion which means angular error +/- 2.29 degress) = 0.18 strokes gained.

If the 115 amateur has 25% dispersion then 10yds = 1.35 strokes gained and 10% accuracy = 0.71 degrees = 0.78 strokes gained.

I found the dispersion numbers on the internet so they could obviously be totally inaccurate and my math is a bit rusty but  if the 80 handicapper has 25% dispersion then actually the strokes gained from 10 yds or 10% accuracy look like they would be the same.  

 

 

[Pretzel]

On 1/7/2016 at 9:39 AM, Big C said:

An interesting follow up question might be - "what % improvement in angular accuracy would it take to be as valuable to your game as a 10% increase in distance?" Obviously, this will vary for every player,  but for someone with my profile, I am guessing about 33%. The ability to turn my 30 yard misses into 20 yard misses off the tee would likely be meaningful enough to save me some OB/Penalty strokes, and and an approach that missed the flag by 10 feet left, as opposed to 15 feet would likely be significant enough to give me more realistic birdie opportunities. 

I calculated what would make the two approximately equivalent if you look back to my previous post. For my driving distance of ~280 yards and accuracy of ~4.5*, the 10% boost to accuracy correlates approximately to a 6% boost in distance. 

This doesn't fully account for things such as potentially not hitting into a bad spot off my tee shot, but I intentionally left that out since the courses I play are wide enough that me hitting the ball 10% further on my line (even on my crummy tee shots) will not result in trouble for me, or if hitting the ball 10% further does add a risk of me hitting into the hazard I will club down and play towards the lightest colored easter egg (according to Lowest Score Wins). In reality the 10% accuracy might come closer to about 6.5% distance, but there are too many variables to consider that would change on a course-by-course basis if I attempted to account for those.

[MiniJeffrey]

You might think accuracy is the better choice, but it is not. If you tend to hit an avg of 5 yards off to the right or left, you will only improve half a yard, that still leaves you kinda off. But if you hit 220 yards with your driver, you suddenly have a second shot that is 22 yards shorter (2 clubs for most of us), giving you more options to play in regulation or play a short iron to the pin on par 4's. So I would go for distance I think.

[JBailey]

On 1/7/2016 at 9:27 AM, Lihu said:

That's because you are sacrificing a wild swing for a controlled and proper swing, and not because you are actually sacrificing distance for accuracy.

Now, if you were now given the choice to become 10% more accurate or 10% longer with this controlled and proper swing, which would you choose?

So, I get both more accuracy and distance.  Sounds good to me.

My point was not a "wild" swing, but one that still is in the fairway.  Most courses I played this year were tight with penalizing woods close to the fairway.  A drive close to the rough, but in the fairway, would leave me with a decent chance to hit the green in regulation.  However, the angle of the drive that is on the edge of the fairway with my 220 yds. would put me in the woods at 242 yds.  10% better accuracy would give me a better chance to hit the green.

Again, I think I get the point about distance being important, but unless my accuracy improves also, I'm not sure it will do me any good.

This is a good discussion and if anything, it makes me think I've got to look for some more open golf courses to play.  

Actually, I plan on getting both 10% more distance and accuracy this coming summer.

Later,

John

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, JBailey said:

So, I get both more accuracy and distance.  Sounds good to me.

My point was not a "wild" swing, but one that still is in the fairway.  Most courses I played this year were tight with penalizing woods close to the fairway.  A drive close to the rough, but in the fairway, would leave me with a decent chance to hit the green in regulation.  However, the angle of the drive that is on the edge of the fairway with my 220 yds. would put me in the woods at 242 yds.  10% better accuracy would give me a better chance to hit the green.

Again, I think I get the point about distance being important, but unless my accuracy improves also, I'm not sure it will do me any good.

This is a good discussion and if anything, it makes me think I've got to look for some more open golf courses to play.  

Actually, I plan on getting both 10% more distance and accuracy this coming summer.

Later,

John

They usually go together anyway.

 

[Dave325]

On January 13, 2016 at 8:09 PM, Lihu said:

They usually go together anyway.

 

I agree on this one, as they do go together. If I hit my longest drive very inaccurately.... But very long when I swing the ball out of my boots.... I can then usually dial it down to about 80% of the full swing and this gives me the distance at a higher degree of accuracy I might need. Then, as I continue to work on the full swing at 100%, I would think my accuracy would come along. Hey, Mr. Genie! Where ya at? Distance please!

[saevel25]

https://golfanalytics.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/henrik-stenson-loves-his-3-wood-too-much/

A cool chart is on this article. It shows percentage of times Tour players hit driver with how accurate they were and how long they hit their drivers. 

If you are in the top far right corner you have both accuracy and distance. This article is basically saying that Henrik Stenson is not playing to his strength. He only hits his driver 33% of the time. He's clearly missing out on some strokes against the field on this one. 

 

[9wood]

Both

I finally got the accuracy part pretty much under control and since I just bought a new driver I'm thinking longer will now become a reality this year.

[boogielicious]

15 hours ago, saevel25 said:

https://golfanalytics.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/henrik-stenson-loves-his-3-wood-too-much/

A cool chart is on this article. It shows percentage of times Tour players hit driver with how accurate they were and how long they hit their drivers. 

If you are in the top far right corner you have both accuracy and distance. This article is basically saying that Henrik Stenson is not playing to his strength. He only hits his driver 33% of the time. He's clearly missing out on some strokes against the field on this one. 

 

No wonder Mike Weir is struggling to stay on tour.

[RussUK]

29 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

No wonder Mike Weir is struggling to stay on tour.

Didnt realise Mike Weir was still around. Certainly a blast from the past

[Marty2019]

Okay, I read the first 2 pages of posts and have come to a conclusion. 

I'm not sure it was intended as a trick question, but nonetheless, it's pretty much a trick question. 

10% more accurate is a much smaller number than 10% more distance.    That's why the choices are not really comparable.   If my normal drive is 230 yards, and my normal miss is 30 yards, either side, then 10% more accurate is 3 yards while 10% more distance is 23 yards. 

I'm sure if the choice was spelled out as "Would you rather be 3 yards more accurate or 23 yards longer," then the vote would be 100% in favor of more distance over more accuracy. 

(So now I need to go back and amend my vote because I voted for accuracy)

 

 

[Pete]

Imagine how much more accurate you would have to be, to outweigh hitting a 9 iron instead of a 5 iron into the green? I think my 20+ handicap old man is more accurate with a 9 iron than I am with my 5 iron.

I'm sure iacas could work out how much more accurate you would need to be to negate the 10% distance gain.

 

Edited February 10, 2016 by Pete

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Marty2019 said:

Okay, I read the first 2 pages of posts and have come to a conclusion. 

I'm not sure it was intended as a trick question, but nonetheless, it's pretty much a trick question. 

10% more accurate is a much smaller number than 10% more distance.    That's why the choices are not really comparable.   If my normal drive is 230 yards, and my normal miss is 30 yards, either side, then 10% more accurate is 3 yards while 10% more distance is 23 yards. 

That doesn't make it a trick question. People aren't so lousy with accuracy that they're off 200 yards, but their tee shots travel 200 yards toward the target fairly often. The 10% thing helps to adjust them to the proper scale. I hit my driver 270, but I don't miss by 1/4 of that distance (67.5 yards).

The wildest 100-shooting golfers are about +/- 10°. Their average is about 7°. 80-golfers are around 6°. 70 golfers probably about 5°. PGA Tour pros are around 3.5°.

So 10% of those numbers are 0.7, 0.6, and 0.5°, with 0.35° for PGA Tour players. And yet, give each of them a full 1° (or  14% more accuracy for 100-golfers, 17% more accuracy for 80-golfers, 20% more accuracy for 70-golfers, and nearly 30% more accuracy for PGA Tour players… and they still come up short (or, at the PGA Tour level, only begin to break even).

This means that the poll is biased, indeed, but in the opposite direction you think, @Marty2019. The poll could have said "would you choose 25% more accuracy or 10% more distance" and everyone (generalized to groups, not individuals) would STILL be better off choosing the distance.

The only "trick" is that people value accuracy way, way too much, to the point where many are happy to take only a 10% improvement in accuracy while even a 25% improvement still can't account for the added value of driving the ball an extra 10% farther.

[Marty2019]

If you apply the same percentage to accuracy as to distance, the only way to make the resulting numbers comparable is the make the initial lack of accuracy HUGE.  You'd have to have people missing by 200 yards or more!    The problem is, that would put them 2 fairways over, so 10% of that would not be helpful at all.  

Like I say, the only way to make it a more equal choice would be to ask something like, do you want the option of taking 10 yards left or right on all your shots, or do you want the option of

On 2/10/2016 at 10:23 AM, iacas said:

That doesn't make it a trick question. People aren't so lousy with accuracy that they're off 200 yards, but their tee shots travel 200 yards toward the target fairly often. The 10% thing helps to adjust them to the proper scale. I hit my driver 270, but I don't miss by 1/4 of that distance (67.5 yards).

The wildest 100-shooting golfers are about +/- 10°. Their average is about 7°. 80-golfers are around 6°. 70 golfers probably about 5°. PGA Tour pros are around 3.5°.

So 10% of those numbers are 0.7, 0.6, and 0.5°, with 0.35° for PGA Tour players. And yet, give each of them a full 1° (or  14% more accuracy for 100-golfers, 17% more accuracy for 80-golfers, 20% more accuracy for 70-golfers, and nearly 30% more accuracy for PGA Tour players… and they still come up short (or, at the PGA Tour level, only begin to break even).

This means that the poll is biased, indeed, but in the opposite direction you think, @Marty2019. The poll could have said "would you choose 25% more accuracy or 10% more distance" and everyone (generalized to groups, not individuals) would STILL be better off choosing the distance.

The only "trick" is that people value accuracy way, way too much, to the point where many are happy to take only a 10% improvement in accuracy while even a 25% improvement still can't account for the added value of driving the ball an extra 10% farther.

 

If you hit your tee shot 270, even if you miss by 1/4 of that distance, 10% more distance is 27 yards, but 10% more accuracy would only be 6 yards.   That's not enough to make much difference in your accuracy.   That's why 10% of accuracy vs 10% of distance is not a fair comparison.  

Maybe a better poll would be something like, "would you prefer 10 yards better accuracy or 10 yards more distance. "   That's a lot more comparable than putting the same percentage on two wildly different numbers.   If you apply the same percentage to accuracy as to distance, the only way to make the resulting numbers comparable is the make the initial lack of accuracy HUGE.  You'd have to have people missing by 200 yards or more!    The problem is, that would put them 2 fairways over, so 10% of that would not be helpful at all.  

 

 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Marty2019 said:

Maybe a better poll would be something like, "would you prefer 10 yards better accuracy or 10 yards more distance. "   That's a lot more comparable than putting the same percentage on two wildly different numbers.   If you apply the same percentage to accuracy as to distance, the only way to make the resulting numbers comparable is the make the initial lack of accuracy HUGE.  You'd have to have people missing by 200 yards or more!    The problem is, that would put them 2 fairways over, so 10% of that would not be helpful at all.  

The poll is fine, because the people who voted for 10% more accuracy are really, really, really wrong (except in rare cases at an individual level).

The poll is intentionally misleading. Virtually NOBODY should ever pick the "10% more accuracy" yet a lot of people do because they have a misguided perception of the importance of the two.

[Lihu]

3 hours ago, Marty2019 said:

Maybe a better poll would be something like, "would you prefer 10 yards better accuracy or 10 yards more distance. "   That's a lot more comparable than putting the same percentage on two wildly different numbers.   If you apply the same percentage to accuracy as to distance, the only way to make the resulting numbers comparable is the make the initial lack of accuracy HUGE.  You'd have to have people missing by 200 yards or more!    The problem is, that would put them 2 fairways over, so 10% of that would not be helpful at all.  

The answer really depends upon your distance dispersion. If by improving accuracy you are including distance dispersion, then I agree that accuracy is better. Let me qualify that though. By gaining this "accuracy" you are effectively gaining average distance.

So, if that magic genie told me that every single one of my drives will be the same distance and as far as I hit my longest ones, I would pick accuracy. That would be the only reason I would pick more "accuracy" over distance. But in a sneaky way I am still picking distance. . .