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Posted

Great post.

One thing to sort of add on, I think it's good for golfers to understand the make %s for various putts. You can really feel like a terrible putter out there when you miss a bunch of 10 footers, but the reality is that those are hard to make. You make a 10 footer, you've done something pretty darn good. PGA Tour players aren't PGA Tour players because they make a bunch of 10 footers.

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Posted

Really useful breakdown and whilst it still takes me a while to get my head around, I can definitely see where you're coming from and why it makes sense. Obviously completely complements the LSW section about safely advancing the ball as far as you can, too :-)

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Posted
14 hours ago, DeadMan said:

One thing to sort of add on, I think it's good for golfers to understand the make %s for various putts. You can really feel like a terrible putter out there when you miss a bunch of 10 footers, but the reality is that those are hard to make. You make a 10 footer, you've done something pretty darn good. PGA Tour players aren't PGA Tour players because they make a bunch of 10 footers.

Yes, I like to tell this story.

I had my golf team playing from the forward tees one day (in twosomes, best ball score). The 17th (errr, 8th… they switched the nines a few years ago) hole is still a 460-yard par "five" from the forward tees, and a golfer hit a driver and a 6-iron to about 25 feet. Then he nearly holed his "eagle" putt and walked off shaking his head and muttering "I should have made that putt…"

I stopped him and said "wait, no. Do you realize what the make % even on the PGA Tour is from that range? You shouldn't have made that putt. That you gave it such a great chance - and that you had only a 25-footer on a long hole to begin with - is a credit to your skill on that hole. Stop feeling bad about yourself - you should feel really good about that hole."

So, there's solace to be found in these types of things, too. For example, if I'm in the shit, and I manage to advance my ball to a nGIR position, I tell myself that I gained almost all the strokes I lost with my crappy tee shot right back. That can be a good feeling, and can help you maintain a fairly accurate outlook on your game, too.

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Posted

Great post!

As a very minor addendum in case people are interested, I was looking at Broadie's chart compared to the current PGA season putting for 8 and 9 footers recently- just to see how the 50/50 benchmark of 8ft was holding up since he published his numbers way back when.

Take a look at the spoiler below, as I have a sense that the median pro is raising the bar a tad, so that 50/50 mark is moving a bit beyond 8ft. It's still early in the season, but the median player hits about 47% from 9ft, and about 53% from 8ft.

Spoiler

9 FOOTERS

Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 8.31.45 AM.png

But that's the top players (shown mainly to grab the column headers. Here's the median (of 176 total players listed for 9ft putts):

Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 8.33.18 AM.png

Link: http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.347.html

The median player seems to be hitting over 47% of 9-footers this year! That seems pretty good. The best players have hit 70% or more (10-20 attempts)- that seems superhuman, and will likely drop over the season.

 

8 FOOTERS

The top players:

Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 8.35.52 AM.png

The median players (183 players listed):Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 8.36.23 AM.png

Link: http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.346.html

The median player seems to be hitting nearly 53% of 8-footers this year. That seems pretty good. The best players have hit in the high 70s%. Sample sizes still in the 10-20 attempts range, so there's a decent amount of variability.

The worst players for 8ft putts are hitting 30% or so. There are about 20 players listed who hit 1/3 of 8ft putts or fewer. So even pros, when given 10-20 chances can miss 70% from 8ft. And they're on TOUR!

 

Just thought it interesting, that's all. This changes NOTHING from your analysis, but thought I'd post because I was just looking at it the other day. I still use the Broadie numbers personally for any analysis spreadsheets.  Assuming these are all 2-putts (as you also say), I could swap out the 1.50 number for 8ft to 1.47 expected shots, but that likely would make a very small difference in the strokes gained putting numbers. 

 

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Posted

A few years ago it was 7'10" so it wouldn't surprise me to see it creep upward slowly. That said, it's still relatively early in the year, too, and the number could drop. Look at the shot attempts: 10, 13, 19… relatively low numbers.

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Posted

I don't know if Broadie has a table for the 50/50 tee shot distance (assuming FIR) for different length holes on Par 5s and Par 4s. A table similar to the putting table. 

My driver distance and 17 deg hybrid distance difference is only 20 yards. But if I know that on a particularly long hole (maybe 440+ yard hole) even a perfect fairway split 240 yard drive will still lose me a 0.2 shot then I might as well hit a hybrid and lose another 0.1 (arbitrary low number) with distance lost but increase my odds of minimizing overall loss by increasing fairway hit chance by 50% or saving a 0.5 shot loss. Net gain of 0.4. Not sure if the math adds up exactly like that, but I think it would make general sense. 

Of course I could just practice up the driver to increase FIR to negate the hybrid FIR advantage, but that's a different thread, yes? :-)

Vishal S.

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Posted
1 hour ago, GolfLug said:

I don't know if Broadie has a table for the 50/50 tee shot distance (assuming FIR) for different length holes on Par 5s and Par 4s. A table similar to the putting table. 

My driver distance and 17 deg hybrid distance difference is only 20 yards. But if I know that on a particularly long hole (maybe 440+ yard hole) even a perfect fairway split 240 yard drive will still lose me a 0.2 shot then I might as well hit a hybrid and lose another 0.1 (arbitrary low number) with distance lost but increase my odds of minimizing overall loss by increasing fairway hit chance by 50% or saving a 0.5 shot loss. Net gain of 0.4. Not sure if the math adds up exactly like that, but I think it would make general sense. 

Of course I could just practice up the driver to increase FIR to negate the hybrid FIR advantage, but that's a different thread, yes? :-)

Fairway or rough from that far away is almost never going to be a 0.5 shot difference. Generally speaking remember The Rule. It's really just that simple. Consider Shot Zones, the distance gradient, and the Shades of Grey on that hole.

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Posted

This was a really long post to read, and re-read multiple times. Thanks for the post. It was very informative.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

So maybe asking the dumb question, and I think I might understand it but just double checking, 2nd shot on a Par 5 when it comes to Strokes Gained is basically...

  • Taking where your tee shot ended up
  • Taking that distances away from the pin on your 2nd shot
  • How much closer your 2nd shot gets you to the pin for your 3rd shot

Love the writeup, thank you.

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Posted
1 hour ago, cutchemist42 said:

So maybe asking the dumb question, and I think I might understand it but just double checking, 2nd shot on a Par 5 when it comes to Strokes Gained is basically...

  • Taking where your tee shot ended up
  • Taking that distances away from the pin on your 2nd shot
  • How much closer your 2nd shot gets you to the pin for your 3rd shot

Kinda.

Let's say that standing 500 yards away from the hole with your ball teed up, your comparative standard (it may not be a PGA Tour player, and for the sake of round numbers, I'll make up a standard here) averages 5.0 strokes.

So you hit a good tee shot 250 yards.

From 250 yards in the fairway, your comparative standard averages 3.9 strokes. It "cost" you one stroke to get there, so you "gained" 0.1 strokes.

From 250 out, you hit he ball to 20 yards short of the green in the rough. From there, your comparative standard averages 2.6 strokes. It again cost you one stroke to get there, so you "gained" 0.3 strokes.

But from there, it takes three to get down for a par. Because you were expected to (by your comparative standard) get down in 2.6, you "lost" the 0.5 (3.0 - 2.6 = 0.4).

You may have lost them chipping, or putting. I didn't know if needed to continue shot by shot. But you lost them there, just as you gained them earlier.

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Posted

Thanks for all the clear explanations, I really like stats and it's such a great way to break down your round. I'd never thought of thinking of each individual shot in this manner as I played. I think it would help to recalibrate expectations.

On a side note, I hope Game Golf expand their strokes gained section to be a bit more granular.

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Posted
56 minutes ago, iacas said:

Kinda.

Let's say that standing 500 yards away from the hole with your ball teed up, your comparative standard (it may not be a PGA Tour player, and for the sake of round numbers, I'll make up a standard here) averages 5.0 strokes.

So you hit a good tee shot 250 yards.

From 250 yards in the fairway, your comparative standard averages 3.9 strokes. It "cost" you one stroke to get there, so you "gained" 0.1 strokes.

From 250 out, you hit he ball to 20 yards short of the green in the rough. From there, your comparative standard averages 2.6 strokes. It again cost you one stroke to get there, so you "gained" 0.3 strokes.

But from there, it takes three to get down for a par. Because you were expected to (by your comparative standard) get down in 2.6, you "lost" the 0.5 (3.0 - 2.6 = 0.4).

You may have lost them chipping, or putting. I didn't know if needed to continue shot by shot. But you lost them there, just as you gained them earlier.

Thank you for this, I think I understand but just want to ask another question. When it comes to strokes gained then, not every 2nd shot is the same?

Lets just say there's two drives of 200 yards and 250 on a 500 yard course. There is then equal 2nd shots of 200 yards. There is then differences between those two 2nd shots and the strokes gained or lost?

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Posted
23 minutes ago, cutchemist42 said:

Thank you for this, I think I understand but just want to ask another question. When it comes to strokes gained then, not every 2nd shot is the same?

Lets just say there's two drives of 200 yards and 250 on a 500 yard course. There is then equal 2nd shots of 200 yards. There is then differences between those two 2nd shots and the strokes gained or lost?

Yes, of course. Ignore the tee shot.

If you have a 130-yard par three and a 180-yard par three, hitting the ball 130 yards and onto the green is a better shot on the first hole than hitting a 130-yard shot on the 180-yard hole.

Strokes gained cares about four things:

  • The distance your ball was from the hole before you hit it.
  • The distance your ball was from the hole after you hit it.
  • The lies of each of the above.
  • The expected strokes to be taken by whomever you choose as your "comparative" golfer.

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  • 6 years later...
Posted

Very well said, Knowing the average number of shots it takes a player to complete a hole from a given location is the starting point for strokes gained.

Strokes gained makes use of the Shotlink data provided by the PGA, which keeps track of each player's shots throughout the season with an accuracy of less than one inch. With this information, we can figure out how many shots an average tour player needs to finish a hole from a certain distance.


Posted
On 3/28/2016 at 1:07 AM, iacas said:

So, there's solace to be found in these types of things, too. For example, if I'm in the shit, and I manage to advance my ball to a nGIR position, I tell myself that I gained almost all the strokes I lost with my crappy tee shot right back. That can be a good feeling, and can help you maintain a fairly accurate outlook on your game, too.

This is actually a problem for most golfers.  Not because they hit the second shot well, but because they expect to hit every shot well, even though they are nowhere close to that level.  So they get upset that because of the bad first shot they couldn't be GIR.  Is this fair. Definitely not.  Is it human nature.  Almost certainly yes for many people.  Most of us are deluded enough to believe we can hit every shot well because we have hit it once before, many moons ago.

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