golfmetrics App

[glinks]

The Golfmetrics app is not GPS-based.  According Broadie, GPS is not accurate enough for putting (so putts need to be entered manually) and it often cannot distinguish fairway versus rough or sand when the ball is close to a boundary.  Accurate data entry then requires a “post-round clean up” to fix these problems, and also to account for lost balls, balls hit out of bounds, into water, etc.

[natureboy]

I thought of a reason why it may be worth the money. Baselines change and improve.

For the pro baselines, Broadie takes a multi-year average and updates it regularly. Other systems may rely on his published baselines that are now out of date or their own derived baselines, which may not be as statistically robust.

One thing I am surprised at is that it sounds like the app does not include position relative to the center of the fairway so an excellent part of Broadie's system that accounts for the value of lateral accuracy / consistency around the target and being able to more easily visualize your shot patterns.

Edited April 28, 2016 by natureboy

[glinks]

Here some snapshots of available stats from a friend.

[RandallT]

Thanks for the screenshots! Looks like pretty basic info that I'd expect. They break your game into Drives, Approaches, Short Game, and Putting- as expected. I like how they give you a "handicap" performance level for each area.

Their Short Game is inside 100yds, and they break into 0-20, 20-60, 60-100, plus bunkers.

Their putting is 0-6, 6-21, 22+. That's different than any other tools. I guess that's how they see short, mid-range, and lag putting.

They break approaches into 50yd increments. 100-150, 150-200, 200-250, 250+. 

For driving, they give you an average drive distance and a 75% drive distance. I'm curious how they calculate that. If you are only entering in the distance and lie for each shot, then you can't calculate a drive length. For example, if you are 400yds on the tee, and then you play from 200yds in the rough, then they would have to say you hit the ball 200yds.   That could be way off, depending on the setup of the hole. Approximate maybe, but accurate, no. Maybe they let you fill in drive length (or override their estimate).

Lots of data entry for these results, particularly compared with tools that do it automatically for you.

[natureboy]

9 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Thanks for the screenshots! Looks like pretty basic info that I'd expect. They break your game into Drives, Approaches, Short Game, and Putting- as expected. I like how they give you a "handicap" performance level for each area.

Their Short Game is inside 100yds, and they break into 0-20, 20-60, 60-100, plus bunkers.

Their putting is 0-6, 6-21, 22+. That's different than any other tools. I guess that's how they see short, mid-range, and lag putting.

They break approaches into 50yd increments. 100-150, 150-200, 200-250, 250+. 

For driving, they give you an average drive distance and a 75% drive distance. I'm curious how they calculate that. If you are only entering in the distance and lie for each shot, then you can't calculate a drive length. For example, if you are 400yds on the tee, and then you play from 200yds in the rough, then they would have to say you hit the ball 200yds.   That could be way off, depending on the setup of the hole. Approximate maybe, but accurate, no. Maybe they let you fill in drive length (or override their estimate).

Lots of data entry for these results, particularly compared with tools that do it automatically for you.

The handicap performance level is nice. Short game distances seem reasonable, but I'd be just as happy with a comparison of continuous baselines on a chart.

I wonder if greenside are treated differently than fairway bunkers as the technique is usually different - at least in most situations from the fairway bunker.

I would ideally like to see a manual shot entry interface - viewing a gridded hole map (zoomable) and just touch select the shot location then select lie from a popup menu. Post round I'd like to be able to view an expanded breakdown / charts and edit my rounds on my home computer. To me that would have the most potential for making the most out of the accuracy of Broadie's baselines.

As far as the putting breakdown, that probably relates to the discussion around Figure 7.17 in ESC where the 'putt importance' for the best putting pros and amateurs peaks at 5 feet and 4 feet respectively. 21 feet is approximately the transition to expected putts >2 for ~ 10 HCP. Not saying this is the reason they chose it, but as it's midway between 20 and 0 seems reasonable that was the thinking.

On a straight hole, a 50 yard lateral miss from center line (at ~ 250 yards) only reduces the distance achieved along the center line by like 5 yards (relative to the straight line distance of the drive itself along the hypotenuse). On a dogleg of nearly 90 degrees 50 yards off line decreases or increases the distance to the hole on the subsequent shot by ~35 yards. Assuming you can find your ball in either situation, you will be left with very different length 2nd shots (70 yard total difference to the pin). It does seem that's going to change the length of your drive if it's estimated by subtracting your distance remaining from the hole length (along centerline). Probably relying on these types of holes being relatively rare and doglegs on either side balancing out, but likely to affect drive distance accuracy if you encounter enough of them and you more wayward than average.

Here's where a home edit feature with hole maps would be great. The program would ideally project the approximate locations of your shots based on length and lie and you just tweak the shot locations so the lie location and the distances  match up.