You can't score if you can't putt?

[p1n9183]

That`s what i learned yesterday after checking my stats for the round against my final score.

Played at my home course from the tips (6550 yards, par 72, 71.8, 22 miles/h winds ). My hándicap is 2, score average is 4.5 and GIR avg is 10.

Hole 1: hit water with my iron tee shot. From 180 yards hit Green, 15 feet for par.
Hole 2: hit Green from 120 yards to 33 feet for birdie.
Hole 3: hit Green from 155 yards to 24 feet for birdie.
Hole 4: 2nd shot on par 5 from 230 yards rests 2 yards short of Green, front pin 21 feet yards away.
Hole 5: hit Green from 70 yards to 6 feet for birdie.
Hole 6: hit Green from 110 yards to 10 feet for birdie.
Hole 7 hit Green from 140 yards to 10 feet for birdie.
Hole 8 hit Green from 180 yards to 20 feet for birdie.
Hole 9 hit Green from 140 yards to 25 feet for birdie.
Hole 10: hit Green with 2nd shot in par 5 from 220 yards, 25 feet for Eagle.
Hole 11: hit Green from 200 yards to 45 feet for birdie.
Hole 12: hit Green from 110 yards to 15 feet for birdie.
Hole 13: hit my tee shot to the tres, lay up sideways and hit Green from 90 yards 12 feet for par.
Hole 14: Hit Green from 110 yards to 12 feet for birdie.
Hole 15: Hit Green from 155 yards to 20 feet for birdie.
Hole 16: Amazing recovery shot from behind a tree into a dry water hazard to hit the greeen from 150 yards to 20 feet for birdie.
Hole 17: Hit Green from 150 yards to 15 feet for birdie.
Hole 18: Hit Green from 110 yards to 30 feet for birdie.

As you can see ball striking was amazing. 16 GIR, 2 par 5 reach in 2. A lot a birdie chances. Don`t had to chip/pitch in the hole round because i hit every Green i attempted, never happened to me.
Long game did it`s job, it all depended in holing a few putts and i will sing a round of 3.. or 4 under. well... I`ll shoot Even Par. :(

Holed the birdie on 5th hole. 3 putted on the par 5 4th. And then 2 putts the other holes. 36 putts.
Shoot 3 under a couple of times this years and all of them where because of good putting day`s.

So.. if you can`t putt you can`t score. Still think that "Drive For Show, Putt For Dough" prevails.

 

Edited October 10, 2016 by p1n9183

[paininthenuts]

18 minutes ago, p1n9183 said:

That`s what i learned yesterday after checking my stats for the round against my final score.

Played at my home course from the tips (6550 yards, par 72, 71.8, 22 miles/h winds ). My hándicap is 2, score average is 4.5 and GIR avg is 10.

Hole 1: hit water with my iron tee shot. From 180 yards hit Green, 15 feet for par.
Hole 2: hit Green from 120 yards to 33 feet for birdie.
Hole 3: hit Green from 155 yards to 24 feet for birdie.
Hole 4: 2nd shot on par 5 from 230 yards rests 2 yards short of Green, front pin 21 feet yards away.
Hole 5: hit Green from 70 yards to 6 feet for birdie.
Hole 6: hit Green from 110 yards to 10 feet for birdie.
Hole 7 hit Green from 140 yards to 10 feet for birdie.
Hole 8 hit Green from 180 yards to 20 feet for birdie.
Hole 9 hit Green from 140 yards to 25 feet for birdie.
Hole 10: hit Green with 2nd shot in par 5 from 220 yards, 25 feet for Eagle.
Hole 11: hit Green from 200 yards to 45 feet for birdie.
Hole 12: hit Green from 110 yards to 15 feet for birdie.
Hole 13: hit my tee shot to the tres, lay up sideways and hit Green from 90 yards 12 feet for par.
Hole 14: Hit Green from 110 yards to 12 feet for birdie.
Hole 15: Hit Green from 155 yards to 20 feet for birdie.
Hole 16: Amazing recovery shot from behind a tree into a dry water hazard to hit the greeen from 150 yards to 20 feet for birdie.
Hole 17: Hit Green from 150 yards to 15 feet for birdie.
Hole 18: Hit Green from 110 yards to 30 feet for birdie.

As you can see ball striking was amazing. 16 GIR, 2 par 5 reach in 2. A lot a birdie chances. Don`t had to chip/pitch in the hole round because i hit every Green i attempted, never happened to me.
Long game did it`s job, it all depended in holing a few putts and i will sing a round of 3.. or 4 under. well... I`ll shoot Even Par. :(

Holed the birdie on 5th hole. 3 putted on the par 5 4th. And then 2 putts the other holes. 36 putts.
Shoot 3 under a couple of times this years and all of them where because of good putting day`s.

So.. if you can`t putt you can`t score. Still think that "Drive For Show, Putt For Dough" prevails.

 

Not true. My putting of late has been exceptional, but my golf hasn't. 

[CarlSpackler]

Looking at your putt lengths, many of them are not in the makeable range. The 6 footer is definitely makeable and you might make a percentage of the 10 footers, but the rest are low percentage. If you didn't have any 3 putts, I would say you were putting great. If you hit more approach shots to 8' or less, you will convert more birdies.

 

[billchao]

28 minutes ago, p1n9183 said:

As you can see ball striking was amazing. 16 GIR, 2 par 5 reach in 2. A lot a birdie chances. Don`t had to chip/pitch in the hole round because i hit every Green i attempted, never happened to me.
Long game did it`s job, it all depended in holing a few putts and i will sing a round of 3.. or 4 under. well... I`ll shoot Even Par. :(

You long game did more than its job; it had a career day. That's like a tour pro's day. As @CarlSpackler mentioned, most of your birdie putts aren't high percentage putts, so I think you're overestimating what your expected score should have been a bit.

If you hit your 10 GIR average instead, you're looking at maybe +2 on the day if you scramble on the PGA Tour level (median player scrambling % in 2016 was about 58%). I assume you don't since you average +4.5.

Pat yourself on the back for hitting 16 GIR. Nice round 

[Grinde6]

I agree that his putting was still good since he had some 25, 30 and a 45 footer and didn't 3 putt.  I would say though that what the OP is talking about is that he had probably 6 makeable putts in the <15 foot range.  If the 6 footer goes in and he makes a couple of the 10-15 footers he is looking at an under par round.  If I have a putt in the 15 foot range I see it as a makeable putt, and if not it better scare the hole.  I also hope to get lucky with a putt or 2 outside the 25 foot range.  Hole 4 and hole 10 should have been birdies (10 if he was 21 feet away not yards for eagle, but still if your short game is decent you should have a 5 footer for birdie).  Looking at this round hole by hole it could have been a very low round.

[natureboy]

On the birdie looks you averaged ~ 21' in proximity.

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, p1n9183 said:

Long game did it`s job, it all depended in holing a few putts and i will sing a round of 3.. or 4 under. well... I`ll shoot Even Par. :(

Holed the birdie on 5th hole. 3 putted on the par 5 4th. And then 2 putts the other holes. 36 putts.
Shoot 3 under a couple of times this years and all of them where because of good putting day`s.

So.. if you can`t putt you can`t score. Still think that "Drive For Show, Putt For Dough" prevails.

I'd say 99% of the players in the world would say that shooting even par counts as "scoring,"  and you did that with a worse-than-average putting day.   You were 2 under par net, and 4 or 5 under your average, I'd bet 100% of the golfers in the world (other than you) would call that "scoring."  Yeah, its hard to go REALLY low if one facet of your game isn't up to snuff, but you DID score well.  

[Golfingdad]

26 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

I'd say 99% of the players in the world would say that shooting even par counts as "scoring,"  and you did that with a worse-than-average putting day.   You were 2 under par net, and 4 or 5 under your average, I'd bet 100% of the golfers in the world (other than you) would call that "scoring."  Yeah, its hard to go REALLY low if one facet of your game isn't up to snuff, but you DID score well.  

Agree with most everybody.  Slight overestimation of expected score based on putts that "should" have been made on OP's part, otherwise a fantastic round.  Well done.

There is an anecdote in Lowest Score Wins where @david_wedzik discusses a career round (I think it was a CR during a web.com tour event, in fact) and he explains that it wasn't the putting that was making all of the birdies easier, it was the ball striking.  His proximity wasn't ~21' but more like ~8 or something.

[DaveP043]

4 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

There is an anecdote in Lowest Score Wins where @david_wedzik discusses a career round (I think it was a CR during a web.com tour event, in fact) and he explains that it wasn't the putting that was making all of the birdies easier, it was the ball striking.  His proximity wasn't ~21' but more like ~8 or something.

Supposedly, Ben Hogan was complaining to his wife about his putting, how he wasn't making anything.  His wife said to him "Why Ben, why don't you just hit it closer to the hole?"

[mcanadiens]

6 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Supposedly, Ben Hogan was complaining to his wife about his putting, how he wasn't making anything.  His wife said to him "Why Ben, why don't you just hit it closer to the hole?"

Damn it! Why didn't I think of that.

 

[shanksalot]

Some time ago I hit 16 of 18 greens and shot 75 on a par 70 with two birdies and 5 three putts. I did not get it close to the hole most of the time and had long birdie putts. It is not hitting the green a lot, but getting it close to the hole a lot. I was quite upset at the time, but today I would take that in a heartbeat. 

[GolfLug]

Statistically you should expect atleast 3-5 of those to drop, but statistics take many rounds to be considered meaningful.

One round doesn't make a pattern.

Of course, if your ball striking is consistently 14-16 GIRs and you feel your putting is 'awful' then by all means, spend some time on the greens and figure out If there is any glaring weakness in your stroke, like you are consistently aiming wrong or just have a putter that might need more or less weight for distance control, etc. - in short, get fitted for a putter.

I will echo what many have posted. As long as you are not 3-putting from 20-40 feet, putting is ok.

 

[StefanUrkel]

Define score. I'm guessing most people would shoot better if they averaged 35-36(one putt on fringe) putts per round(could be wrong)

[DaveP043]

2 hours ago, p1n9183 said:

Shoot 3 under a couple of times this years and all of them where because of good putting day`s.

I went back and read again, and this struck me.  The question, did you ever shoot -3 when you had a BAD day driving the ball, or a bad day with your irons?  

If you look at the odds of shooting a score which produces a differential of -3 to -4 as compared to your index, this table:

http://oga.org/sites/default/files/Probability Table.pdf

would suggest that there's something like 1 chance in 57.  For someone like me, playing a little under 100 rounds a year, I should hope to do this twice in a year.  I'd call those rounds "scoring", no matter what parts of my game were strong those days.

[mvmac]

@p1n9183, thanks for sharing. Shooting even par for a 2 handicap is scoring well. Yes it seems like you left a lot of shots out there because you had a bunch of birdies chances but even the best putter on tour from 20-25 feet only makes it from that distance 22% of the time.

Your solid ballstriking allowed you to have a worse than average day on the greens and still score reasonably well. If you reversed it, had a worse than average day ballstriking and putted well you most likely would have been over par.

[natureboy]

3 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

Supposedly, Ben Hogan was complaining to his wife about his putting, how he wasn't making anything.  His wife said to him "Why Ben, why don't you just hit it closer to the hole?"

Then he walked off muttering to himself and gesticulating, right?

[p1n9183]

23 hours ago, CarlSpackler said:

Looking at your putt lengths, many of them are not in the makeable range. The 6 footer is definitely makeable and you might make a percentage of the 10 footers, but the rest are low percentage. If you didn't have any 3 putts, I would say you were putting great. If you hit more approach shots to 8' or less, you will convert more birdies.

 

Take a look at that and you are rigth (like a few more that said the same). A tour pro from my distances espects in average 33.5 putts. 2,5 strokes less than what i did. So my putting wasn´t that bad after all. I could be better thou.
Like DaveP043 said, it was a worse-than-average putting day. Just that.

To clear up the "scoring" thing... I was pretty happy to shoot even par and i´ll be happy to shoot everything under 4.5+ (my scoring avg). Shot 82 (10 over) the day before!! so don´t get me wrong, shooting par was scoring to me.

What i meant is that i spected to shoot lower hitting 16 GIR (moreover I hit two Par 5 in two). A tour pro average 12 GIR and a score of 71 (i guess in par 71 courses). So spected to shoot under par after an unrrepetible long game day for me. If i cant shoot under par after my best day ever, then when ???

Found the stats of the round i shoot 3 under:

0 penalties - 14 GIR - 3/7 up/down - 29 putts.

3 of those GIR where on par 5 i go for it in 2 a miss the green.

Well rephrasing myself... if you can´t putt, scramble and have a solid ball striking you can´t shoot under par.

        

 

 

[jkelley9]

Any 1 round is not a statistically sound set of data by itself. Even with 65-100 strokes.

By hitting 16 GIR you set yourself up to put the ball closer to the hole (statistically) than by chipping up. It (nearly) eliminates a big miss like a chunk/thin greenside shot. You have your putter in your hand so statistically you'll be able to get the ball closer to the hole on that shot. 

This is actually the way my golf has been as of late. I can average about 10 GIR but I rarely have birdies. My NC greens are quite large. I'm often 15-60 ft from the pin. Granted I'm a ~12 HC but I'm lucky to walk away with par often. Occasionally I'll hit those same 10 greens and a lot of the shots are near the pin and I can make some birdies which chomps down on my score, and it's great. But it's not always gunna happen. In fact, more often than not I'll go a whole round without a single birdie.

Look at it this way: Your game up to putting is so good that you're able to give yourself a CHANCE (still SMALL though) to have a super low score day. Keep hitting those greens and it will come one day. Just 2 weeks ago I played 9 holes and shot a 39 (par 36) because I sank 3 birdie putts. Heck of a round for me.