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Deep Dive Analyses in TST Members' Games- Feedback Requested


RandallT
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@Fairway_CY was brave enough to be a guinea pig for an idea to analyze his game, with the goal being that we amateurs can combine aspects of GAME GOLF (GG) and Lowest Score Wins (LSW) to map out a course for better golf. Here was the first effort:

https://thesandtrap.com/b/the_numbers_game/deep_dive_analysis_cy

Keep in mind, I'm not a trained statistician (or in any way connected to a profession related to golf!), so the idea is to see how we laymen can make sense of our own games, using tools at our disposal. Even better when those tools (GG/LSW) are ones that are popular here on TST. 

While Erik will surely review the articles to make sure they're not going to detract from his LSW brand, the main idea was to mostly do see what we amateurs can come up with ourselves. Erik should always feel free to chime in and tell us we have gone a bit astray with the direction we've taken the analysis, of course. I make no claim to be omniscient, and I can frequently head the wrong direction with where I think the numbers are taking me. My hope is that he (and Dave, of course) will get some gratification seeing people apply the analysis in the book for real-world examples. 

If you're interested in being a subject of a future article, let me know. I've had one person volunteer after CY. The priority for me (for the first few, anyway- that could change after feedback) will be someone who needs significant improvement- maybe bogey golf or worse.  The person needs to have read LSW and to have at least 8 very representative rounds accurately recorded in GG (typically requiring moving your shots and pin locations). For example:

  • Initial putts should be extremely accurate, and
  • All other shots should be reflected to a decent level. 

The golfer should be someone with longevity here on the site and who appears to be on a trajectory that shows a desire to improve. Some humility and a sense of humor help too! Another hope is to come back next season after we find our strides in the season and do a follow-up on the same golfers to see if the improvement plan has helped. If so, where were the strokes shaved? Are the analysis and plan holding up?

Any other feedback on the direction of the feature is welcome, of course.

If you read the first article linked above, feel free to help me figure out what to cut out, what to supplement with. This is meant to evolve to be useful and right-to-the-heart-of-the-matter stuff. I'll try to limit fluff in the write-ups. The first one was long, admittedly. 

Thanks in advance.

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My Swing


Driver: :ping: G30, Irons: :tmade: Burner 2.0, Putter: :cleveland:, Balls: :snell:

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Great stuff Randy, I think your on track with your the strategy of providing a player with a method of reflecting what the "Numbers" indicate of their "Strengths/Weaknesses" while tracking a trend and indicating various areas a player would expect to improve.

I feel players need a threshold and a comparison means, which indicate all areas of their game. While some use indicators such as Ghin as a basis, they may reflect on recent rounds of areas they may consider "pitfalls" while in reality other issues may be giving them a false signal of the cause.

With using your "indicators" it provides a more accurate analysis of areas to compare and reflect throughout the course of the players season. Identifying each aspect should help players take a closer look into their progression for one time period to another.

Golf is always "a work in progress"  Identifying the proper areas is crucial to better play.

 

Johnny Rocket - Let's Rock and Roll and play some golf !!!

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Nice work @RandallT

I won't get to the level of detail and accuracy you've reached, but I'll likely play around with stats and practice ratios during the winter.

One question... other than looking over my rounds and just tallying them up, is there any way GG can provide penalty stroke information? Penalties are obviously costly, but I wonder how many of those I average per round compared to say 3-putts per round.

Jon

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13 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

is there any way GG can provide penalty stroke information?

They presently do not provide information for penalty strokes totals or other stats in many other categories which they have the data base . If you would like to track certain criteria of your game, you would need to review the rounds and manually enter the information into a document or spreadsheet.
It is really easy to review each round and record numerous stats, recording the necessary information does require a small amount of time.
Hopefully GG in the future will provide a means to export the data, a request which has been made by many users.
I have created a personal spreadsheet which I can monitor trends in my game and show total stats of various criteria, one being total penalty strokes for all rounds, last 10 rounds and rounds 11 - 20. 

I basically created a template and will add other features at a later date.

Stats.png

Johnny Rocket - Let's Rock and Roll and play some golf !!!

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I just received my GameGolf and have not used it yet, but I was thinking of using the extra pieces to be for penalty strokes, one for green-side chips, and one for punch outs to get back to the fairway.  Is this not a good plan?  I was thinking that by doing this all my penalty strokes would be accounted for and I wouldn't have to rely on the system to say what was or wasn't an actual full swing.  Additionally, I was thinking that I might be better able to analyze situations where using my driver off the tee hurt me more.  

Like I said I haven't used it yet so this was just my thought.  If GameGolf is pretty good at sorting this kind of information already then obviously I wont need to use this.

BTW Randall, your first Deep Dive Analysis is partially one of the reason I decided to purchase GameGolf (and it was on sale).  I thought you did a great job showing us how we can break down the stats even further to show us the priority piece for our actual golf game.

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56 minutes ago, Good Ash said:

I just received my GameGolf and have not used it yet, but I was thinking of using the extra pieces to be for penalty strokes, one for green-side chips, and one for punch outs to get back to the fairway.  Is this not a good plan?  I was thinking that by doing this all my penalty strokes would be accounted for and I wouldn't have to rely on the system to say what was or wasn't an actual full swing.

You shouldn't have to "tag" the penalty shots, since then they'd be counted as actual strokes instead of penalty shots that way.  For shorter shots (like the chips and punch shots), GG automatically filters those out.

Here's how it reports my 8 iron:

8 iron.jpg

You can see that it ignores that gemisch of single shots of shorter distances on the left and looks for the full shots.

 

Craig
What's in the :ogio: Silencer bag (on the :clicgear: cart)
Driver: :callaway: Razr Fit 10.5°  
5 Wood: :tmade: Burner  
Hybrid: :cobra: Baffler DWS 20°
Irons: :ping: G400 
Wedge: :ping: Glide 2.0 54° ES grind 
Putter: :heavyputter:  midweight CX2
:aimpoint:,  :bushnell: Tour V4

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55 minutes ago, Missouri Swede said:

You shouldn't have to "tag" the penalty shots, since then they'd be counted as actual strokes instead of penalty shots that way.

Yes, exactly. There's a way to add penalty stroke via the interface. For example, if you hit one OB from the tee, you go ahead hit your 3rd and click +2 for penalty using the web interface later. If you hit into a hazard, you'd just hit +1. Interesting idea to fake a swing using a tag that you label as "Penalty." That's OT for this thread, but I'd guess you'd run into some funky things in the reports if you chose to do that. Imaginative idea though, and just crazy enough that it might work for you. But not how the product was designed to handle it.

While GG has a TON of data stored in there, I do wish it had more reports (like penalties). I think proximity data would be a treasure trove (how close do you get to the green from various ranges?). The data is there, but they've chosen to keep the interface simpler, rather than give the general population too much confusing info. That's why I felt the need to record the lie and distance to the hole of every shot (extracted from GG), and just do independent reports to compare against the LSW benchmarks. Basically extracting the shot info manually and process it myself. 

I'd humbly suggest to them that they are giving us the Stats101 reports, and some of us are looking for Stats412, in college course vernacular. I totally understand why they chose the simpler route, however.

2 hours ago, Good Ash said:

BTW Randall, your first Deep Dive Analysis is partially one of the reason I decided to purchase GameGolf (and it was on sale). I thought you did a great job showing us how we can break down the stats even further to show us the priority piece for our actual golf game.

Very cool and thanks! FWIW- GG's strokes gained has improved since the write-up, so I'd expect next time, we will see GG's numbers match better the strokes gained when compared against PGA. For a while, their strokes gained were skewed fairly significantly toward short game and putting from what I could see anecdotally. I'm interested to see how the next guinea pig works out.

On 12/6/2016 at 11:11 AM, Club Rat said:

Great stuff Randy, I think your on track with your the strategy of providing a player with a method of reflecting what the "Numbers" indicate of their "Strengths/Weaknesses" while tracking a trend and indicating various areas a player would expect to improve.

Thanks, @Club Rat.

17 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

One question... other than looking over my rounds and just tallying them up, is there any way GG can provide penalty stroke information?

As mentioned, I don't see any reports in GG on penalties. Partly the reason (again) why I extract it all out and process myself for any truly "deep dive." Good luck with your winter stats, as it's getting cold up there in Michigan, I'm sure. I think today may have been one of my last range days. The outlook for the rest of the year is looking quite a bit chillier here in the DC area.

My Swing


Driver: :ping: G30, Irons: :tmade: Burner 2.0, Putter: :cleveland:, Balls: :snell:

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21 minutes ago, RandallT said:

While GG has a TON of data stored in there, I do wish it had more reports (like penalties).

We're trying to work on that…

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

Check Out: New Topics | TST Blog | Golf Terms | Instructional Content | Analyzr | LSW | Instructional Droplets

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I truly enjoyed reading the analysis when I got it and I've begun using it and LSW to work on the areas of weakness that were pointed out.  I actually received this analysis awhile before it was posted so it's given me some time to work some things out.  

I've developed a slight draw with most clubs and it's given me more confidence in full shots from 130 - 170 yards.  I'm finding that I stick more shots from those distances to realistic birdie range (15 feet, give or take) than I ever have before.  

Honestly... if you're a stat nerd like me... having @RandallT do an analysis like this is well worth the little time he asks of you.  

CY

Career Bests
- 18 Holes - 72 (+1) - Par 71 - Pine Island Country Club - 6/25/2022
- 9 Holes - 36 (E) - Par 36 - Pine Island Country Club - 6/25/2022

 

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36 minutes ago, Fairway_CY said:

I truly enjoyed reading the analysis when I got it and I've begun using it and LSW to work on the areas of weakness that were pointed out.  I actually received this analysis awhile before it was posted so it's given me some time to work some things out.  

I've developed a slight draw with most clubs and it's given me more confidence in full shots from 130 - 170 yards.  I'm finding that I stick more shots from those distances to realistic birdie range (15 feet, give or take) than I ever have before.  

Honestly... if you're a stat nerd like me... having @RandallT do an analysis like this is well worth the little time he asks of you.  

CY

Yah, it was cool to review all that together, and I've enjoyed watching you tweak your game since. 

Your average score has dropped 5 since the analysis, your GG handicap is down over 4, I think. Fairways hit down slightly, and GIR up slightly (few percent).  Putting and Scrambling % identical.  My rough guess is that you're keeping it in play more now, and perhaps some better proximity on your irons, as you say.  Keep it up! I look forward to a 10 stroke improvement and we'll do another full analysis to where the numbers say you've made the most impact!

My Swing


Driver: :ping: G30, Irons: :tmade: Burner 2.0, Putter: :cleveland:, Balls: :snell:

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@Fairway_CY I mentioned to Randy that I used your GG data to build a Spreadsheet for analyzing a players tend in their short game and putting stats.

While I entered the data, I was impressed with the number of putts you made outside 7 feet. I told Randy I would sign you up for a Scramble Team any day of the week ...
It was also fun during the review when seeing shots which were very close to the pins which most likely had good chances of going in.
I also mentioned that reviewing the rounds was similar to playing a marathon Golf Video game.

Anyway, Randy's analysis was pretty spot on with the results of my spreadsheet.

I had mentioned to Randy a while back that one of the GG stats which they do not show to users was the ability to review putts in general.
By building my spreadsheet I wanted to keep it simple and have the ability to show tends during the course of the season with the last 20 rounds.

Hope you find this interesting and helpful in some manner.

Fairway_CY.png  

CY Stats.png

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Johnny Rocket - Let's Rock and Roll and play some golf !!!

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This topic has really made me aware of the need to accurately mark putts, and to try and go beyond just the GameGolf stats when assessing my weaknesses. Stats can be slightly misleading unless you look a little deeper.

For example, if I look at my approach shot data from GG, it's fairly linear with the exception of my 6i. My 7i is above 50% and my 5i is at 40%. But my 6i is at 15%.

Need to work on that club, right? 

Not so fast.

If I look at the 13 shots mapped, I see that only 2 are within the 15 yard zone to make up the 15%. But what's telling is that 6 others that are JUST outside the zone. Certainly what I'd consider successful shots. And the misses shown with that 6i were not as damaging as those of my 5iron. Many of those were likely penalties and have to be considered when deciding on laying up or going for a tight green.

Jon

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3 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

This topic has really made me aware of the need to accurately mark putts, and to try and go beyond just the GameGolf stats when assessing my weaknesses.

Absolutely true. 

We might as well get the full value from a product we purchase, and precision does get important close to the hole, from the numbers I've seen.

Also I should've said this in the OP:  To clarify for everyone, the feedback I'm asking for in this thread is for those folks who have read LSW. If you follow along with the "Deep Dive" of @Fairway_CY that we did, with the book in hand, are there things from the book that you think we could use to enhance future analyses

I want to encourage people to scan through sections of LSW that deal with stats for different skill levels, and think critically about how to get some of those measurements out of GAME GOLF. Are there elements in the book that I left out? But fair warning, that takes some effort- curl up with the book, read the analysis, compare/contrast, etc. It's not for the faint-hearted.

I tried to go section by section through the book as I started the analysis, and I built the spreadsheet using all of the same shot categories, for example, and then generated reports against the ceilings published in the book... but I certainly could've missed stuff. There's a lot of content in the book!

Anyway, I wanted to be clear that the point of the "Deep Dive" is to link up LSW with GG somehow, although at the moment it takes a bit of data massaging (extraction from GG). The point is not to get too crazy and imaginative about new techniques for analysis, since LSW did all of that hard work for us. 

My Swing


Driver: :ping: G30, Irons: :tmade: Burner 2.0, Putter: :cleveland:, Balls: :snell:

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On 12/7/2016 at 4:32 PM, Club Rat said:

@Fairway_CY I mentioned to Randy that I used your GG data to build a Spreadsheet for analyzing a players tend in their short game and putting stats.

While I entered the data, I was impressed with the number of putts you made outside 7 feet. I told Randy I would sign you up for a Scramble Team any day of the week ...
It was also fun during the review when seeing shots which were very close to the pins which most likely had good chances of going in.
I also mentioned that reviewing the rounds was similar to playing a marathon Golf Video game.

Anyway, Randy's analysis was pretty spot on with the results of my spreadsheet.

I had mentioned to Randy a while back that one of the GG stats which they do not show to users was the ability to review putts in general.
By building my spreadsheet I wanted to keep it simple and have the ability to show tends during the course of the season with the last 20 rounds.

Hope you find this interesting and helpful in some manner.

Fairway_CY.png  

CY Stats.png

This is pretty awesome!  

It's funny that you point out how many putts I make outside of 7 feet.  I've never felt that I was a good putter.  In fact, I feel like that's a part of my game I need to work on more often... specifically putts from 6 feet to 15 feet.  I spent the better part of 2 afternoons recently working on putts from those ranges and in the rounds that followed those sessions a few days after... I putted great.  I see it as something that I need to work on for about 90 minutes at least once per week going forward.  

The other thing I noticed is that I'm far more likely to make those putts when they're for birdie than I am if they're for anything else... or at least it feels that way to me.  I guess I can say that I make a higher percentage of them when they're for birdie anyway.

Thanks for putting this together.  I love seeing stuff like this and between what you've put together and what @RandallT has done for me... a stat-geek doesn't get much happier!

CY

Career Bests
- 18 Holes - 72 (+1) - Par 71 - Pine Island Country Club - 6/25/2022
- 9 Holes - 36 (E) - Par 36 - Pine Island Country Club - 6/25/2022

 

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On 12/8/2016 at 4:31 PM, RandallT said:

Anyway, I wanted to be clear that the point of the "Deep Dive" is to link up LSW with GG somehow, although at the moment it takes a bit of data massaging (extraction from GG). The point is not to get too crazy and imaginative about new techniques for analysis, since LSW did all of that hard work for us. 

Sorry, I didn't realize this was the entire point.

Jon

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1 minute ago, JonMA1 said:

Sorry, I didn't realize this was the entire point.

And I wasn't scolding :-D There's nothing worse than a dead thread that I start. The more chatter, the better.

Just honestly looking for feedback too, before I get set to do another. Gonna grab my LSW book and start getting the noggin' moving again.

My Swing


Driver: :ping: G30, Irons: :tmade: Burner 2.0, Putter: :cleveland:, Balls: :snell:

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1 hour ago, Club Rat said:

@RandallT should this thread be considered as a merge ?

I had forgotten about that. Time flies! I'll leave the two threads separate, as that one was a bunch of us spreadsheet geeks sharing ideas on how wonky we like to get in our own solutions- giving ideas and feedback, etc.

This thread is specifically about feedback on a series of articles I want to write that profile members' games here. I want to refine how to do analyses based on LSW. Since GG is a sponsor, I've tried to tie that in, but I'm tool-agnostic. This thread isn't even about what tool I use either. The goal of the series is to put LSW into effect for us members- and I'm game to use any method that gives a reasonable deep and accurate look at the facts.

So the threads are different enough, although definitely related! I've pretty much stuck with that tool described there, as a foundation for analyzing by the LSW guidance.

My Swing


Driver: :ping: G30, Irons: :tmade: Burner 2.0, Putter: :cleveland:, Balls: :snell:

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Note: This thread is 2650 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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