What Stats to Expose in GAME GOLF?

[iacas]

As @david_wedzik and I begin more formally working with GAME GOLF, I'm curious what stats golfers might like to see exposed that aren't already. By "stats" I don't necessarily mean a statistic alone, either - I mean a view of the data that would be helpful in analyzing your game.

If it helps you, imagine that the stats available now are free, and the rest will be available with an inexpensive subscription.

Dave and I have a list in mind already, but perhaps there are some other decent stats that I'm overlooking. I won't share much from my list (it would give away too much), but here's an example of two such things that I think don't give much away:

• nGIR %
• Left rough/right rough tendency. Scoring from the left rough, right rough, and fairway.

I don't imagine I'll be able to comment on much here, for obvious reasons, but go ahead and share your thoughts. If the idea's good, there's a good chance it winds up on my list and ultimately implemented.

[coachjimsc]

Proximity from the hole average with each club. From the rough and fairway would be a bonus.

Edited January 25, 2017 by coachjimsc

[nevets88]

Near fairway hit? If that makes any sense.

[mchepp]

50 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

Near fairway hit? If that makes any sense.

I think that is measured today by shotlink as distance from the edge of the fairway which would be really cool to get from @GAME GOLF. 

1 hour ago, coachjimsc said:

Proximity from the hole average with each club.

+1 to this. 

[iacas]

Pretty short list so far guys. Put your thinking caps on.

2 hours ago, coachjimsc said:

Proximity from the hole average with each club. From the rough and fairway would be a bonus.

Seems you can basically do that here:

http://www.gamegolf.com/insights/approach-the-green

Choose "By Club" and choose a club.

[saevel25]

1. Strokes gained by hole. Maybe an average compared to the expected. 

2. Strokes gained by club. Maybe break down by rough versus fairway. 

 

 

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

1. Strokes gained by hole. Maybe an average compared to the expected. 

2. Strokes gained by club. Maybe break down by rough versus fairway. 

Yeah… I think that would be abuse of Strokes Gained. That model works best when you have a bunch of data. In this case you'd have yourself and a few other people who played the same hole, and maybe not even played it the same way as you. If you routinely drive it to a downslope, or you have a mental block that leads to you always pulling a ball because of a big tree on the right side of the fairway, you're going to get horribly skewed data.

Strokes gained works only over bigger ranges and with larger sample sizes.

[kpaulhus]

Is there a way to include sandies in the stats? I mean most courses when you edit the round you can place your shot in a bunker. Dont know how difficult that would be.

[iacas]

41 minutes ago, kpaulhus said:

Is there a way to include sandies in the stats? I mean most courses when you edit the round you can place your shot in a bunker. Dont know how difficult that would be.

http://www.gamegolf.com/player/iacas

That lists my scrambling %. If you just want a sand save %, that's fine… and that's kinda how I read what you've typed there.

[RandallT]

My first entry is a no-brainer: ANY PUTTING DATA!!!!

Right now, GG only has:

     1. Insights/Strokes Gained: putting data overall

     2. Insights/Strokes Gained: Smart Tips:

     3. Dashboard:

 

And that's it! 

I think there should be an entire section devoted to putting under the Insights area, just like there is for "Off the Tee" and "Approach"

Percentage Made by range. Putts / GIR. Average proximity. Three-putt info (by range). There's lots of ways to show WHICH putts you should focus your practice on (for example: strokes gained by range typically shows by far the most strokes lost for amateurs in the 3-15ft range.  WAY more than the long putts where people three-putt from and think they need to practice).

Basically, the putting area should be a way to slice and dice all the putts. Across multiple seasons. Courses. By range. Currently, they've got only what is above, and that does not tell a golfer WHERE they need to practice their putting, hurting their own community.

 

 

[coachjimsc]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Pretty short list so far guys. Put your thinking caps on.

Seems you can basically do that here:

http://www.gamegolf.com/insights/approach-the-green

Choose "By Club" and choose a club.

Yes but it would be nice to have a distance from the pin avg displayed here.

[Big C]

I think it would be useful for Game Golf to offer an "at the hole" feature. What I mean is that instead of only tagging putts from the area where they were struck, the player could also tag one time at the cup once the ball had been holed out. 

After the round is over, GG would allow (during the post-round edits) for that final tag to be marked as "in the hole," meaning it didn't count as a stroke, but rather served as the exact location for the cup. I feel that would allow people to get a better handle on putting distances and putting data. 

Editing the pin location after the hole is over is an ok workaround, but it's imprecise and it relies on memory. 

[iacas]

35 minutes ago, Big C said:

I think it would be useful for Game Golf to offer an "at the hole" feature. What I mean is that instead of only tagging putts from the area where they were struck, the player could also tag one time at the cup once the ball had been holed out. 

That's not what this thread's about. That's been a feature suggestion for years.

There's no such thing as an "exact location of the cup" because GPS is only accurate to within +/- 3 meters or so. Less if you're in amongst trees, etc.

[RandallT]

OFF THE TEE

For tee shots, we currently get:

1. Club performance data (length of driver)
2. Fairway accuracy
3. Under Insights/Strokes Gained, we get the total strokes gained for Off The Tee, plus a Smart Tip improvement for Off the Tee
4. The visual chart of where the tee shots land. Shows length of each, typical, the long, the short, and how many go left/right.

That's more than we got for putting, but I think there could be more impact on where we stand.

Some extra ideas they might throw at us:

• How often does a player lose strokes to OB (stroke and distance) or to hitting in a hazard/unplayable and drop farther up the course? Currently, there's no penalty data.
• It's nice to see the impact of hitting the fairway in a chart like this. People I've spent time with looking at their stats always appreciate knowing how much their poor drives are costing them (this person below cut their chances in half of hitting the green or getting near the green): 

 

APPROACHES

For approaches, we currently get:

1. Club performance data (length of driver)
2. GIR percent
3. Under Insights/Strokes Gained, we get the total strokes gained for Approaches plus a Smart Tip improvement for Approaches
4. The visual chart of where the approaches land. Shows the percent inside 15yds, left/right, long/short. You can pick the range, lie, club, round, etc. But it's mostly visual.

Some extra stuff perhaps:

• Give us some real data like this (I've found people like to know the results in these terms. How often on the green, how often near the green)

• They could more easily give us green hit and near green hit percentages by range. People love seeing the actual numbers, but this can sorta be seen by the their visual chart with the "fake" <15yd green, if you toggle through the distances.

• No reason they couldn't give us proximity data by range and lie:

• No reason they couldn't give us our average hole-out averages by range (in fact, crazy but they could build out our own personal chart for hole-out values for ranges, if we played enough rounds). For example, bogey golfers tend to be shocked when they learn that they take over 3.5 strokes on average from just 60-120 yds, but you get ZERO sense of that when you look at the GG reports:

 

SHORT GAME

For short game, we currently get:

1. Scrambling percent
2. Under Insights/Strokes Gained, we get the total strokes gained for Short Game plus a Smart Tip improvement for Short Game
3. The visual chart of "Approach the Green" includes inside 100yds, but there is no separate category. Shows the percent inside 15yds, left/right, long/short. You can pick the range, lie, club, round, etc. But it's mostly visual.

They could break down short game into way more detail (as LSW does, using inside 20yds and 20-60yds, plus bunker shots):

They could show us our average proximity from each of these short game ranges, as well as up and down percentage and average hole-out values from each range. Show us how many opportunities we get from each, of course.

 

OVERALL

On the LSW site, there's a chart to analyze each opportunity you got from each category of shot. I think you could start with that basic chart. GAME GOLF could fill in each opportunity you got for the round, and give you a "score" for each shot- as GAME GOLF can tell how well you did on each, compared to other shots from that range for your skill level.  They could basically take a crack at it, anyway, and give you their assessment in that same format. 

I know I'd love to see a review of my round, pre-filled for me, based on how well they think I did for each. Perhaps allow us to make corrections and save it off?  Then across multiple rounds, let us slice and dice those analysis sheets so that we can assess multiple rounds and see which areas we ranked the lowest.  

It's own little self-assessment area. It might be complicated to some (and perhaps duplicate their strokes gained feature), but for those who just want to simply look at every opportunity we have, grade ourselves on those opportunities, categorize them by skill-- we can each see for ourselves how well we are doing by skill using our own baseline (not strokes gained). Plus see how many opportunities we get for each skill. GAME GOLF today, doesn't give you a sense of how many opportunities we get for each skill level. That's the main hole I'm trying to fill on this suggestion. 

So the main idea is to summarize for us how often we have good/average/poor results for a certain skill, but summarize for us how many opportunities per round for that skill we get. That big picture view helps us figure out where to practice, as opposed to the minutia that I feel that GAME GOLF currently spits out at us. While visually cool for many of the charts, it misses the big picture (imho).

[natureboy]

Track awful shots, possibly by club or location?

Per Broadie that's about the single biggest area for high HCPs to improve so it could be helpful data.

[No Mulligans]

What would be fun is to filter data by Course and hole number and score by hole, and then be able to pull up the individual hole.  For instance let me see all my birdies, now let me drill down to see a particular birdie (course, day, hole number).  Or let me see all my scores for a particular course and a particular hole.

This could be added to the attached screen shot with additional filters for Course, hole, date range, and the ability to then double click to drill down on say birdies etc.

Also, I had an eagle.  I'm assuming it gets lost in the rounding.  It would be nice to see it... .001% eagles!

[InTheRough]

I'd like to see a much more in-depth breakdown of short game if possible:

1. Being able to see avg proximity to the hole by club and distance (instead of one or the other as it is now) + an ability to directly compare clubs.  So I can look at avg proximity to the hole from 75 yds with my LW vs proximity to the hole from 75 yds with my SW...etc.  This could be expanded to the longer clubs as well.  Compare proximity to the hole from 150 yd with a 9i vs an 8i.

2. up and down % by club--am i better at getting up and down with my LW, GW, PW...etc

[Club Rat]

2 hours ago, No Mulligans said:

What would be fun is to filter data by Course and hole number and score by hole, and then be able to pull up the individual hole.

I like No Mulligan, suggestions.
In a spreadsheet I have used for years, it will rank front and back holes per players rounds/scores.
This often helps individuals who play a specific course, review their tendency on holes they play well or poorly.
Not really sure if "strokes gained" over a specific hole over a period of many or ten rounds per say,
would benefit a player in relation to each and every holes performance / records / scores.