Feedback on Recent Member Stats "Deep Dive"

[RandallT]

I've written up an analysis of @Slowcelica's stats analysis- the data was from late last season. Here's the link:

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

As is the case with @Fairway_CY's analysis, the intent is to take members who are near bogey golf and sincerely looking to shave a significant number of strokes over the next season or two.  When the member achieves that goal, perhaps we can look back and see more definitively where they improved.  The articles mostly document where I think they can improve, but hey- I'm really just hoping the players can improve their games, so we can gain some insights into where that improvement comes.

So with that said, any comments you have are fair game:

1. Any suggestions for either player on their future improvement that you may have?
2. Any suggestions for the author to improve future articles that you may have?
3. For the players, is the analysis helpful, or is it not really a surprise? Was there anything unexpected? What the most "expected" result for you? 
4. Whatever else you want to comment on.

Now that I've got two under my belt, I'm interested in comparing/contrasting them a bit.

SlowCelica:

Lost about 15 strokes per round full swing, 10 strokes inside 60yds (mostly putting)

 

Fairway_CY:

Lost about 18 strokes per round full swing, 9 strokes inside 60yds (half putting, half short game)

 

I think Fairway_CY had more to gain by improving his full swing (particularly approaches), whereas SlowCelica's data showed that he could likely make some quick gains from improving his putting.

That's how the numbers shook out for me, anyway. Interested to see how it all turns out, so pressure is on those two guys to deliver!

Also interested to hear if anyone who wants to argue a different conclusion from the data they see. There's a lot of charts and graphs in each, and my hope was to spawn a good discussion of each area of their games, not necessarily try to preach the right answer.

For those brave enough to slog through the lengthy articles, congrats and have at it!

 

[iacas]

What do you guys think?

[BamaWade]

I love this type of deep analysis, and thought they made for good reads, particularly since I can identify with the ability levels of both, so far, and thus, their strengths (or hesitance to define one) and weaknesses.  I would love to have this done on my game, but I'm not yet a GG'er so not a candidate.  Maybe one day.  Looks like I do get my copy of LSW on Monday, though, so that's a start.

Thanks to all involved here for volunteering their parts in taking this on!  Very cool.

[JonMA1]

I think the same now as I did with CY's analysis. Focusing on or structuring practice around this type of detail is going to provide improvement.

It's LSW customized for individuals.

[billchao]

3 hours ago, RandallT said:

I think Fairway_CY had more to gain by improving his full swing (particularly approaches), whereas SlowCelica's data showed that he could likely make some quick gains from improving his putting.

I didn't get the chance to get too in depth with the analysis, but I agree with this assessment.

@Fairway_CY would benefit from improvement in the long game, both driving and approach shots. Since he does not appear to have a glaring weakness, the standard 65/20/15 practice ratio would be the way to go.

@Slowcelica however, does appear to have a weakness in his putting. Though his driving and approach skills need improvement, he could drop some easy strokes simply by spending a little more time on his putting. Also because he has more of a tendency to miss in one direction than @Fairway_CY, I recommend that @Slowcelica adjust his aim a little to the left. Rob is far more likely to miss right than he is left from all situations, so shifting his shot zone more to the left should yield better results on the course.

Great work as always, Randy.

[jamo]

It would be really interesting to see a similar analysis of @Fairway_CY a year in. Just from reading his posts it sounds like he's made pretty good progress. 

[boogielicious]

Both have low GIR. I would think approach shots would be priority.

[billchao]

7 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Both have low GIR. I would think approach shots would be priority.

I think full swing in general is the priority, but GIR is affected by driving as well as approach shots. Doesn't matter how good you are with the irons if you're not giving yourself good looks off the tee, though it's pretty rare for someone to be a bad driver and good iron player because they are similar skills.

[Slowcelica]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, this year has not been a great start so far, one of my kids started playing softball so I've been so busy with her I haven't had much time to work on my game at all or play. The few things I have been able to work has been short game, I go on my lunch break to a near by course and practice chipping and putting. My driving has improved accuracy is up a little and so is distance, whoever my approach shots have been horrendous, I am toeing everything so I've gone from 1 approach shot, and 1-2 chips to 2 approach shots and 1 chip. Things have now slowed down some for a while so I am working with my instructor to get my swing back on track.

[Fairway_CY]

I love reading these types of things and I'm happy I got to be a part of one.  I can say that, between LSW, a lot of practice & on-course time and the analysis that @RandallT put together... my game has completely changed.  

I don't have access to take a screenshot now, but... as of this morning, my Game Golf insights page has the following:

Handicap - 12.5
Average Score - 88.9
Fairway Accuracy - 46%
Greens in Regulation - 38%
Putting - 1.9
Scrambling - 17%

My USGA index is 11.8 and trending down.  My penalty strokes off the tee are few and far between now.  Recently, my putting has taken a major turn for the better, so I expect things to improve even more.  

I'm a stats nerd, so... when RandallT approached me about doing this, I jumped at it.  I believe it's made a big impact in my game just seeing (from someone else's point of view) where my focus should have been.  

Anyway... I hope @Slowcelica gets as much out of it as I feel I have.

CY

[RandallT]

3 hours ago, Fairway_CY said:

I don't have access to take a screenshot now, but..

Got ya covered.

Here's the one from the analysis we did last year:

Stroke improvement of somewhere south of 9, but north of 7. Not bad!

Fairways up by 7% (1 per 18 holes)

GIR up by 15% (2.7 per 18 holes)

Bit better scrambling number (maybe 0.5 up and downs more per round very rough guess)

Good luck on continuing that trend! Miss your blog updates and vlogs, but I'm sure you've been busy. As @jamo said, we should get together at some point when you feel like your game has reached some milestone (maybe just end of season numbers).  

Is there anything with your full swing that you've fundamentally changed (via some instruction or LSW reading) that you can pinpoint? Or do you feel like you've mainly improved by playing and grooving the swing you had? You don't have to give away too much right now, as I think a good follow-up analysis might be pretty cool for others to read. Let's save something interesting for then! 

 

 

[dennyjones]

On 7/7/2017 at 4:33 PM, iacas said:

What do you guys think?

I think RandallT has too much time on his hands  (jk)...This is impressive.  The deep dive analysis was very informative.   

[RandallT]

2 minutes ago, dennyjones said:

I think RandallT has too much time on his hands  (jk)...

That's a given!

One thing I'd been trying to get my head around over the last year is how often we bogey golfers hit good shots, and how often we just hit a real turd. I thought this was the coolest chart of the analysis:

For bogey golfers, we might have about 1/3 of our shots be pretty darned good- where even a median PGA shot wouldn't gain a hugely significant advantage on us. 

So the problem I was trying to get at was how damaging those 20/76 flubbed shots were, in this case, that we would all like to have back.  

Similarly to how when we work on our swings, we pick a priority piece and work on that until it's no longer the priority, I think we can look at improving our games by finding out which shots we flub the most often, which we have the most opportunities at, and.. .(and this is the clincher, and well beyond what I know about) our instructor thinks may have some fix that will help.

Then rinse/repeat until that area of our game is no longer the most damaging.

Anyway, I just thought that the 1/3 number was enlightening for @Slowcelica. I think it could lead a lot of us astray that we think "man if I were just more consistent" - since those 1/3 of shots probably feel pretty easy for us to repeat. But the sad fact is, that there likely needs to be fundamental improvement of form to make those great 1/3 shots more repeatable, I think.

Those are my gut thoughts- I'm not a guru or anything. I just enjoy trying to make sense of numbers and make them of some practical use.

 

[Fairway_CY]

3 hours ago, RandallT said:

Got ya covered.

Here's the one from the analysis we did last year:

Is there anything with your full swing that you've fundamentally changed (via some instruction or LSW reading) that you can pinpoint? Or do you feel like you've mainly improved by playing and grooving the swing you had? You don't have to give away too much right now, as I think a good follow-up analysis might be pretty cool for others to read. Let's save something interesting for then! 

 

 

Without going too deep into anything right now, the biggest thing that 'clicked' for me was where my weight was at impact.  I paid more attention to my lower body during the swing when someone said I was always starting the swing with my upper body.  

I fought the sh*nks with wedges for a portion of last season.  On the range one morning, one of my buddies saw me struggling and asked me if I knew my lower body wasn't moving at all.  He then had me do a drill with my feet together and after that, told me to focus on turning my belt buckle to my target.  

I immediately felt off balance because I was hanging back so much on my right foot.  I made a conscious effort, at first, to keep my weight on my front foot.  It helped with short game and my wedges.  It also helped me become less erratic with my driver.  Eventually, I let my weight shift a little bit and focused on ensuring it was forward at contact.  I got some of my distance back (picking up about a full club with irons) and continued to keep the ball in play.  

Although I only hit about 38% of my greens, my nGIR percentage is closer to 80%.  My penalties have dropped from 2.97 per round in 2016 to 1.26 per round so far this season.  A lot of my penalties in 2016 were from the tee (72 with the driver alone in 78 rounds).  This season, I've taken 63 penalties in 50 rounds.  Of those 63 penalties, only 16 have been with the driver.  

My focus right now is my short game.  Putting has improved dramatically in the last 5 weeks.  If that continues and I can spend some time on my chipping, pitching and sand game... I'm hoping to get close to single digits by the end of 2017.

CY

[saevel25]

8 hours ago, RandallT said:

That's a given!

One thing I'd been trying to get my head around over the last year is how often we bogey golfers hit good shots, and how often we just hit a real turd. I thought this was the coolest chart of the analysis:

First it is always good to define a good shot. If we look at in degrees of accuracy. A 90's scoring golf will hit 50% of their shots inside 10-14% of the distance they hit their approach shots from outside of 100 yards. Maybe a good shot is anything inside 10% the yardage they are hitting from. 

So for a 150 yard shot, anything inside 15 yards of their target is good. 

[tosob]

My analysis is a little bit different. Both have low fairway accuracy. S/C is at 43% or 6.02 per round (14* .43).  His greens in regulation is 25% or 4.5 per round. This gives s/c 10 "good " looks at hitting the green, 6 from the fairway and the 4 par 3's. Now his green's in regulation look better, 45%. If s/c can increase fairway hit to say 9 and change his total to 13 good looks  @  45% is now 5.8. That is a shot and a half a round. Better looks might also help the gir % to increase. Working on finding a reliable tee shot will also help with the all the full swing shots.  Shots that do miss the fairway wont be as bad, still giving you a decent chance to get  it close.

For me finding the fairway and not shooting from the trees is key to me having a chance to score,

[Slowcelica]

3 hours ago, tosob said:

My analysis is a little bit different. Both have low fairway accuracy. S/C is at 43% or 6.02 per round (14* .43).  His greens in regulation is 25% or 4.5 per round. This gives s/c 10 "good " looks at hitting the green, 6 from the fairway and the 4 par 3's. Now his green's in regulation look better, 45%. If s/c can increase fairway hit to say 9 and change his total to 13 good looks  @  45% is now 5.8. That is a shot and a half a round. Better looks might also help the gir % to increase. Working on finding a reliable tee shot will also help with the all the full swing shots.  Shots that do miss the fairway wont be as bad, still giving you a decent chance to get  it close.

For me finding the fairway and not shooting from the trees is key to me having a chance to score,

This is so true, where I play, if I'm in the trees then the best I'm going to do is a bogey. Most of the time once in the trees I can only advance the ball 50 yards or so, because I have to just pitch out because if you try to go for the green it usually results in hitting more trees. They do not give you much room to hit under trees, if any most of the time. Drives that hit the trees are usually a good 50-75 yds shorter so once I pitch out I'm left with a normal shot into the green. This year I have been driving the ball better, just my approach shots have been atrocious.

[Club Rat]

On ‎7‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 3:33 PM, iacas said:

What do you guys think?

I think Randy has developed a good systematic means for interpreting GG stats.
He spends a great deal of time and effort explaining his visual of how stats can be beneficial
for the GG user.

IMO, golfers should and need a benchmark to assist them in a manner which they can review that reflects the many various aspects of their game.

In a round about way, will his analyst become a standard someday?