Why do so many golfers think short game is holding them back?

[JonMA1]

7 hours ago, Lihu said:

you should just work on that instead of arguing with people on the internet so that it is no longer a glaring weakness.

My apologies @Lihu and to anyone else. I should never have brought my crappy game or my inabilities into this discussion.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

My apologies @Lihu and to anyone else. I should never have brought my crappy game or my inabilities into this discussion.

Correct. Specific examples aren't what the discussion is about. There are exceptions to nearly everything.

[JonMA1]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Correct. Specific examples aren't what the discussion is about. There are exceptions to nearly everything.

In all fairness, specific examples are all most of us have (on either side of the issue). The exceptions are - or should be - part of the whole story. Examples or personal experiences form opinions, which is what was asked for in the OP, and exceptions help make up the data. If you restrict or completely discount those that's fine, but it's going to become a pretty one-sided, short, and really boring thread. That's just my overall opinion on any discussion.

(I'm not referring to any of my previous posts)

[Lihu]

13 minutes ago, JonMA1 said:

In all fairness, specific examples are all most of us have (on either side of the issue). The exceptions are - or should be - part of the whole story. Examples or personal experiences form opinions, which is what was asked for in the OP, and exceptions help make up the data. If you restrict or completely discount those that's fine, but it's going to become a pretty one-sided, short, and really boring thread. That's just my overall opinion on any discussion.

(I'm not referring to any of my previous posts)

You don't have to justify your weaknesses in this thread. I just wanted to know what people really feel is the reason they think short game is holding them back, because I've never met anyone playing who I could see where short game really was holding them back. That is, someone who hits 8 greens and 4 putts most of his holes.

I hear so many people say "I'm the worst putter." or "I've got the worst short game." on the internet, but never actually seen it in the thousand rounds or more that I've played.

[dark_horse_holy_basils]

On ‎31‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 9:16 PM, Lihu said:

Feel free to post any stories about you and your golfing partners who think this, and why you think it's the case?

I keep reading about people who can "hit solid", but don't play well overall and blame their short games. I don't understand why it seems like 90% of all golfers strike the ball well and chip and putt that much worse than the few 10% remaining folks who attribute their terrible games to long game?

More like "consistency" is the issue here more than short or long game. I know tons of very high handicappers who have a great swing, good short game and putting but aren't able to put up good scores due to their being "on" on one hole and "off" on the next. And vice versa I've seen so many low handicappers with a so so swing, a so so short game and average putting but damn they are consistent. Their mis-hits aren't usually anything too crazy and when they're off it's still manageable. 

What I feel separates these two groups from each other is "trust" in their mechanics. The high handicappers are usually people who likes to tinker with their actions and think more in a way of playing "swing the golf club" game while the low handicappers don't think about their mechanics too much but focus more on "the job at hand" for each particular shot. This frees them up of tension and less tension usually results in a better golf shot. But that's just from my own experience, after all Dave Pelz is literally a rocket scientists and he said its the "short game" that seperates the low and high handicappers

[iacas]

2 hours ago, dark_horse_holy_basils said:

More like "consistency" is the issue here more than short or long game. I know tons of very high handicappers who have a great swing, good short game and putting but aren't able to put up good scores due to their being "on" on one hole and "off" on the next. And vice versa I've seen so many low handicappers with a so so swing, a so so short game and average putting but damn they are consistent. Their mis-hits aren't usually anything too crazy and when they're off it's still manageable. 

What I feel separates these two groups from each other is "trust" in their mechanics. The high handicappers are usually people who likes to tinker with their actions and think more in a way of playing "swing the golf club" game while the low handicappers don't think about their mechanics too much but focus more on "the job at hand" for each particular shot. This frees them up of tension and less tension usually results in a better golf shot. But that's just from my own experience, after all Dave Pelz is literally a rocket scientists and he said its the "short game" that seperates the low and high handicappers

I think the higher handicappers generally have worse swings than the lower handicappers. I'm not talking about how things "look," though. I'm talking about how they function.

Almost every golfer has a pretty consistent swing. It's the small variances in golf that can lead to VERY different results that end up with what we consider "inconsistency."

[Oskar]

On 10/31/2017 at 10:45 AM, Lihu said:

This is kind of the thing I read about, but in real life I see almost no one who actually thinks this. It's like, "Oh I missed that 8 footer, next hole. . ."

People seem to be more realistic in real life than on the internet for whatever reason?

 

 

Are there any long hitting solid ball striking people out there who can't putt to save their lives?

My teammate on my highschool team can bomb his driver 300+ yards consistently and I've seen him hit his 3-wood the same distance. Once in a better ball tournament I was paired with him. My driver maxes out at 260 but anything within 75 yards won't be farther then 10 feet for me. Long story short I ended up beating him by 8 strokes even though he consistently outdrove me with his 3 wood. We compare stats, he had 4 three putts and 0 up and downs! Short game is everything! 

[Lihu]

2 hours ago, Oskar said:

My teammate on my highschool team can bomb his driver 300+ yards consistently and I've seen him hit his 3-wood the same distance. Once in a better ball tournament I was paired with him. My driver maxes out at 260 but anything within 75 yards won't be farther then 10 feet for me. Long story short I ended up beating him by 8 strokes even though he consistently outdrove me with his 3 wood. We compare stats, he had 4 three putts and 0 up and downs! Short game is everything! 

No doubt short game is pretty important, and actually, one of my son's opponents in a high school match bombed 300+ yards and couldn't score to save his life either. I didn't actually see it though. I think he was from Whittier?

[iacas]

14 hours ago, Oskar said:

Short game is everything! 

It's really not. Short game and putting combined account for - in general - less than just approach shots alone, and only a little more than driving.

On a specific, individual case… especially when one of the individuals three-putts frequently… sure. Anything is possible.

Check out http://lowestscorewins.com/.

[NM Golf]

14 hours ago, Oskar said:

My teammate on my highschool team can bomb his driver 300+ yards consistently and I've seen him hit his 3-wood the same distance. Once in a better ball tournament I was paired with him. My driver maxes out at 260 but anything within 75 yards won't be farther then 10 feet for me. Long story short I ended up beating him by 8 strokes even though he consistently outdrove me with his 3 wood. We compare stats, he had 4 three putts and 0 up and downs! Short game is everything! 

If your opponent's short game was that bad I think LSW might see that as a Glaring Weakness that needs to be addressed. Or this is an anomaly where your approach game was deadly on that day and he was off. Or maybe you are just a better player all around.

Know also that your game from 75 yards is better than a Tour pro's, congratulations for that.

Either way Short Game is not everything and there are many statistics available on this site to back that up. 

Edited November 9, 2017 by NM Golf

[jsgolfer]

15 hours ago, Oskar said:

My teammate on my highschool team can bomb his driver 300+ yards consistently and I've seen him hit his 3-wood the same distance. Once in a better ball tournament I was paired with him. My driver maxes out at 260 but anything within 75 yards won't be farther then 10 feet for me. Long story short I ended up beating him by 8 strokes even though he consistently out drove me with his 3 wood. We compare stats, he had 4 three putts and 0 up and downs! Short game is everything! 

Not sure what your handicap is, but this would make you better than most touring pro's.  Inside of 10 feet would put you number 2 in the world in the 50-75 yards category, from both the fairway and the rough.  From 20-30 yards you'd still be in the top 100.    

 

58 minutes ago, iacas said:

It's really not. 

This^^^^

[Oskar]

8 hours ago, iacas said:

It's really not. Short game and putting combined account for - in general - less than just approach shots alone, and only a little more than driving.

On a specific, individual case… especially when one of the individuals three-putts frequently… sure. Anything is possible.

Check out http://lowestscorewins.com/.

If short game wasn't that important, why isn't Jamie Sadlowski and other long drivers not on top of the rankings? The legends always have the best short games. (Tiger, Speith, Micklson, etc..) You can even look at people like Wesley Bryan, can't hit a drive more then 280 yards and has a worse then average fairways hit per round. Still was #1 on the money list for Q-School and had a solid rookie season on tour due to short game

7 hours ago, jsgolfer said:

Not sure what your handicap is, but this would make you better than most touring pro's.  Inside of 10 feet would put you number 2 in the world in the 50-75 yards category, from both the fairway and the rough.  From 20-30 yards you'd still be in the top 100.    

 

This^^^^

Might have been a slight exaggeration haha... Handicap's a 2.33. Point is that within 75 yards is where I make up for my lack of distance 

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, Oskar said:

If short game wasn't that important, why isn't Jamie Sadlowski and other long drivers not on top of the rankings?

Nobody's saying the ability to hit one out of six drives in a 60-yard (or 40?) wide grid at 380+ yards is the opposite of the short game.

The simple fact is that generally speaking, the full swing matters for about 2/3 of what differentiates one level of golfer from another, and short game and putting combined account for only 1/3. And… this is if you call "short game" everything inside of 100 yards.

Look at http://lowestscorewins.com/. Read Every Shot Counts.

Sorry, we've had this conversation here a few thousand times. So I apologize if my response is brief, and doesn't have a lot of details. I've talked about it a lot already.

The single most relevant traditional statistic is GIR. Hit greens, make money. Here is probably one of the better topics on this. It's pretty long, though.

There are a bunch of others.

Here's an image that summarizes things:

67% due to the full swing (drives + approach shots), 33% due to everything else (100 yards and in).

10 minutes ago, Oskar said:

The legends always have the best short games. (Tiger, Speith, Micklson, etc..)

Nick Faldo wasn't known for his short game. Nicklaus wasn't either - he was a decent putter. He dominated through his long game. So did Tiger.

Look at that image. Tiger gained 0.7 strokes driving, 1.4 strokes with his approach shots, and only 0.7 strokes combined with his putting and short game. Rory gained 1.2, 1.3, and 0.4 combined inside of 100 yards. That was in a pretty successful 2012 campaign for both players where they finished first and second.

There's a lot to be learned. Please be open minded… you should be excited. You're about to learn a TON if you're open to it. You're about to become enlightened.

[Jack Watson]

For me it's always been obvious that eliminating chips is a good idea.

[joro]

The pros and cons here are amazing.    Bottom line is the short game is touted by all players as very important.    If you hit the Greens in regs that is great, but when you don't ?, then what.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, joro said:

The pros and cons here are amazing.    Bottom line is the short game is touted by all players as very important.    If you hit the Greens in regs that is great, but when you don't ?, then what.

Then what? Then work on not missing the GIR.

The short game is important… as is putting… but only because there are only four things. They're individually, and by far, the least important skills, well behind driving and approach shots.

Hit your tee shot into the shit… then what? You're already ****ed.

---

Let's try it this way: Everyone in the world averages about 1.75 putts per green (not per GIR, per green). It's how many shots it takes to get to that point that most affect your score.

A good short game will save you from a 78 becoming an 82, but when you shoot a 70, it's almost never because of a "good short game." It's because you had a lot of looks at birdie from hitting greens.

---

Say what you want, @joro, @Oskar, etc… this is pretty much within the realm of fact now. It's no longer really an opinion.

@joro, if you're a former Tour player and you can prove that, I'll send you a copy of LSW if you promise to share your thoughts on it here when you're done reading it:

PM me details.

[joro]

Whatever

No thanks, I have seen and done it all and know what works and what does't.     I am sure you have also, but thank you for the offer.

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, joro said:

Whatever

No thanks, I have seen and done it all and know what works and what does't. I am sure you have also, but thank you for the offer.

Sad.

You know, I really hope the day I stop learning about things is the day after the day I die.