How to know if your game could be taken to the next level?

[thelab]

14 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

From 15 feet, the PGA Tour averages just barely over one make per 5 attempts.  The reason they go so low so consistently is that they hit the ball closer.

Right but 125th ranked on tour right now for proximity 75-100yds is only 18ft

[NM Golf]

1 hour ago, thelab said:

Right but 125th ranked on tour right now for proximity 75-100yds is only 18ft

Not sure what point you are trying to make with this stat??

Anyway the point @DaveP043is trying to make, and a consistent theme throughout this forum, is you are thinking you should improve your putting, but your putting is not the problem. These guys on TOUR are not there because they make more 15 footers, they are on tour because of their ballstriking. It is a common misconception that these guys are just unbelievable putters when the truth is they are maybe only slightly better than you or me if they are better at all. So if you are wanting to pursue this dream of making it on tour just know that it will be your ballstriking that gets you there not your putting.

[thelab]

1 minute ago, NM Golf said:

Not sure what point you are trying to make with this stat??

Anyway the point @DaveP043is trying to make, and a consistent theme throughout this forum, is you are thinking you should improve your putting, but your putting is not the problem. These guys on TOUR are not there because they make more 15 footers, they are on tour because of their ballstriking. It is a common misconception that these guys are just unbelievable putters when the truth is they are maybe only slightly better than you or me if they are better at all. So if you are wanting to pursue this dream of making it on tour just know that it will be your ballstriking that gets you there not your putting.

okay right i get that. i was just saying they aren't getting that close to the hole on average as I had thought. Do you have stats for FIR, GIR, length off tee,proximity etc that would give you confidence in if someone is a tour pro or not if you read stats?

[NM Golf]

8 minutes ago, thelab said:

okay right i get that. i was just saying they aren't getting that close to the hole on average as I had thought. Do you have stats for FIR, GIR, length off tee,proximity etc that would give you confidence in if someone is a tour pro or not if you read stats?

Well as Tiger Woods once elegantly said Fairways hit is a non stat. Hitting fairways is not that big of a deal nor is it a big indicator of score. @iacas would be much better at explaining all the statistics involved as he wrote the book LSW. But basically your approach shots have the biggest affect on your score. Remember those PGA Tour stats are averages and an 18 foot average is pretty darn good. That means they are getting more than their fair share of shots inside 10 feet. 

Edited April 11, 2018 by NM Golf

[p1n9183]

For the next 10 rounds you play, track your stroke gained stats. After that you will know where a tour Pro it´s better than you. 

Last time i did it, it show me the reality vs a tour pro. 
I was loosing 3 strokes on driving (i was a short hitter), 2 strokes on putting(yes I suck) and 1 on approach to greens. And off course i was loosing 4 strokes in course rating for an overall off around 10 strokes worst than a tour pro, despite been a scratch golfer.    

[klineka]

3 minutes ago, thelab said:

Do you have stats for FIR, GIR, length off tee,proximity etc that would give you confidence in if someone is a tour pro or not if you read stats?

You could look at the guys that are the lowest ranked in those categories on the PGA tour and pretty safely assume you would need to be able to achieve better than those numbers on a consistent basis on PGA caliber (75+ course rating, 7,200+ yd) courses in order to even think about having a shot.

The lowest ranked on the PGA tour this year:

GIR - 54%

Driving distance average - 268yds

Proximity - 43' 1"

 

Just guessing at stats, I'd say you should be at least a +4 handicap, average drive 280+, at least 60% GIR and 50% scrambling for the absolute minimums for stats that I would have to see before I'd say someone is tour pro caliber or not. Like I said before, those would have to be on hard courses, not a 72 rated, 6500 yd course.

[fishgolf]

On ‎4‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 10:26 AM, NM Golf said:

Think of it this way, Augusta National doesn't have an official rating and slope (the club won't allow the USGA to do it), but unofficially it's 78.1/137

And Patrick Reed shot -15 on that monster in windy and rainy conditions. As a +1 handicap I don't know if I could break 80 on a sunny day with no wind. Those friggin guys are GOOD!

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/how-tough-augusta-knuth

Which is exactly why they should keep the current "these guys are good" slogan.  I did not know that info about Augusta National (that they will not allow the USGA to formally evaluate)... makes the place all that much more intriguing.

[mdl]

Maybe get Game Golf or Arccos (I have neither, but a good comparison here) and play 5-10 rounds to get really specific stats on yourself.  I've heard around here that you need to do a little work editing your putts to get the most accurate stats (I think because neither knows where the pins were when you were playing?).  But if you do that you could get the really detailed stats plus exact strokes gained to compare against the top and barely staying on tour pros.

Also, I liked the point above about seeing if there is a big hole in your game.  Having GG or Arccos level stats would help you see that.  If you're lucky you won't be in the position of @p1n9183, where you're just solidly worse than pro in all facets, on easier courses to boot...

[thelab]

1 hour ago, p1n9183 said:

For the next 10 rounds you play, track your stroke gained stats. After that you will know where a tour Pro it´s better than you. 

Last time i did it, it show me the reality vs a tour pro. 
I was loosing 3 strokes on driving (i was a short hitter), 2 strokes on putting(yes I suck) and 1 on approach to greens. And off course i was loosing 4 strokes in course rating for an overall off around 10 strokes worst than a tour pro, despite been a scratch golfer.    

Is there an easy way to calculate this or a spreadsheet you use?

[klineka]

43 minutes ago, thelab said:

Is there an easy way to calculate this or a spreadsheet you use?

Yes. Get a GameGolf like @mdl suggested. You can get one for under $100. Click on the red "Game" icon below mine (or anyone else on here that uses it) avatar to get a feel for what it can do.

https://www.amazon.com/GAME-GOLF-Live-Tracking-System/dp/B014UY7LV2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523468230&sr=8-2&keywords=game+golf

You wont be able to see my strokes gained stats from your view of my GameGolf profile, but if you could, you'd see something like this, which GameGolf calculates automatically for you. You can compare different rounds against all your rounds, your last 3 round, etc. to see how you have been trending.

[p1n9183]

49 minutes ago, thelab said:

Is there an easy way to calculate this or a spreadsheet you use?

Yes, this is the one I made and used. (I think I made a post so everybody can use it).

It´s pretty easy, you just need to remember the distances and lies of your resent round. The spreadSheet have and example of a real round i played in 2017 where I shoot 70(-2). 

You need to fill all your shots from a hole on the "Hole SG" panel with distance (multiple of 5) an lie (t:tee, f:fairway, r:rough, x:recovery, s:sand). In case of penalty add manually on the left the penalty to the responsable area... like Long Game - Driver if you hit it OB from the Tee.long game day.

Copy paste each SG value  on the left panel and do another hole till you do all 18 holes. (Play a little with it, you will figure it out)
As you can see in the example, on that day I hit pretty good my driver from the tee but not my woods. Overall it was a decent day from the tee.
In approach to the green from 4 to 9 iron i wasn´t acurrate but my wedges worked really good, for an overall of 1 stroke gained to a pro. 
Average Green Side game.
Bad putting day inside 10 feet.
For the distances I played a Pro should shoot 69,8 as you can see in the rogth panel... i shoot 70. thats the same as a tour pro. But.. course rating was 71 (pro plays 76 courses) and not competition conditions... so a tour pro would not shoot arround 69,8. I think he would shoot arround 63-65 in average. 

You can create another tab in the spreadsheet for the results of the last 10 rounds in order to have an average value for each category and look for your weak areas.

Hope it helps!

      

 

 

MSJ Stats.xlsx

[thelab]

50 minutes ago, klineka said:

Yes. Get a GameGolf like @mdl suggested. You can get one for under $100. Click on the red "Game" icon below mine (or anyone else on here that uses it) avatar to get a feel for what it can do.

https://www.amazon.com/GAME-GOLF-Live-Tracking-System/dp/B014UY7LV2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523468230&sr=8-2&keywords=game+golf

You wont be able to see my strokes gained stats from your view of my GameGolf profile, but if you could, you'd see something like this, which GameGolf calculates automatically for you. You can compare different rounds against all your rounds, your last 3 round, etc. to see how you have been trending.

might look into it since its pretty cheap as well. Do you feel any of the tracking items while playing? so those stats are how many strokes you are gaining relative to your handicap or pros or something else?

Seems like an awesome tool

[klineka]

25 minutes ago, thelab said:

might look into it since its pretty cheap as well. Do you feel any of the tracking items while playing? so those stats are how many strokes you are gaining relative to your handicap or pros or something else?

Seems like an awesome tool

You have a little button that screws into the hole at the top of each golf grip, and you wear a small device attached to your belt loop. The buttons are pretty small and lightweight so I have noticed no difference in performance by having them on the clubs. Before you hit each stroke, you tap the button to the device and it registers which club you are hitting and then calculates the distance using GPS when you tag for the next shot. The device on your belt loop is fairly small and the only time I feel it is when I am bending over to read a putt or align my ball, but it does not get in the way at all IMO.

In regards to the strokes gained stats, GameGolf actually calls it strokes lost, so its how many strokes you are losing in each category are represented by a positive number, and you can actually choose different handicap levels to see how you stack up, see the examples below showing how the strokes lost for me change when comparing myself to a scratch golfer and a 5 hcp golfer. Negative strokes lost is a good thing on GameGolf and is where you are gaining strokes relative to that handicap.

 

Edited April 11, 2018 by klineka

[thelab]

1 hour ago, klineka said:

You have a little button that screws into the hole at the top of each golf grip, and you wear a small device attached to your belt loop. The buttons are pretty small and lightweight so I have noticed no difference in performance by having them on the clubs. Before you hit each stroke, you tap the button to the device and it registers which club you are hitting and then calculates the distance using GPS when you tag for the next shot. The device on your belt loop is fairly small and the only time I feel it is when I am bending over to read a putt or align my ball, but it does not get in the way at all IMO.

In regards to the strokes gained stats, GameGolf actually calls it strokes lost, so its how many strokes you are losing in each category are represented by a positive number, and you can actually choose different handicap levels to see how you stack up, see the examples below showing how the strokes lost for me change when comparing myself to a scratch golfer and a 5 hcp golfer. Negative strokes lost is a good thing on GameGolf and is where you are gaining strokes relative to that handicap.

 

okay cool thats awesome... thought at first your strokes gained were that good haha

[RandallT]

I'm a little late to the discussion, but a while back I went through a ton of threads and tagged some with "wannabe" if the discussion went something like: "hey guys I'm a [fill in current handicap] and I want to [fill in ambitious golf goal]. What do you think?"

Here are the threads that I tagged:

https://thesandtrap.com/search/?&tags=wannabe&sortby=relevancy

33 thread results found, and quite a rabbit hole of reading for those who want to stroll down memory lane. 

[Buckeyebowman]

On 4/10/2018 at 3:02 PM, p1n9183 said:

As I always answer when someone ask me.. why don´t you just give it a try as a pro (after shooting a 67..68 at my home course)? I respond HELL NO!  

I´m at +1 handicap, but i average 75 strokes on 72 rating courses on tournament condition away from home, that´s an average of 3 over par. 
The average tour pro average 71,2 strokes on 76 rating courses. That´s almost 5 strokes under par.
Moreover, their PGA tournament conditions are far worst than mine, so they score 8 shots less than me in worst conditions. I repeat again, HELL NO! i have no chance at all. 

I´d better play national amateur tournaments just for fun and make money with my daily work.    

This reminds me of something I read many years ago when Lee Trevino was a "playing contributor" to Golf Digest. Someone wrote in and asked how to judge if they should financially back some local hotshot for a try at the Tour.

Trevino replied that while the guy might play like a pro on his home course, Tour pros are Tour pros no matter where they are! His advice was to take the guy to 10 different challenging golf courses to see how he played and how quickly he adapted to the conditions.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Buckeyebowman

[The Hook Meister]

I have to agree that if your 0,5 handicap you should enter a couple of regional tournaments. It will enable you to see how you stack up to others trying to get to the next level. You will see if you like it or not. Being on tour is not that easy, just making the cut every week is difficult enough let alone winning. Look at tiger right now he is shooting around par is barely making the cut. Those courses are alot longer and a lot harder than your .local courses. the hole placements are almost impossible to get close to, the greens are a lot faster. KEEP THE DAY JOB.