SCC4380

In my opinion you are comparing apples to oranges. If you want to get in shape do P90, if you want to work on golf-specific exercises do Joey D.

Quote: It's funny that on many of my par 4 drives I had 60/70/80 yard shots left. I thought about practicing these distances more? If that is the case, you should be practicing those distances. I always have a longer second shot than that.

If you want to do a Trackman Combine I have no problem with it. I think it would be fun. According to the Trackman newsletter, there are a number of pros who do it on a regular basis to see who can get the lower score and add an element of competition to their practice. That being said, here are few thoughts on the Trackman Combine. I have never done a one but I did use Trackman Combine reports posted on the internet to figure out how they score it. As far as the scoring goes, it is the distance from the target that matters. Right, left, short, and long all hurt your score equally. Based on the analysis of Mark Broadie, the long game is where the best players gain the most strokes. The Trackman Combine, in my opinion, has too much emphasis on short shots, some of which aren't even that common for better players to hit (perhaps one or two a round). I don't think it is an accurate way to measure your long game. I think that the Trackman Combine would be a more accurate measure of your skill (even if it does give too much weight to short shots) if you hit the shots in random order, not three shots to each distance, one right after the other. I agree with Eric that it would be a better use of your time and money to use Trackman to get your average yardages and dispersion on record. Steven

It makes sense from a couple of perspectives. Dialing back the ball could make golf less expensive for consumers and more profitable for owners. Courses could be shorter and require less land, less water, fewer chemicals, less labor, etc. We have already reached a point in the US where there are more 9-hole courses under construction than 18-hole courses for this very reason (according to a friend of mine who had the numbers a couple of years ago). Dialing back the ball could make golf less time consuming. If you have to cover less distance, especially walking, it would go faster. The time that golf takes is cited as a factor for those who leave the game. The trick would be to establish meaningful limits that manufacturers and consumers adhere to. It would be a recipe for disaster to have a short course with a few people playing long balls who treat the par 4's as par 3's and wait for people to clear the green before they tee off.

The idea behind it is to enhance contrast and depth perception when you are looking at the ball getting ready to hit it. I tried some last week and I think that it works. I liked it for short game shots. In flight it may be a little more visible than a regular white ball, but it is nowhere near as visible as a yellow ball. It was an experiment for me and I will go back to my yellow ball.

I am into my second year with Pure midsize wraps and they are still better than the grips they replaced. I have found them to be very tacky and durable. I have never had one twist on a club.

Quote: I noticed a few guys yesterday, Justin Rose in particular, who were hitting 9 iron at 17 ............... while it was playing 123 yards. (Yes, it was gusty, but no, it wasn't like there was a huge headwind) I saw a few 9 irons that didn't work out too well and bunch of wedges that worked out pretty well. The 9 irons looked like they were slightly manufactured shots while the wedges looked more like a standard shot. I remember reading a story about a pro (Johnny Miller?) who was talking to a media type on the range and was asked what club he would hit to one of the flagsticks out on the range. The pro replied that they could hit all of their clubs to the flagstick, and then proceeded to work through their bag from driver to wedge hitting right to it. (I can imagine Johnny Miller doing that.) Probably one or two of the shots were close to standard distance and the rest were manufactured to do what they did.

Quote: I think gps is made less accurate by the government...although places like airports have satellites that can make them more accurate For military purposes GPS can be accurate to less than an inch. We just need to convince the government that golf courses have no strategic value so that they will stop adding variability to the GPS signal we get when we are on a course. It would make Game Golf a lot more accurate.

Terry Koehler, CEO of the new Ben Hogan Golf Equipment Company, said in an interview that one of the reasons that golfers aren't better iron players is that they try to hit their irons too hard. He notes that Ben Hogan had 25 yards between his standard shot and the maximum distance that he would play his irons. How many yards are there between your standard distance and your maximum distance? Do you think Koehler is right? (Here is a link to the interview http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/golf-smarter/e/475-ben-hogan-golf-clubs-are-back-with-ceo-terry-koehler-36928570)

Quote: Just wanted to put these out there again. Please go there and vote. I think those are good features. Done. I agree that they would be good features.

Quote: From my reading of the SGG site, they do not account in any way for course rating. It is strictly distance and lie. If you are in the US Open with deep rough, or whether you are in the sparse rough of a local muni, SGG would use the same numbers for calculation from what I can tell. The strokes gained calculations are based distance and lie. It is true that the US Open has deep rough, but there is such a large number of shots that went into the strokes gained calculations that I don't think it alone would have much of an effect. There are also tour events with fairly light rough. Users of the system need to use good judgment. I have been in the "rough" a couple of times this spring but marked it as a fairway lie because the grass was so short that it didn't affect my shot. Quote: My goal for golf is to improve. I mentioned earlier in the thread that the answer remains the same no matter what stats I see. To play better gol I need to become a better ball striker. There isn't any hidden message in my stats. I agree that there are no hidden messages in the statistics and that the greatest improvement will come by becoming a better ball striker. Here is how I look at it: some people like to keep score, others don't; some people like to keep stats, others don't; for those who like to keep stats, there are traditional statistics (FIR, GIR, # of putts) and now strokes gained statistics. It isn't for everyone, but if someone wanted to have a good way to measure their performance and track their progress as they improve, this might be of interest. If someone is not interested, I would recommend that they not do it. At any rate, here are a couple of figures from the three rounds that I have played since I signed up for Strokes Gained Golf. This first one is the overall strokes gained for my three rounds. As you can see, I didn't actually gain any strokes against a tour pro, so really these are my strokes lost. I have had trouble off the tee and have putted poorly. Each of the bars in the figure allow the user to look at the shots in that category. Here is my putting performance. I haven't missed a 1' or 2' putt, but there isn't much separation value there. I have putted poorly from 5' and had poor putting from middle distances (10' - 30'). I will make another post about Shot by Shot another time.

Quote: As a higher handicap golfer I am going to hit more bad shots than good regardless of intent. Broadie's book gives enough data on this using the pro-scratch-70-80-90 golfer examples. Anyone that wants to improve these type of stats needs to improve ball striking, there isn't a hidden message to be found gleaning through stats. You won't go from shooting 90 to 80 learning that you lose strokes from distance X because the answer is still the same. I don't disagree, but if I am working on my game and trying to get better, I would like to have a reliable metric to measure my performance, and, hopefully, my improvement.

I don't have a smart phone, so Arccos is not an option. Thanks for the suggestion, though. Right now I am leaning toward Aimpoint so that I can learn a specific skill and put it into use.

I think it will be most useful when looking at the data over time, as opposed to shot by shot, though StrokesGainedGolf does give that information. The strokes gained is based on distance from the pin and lie before and after each shot. ShotByShot does allow you to compare yourself to golfers of different handicaps based on the 200,000+ rounds of data that have been entered into it, but StrokesGainedGolf is new and only allows comparison to tour pros. I will work on getting some images of the reports that it gives me and post some updates.

I am leaning toward keeping the subscription to StrokesGainedGolf.com and doing the Aimpoint clinic. The strokes gained analysis will give me a measure of my ball striking and the Aimpoint will help me improve my chances once I get onto the green. Perhaps next year's investment will be Game Golf and by then they might have additional statistics available.

I am trying to decide whether to pay for an Aimpoint clinic or Game Golf this year. Both will be about $200. Does anyone have any advice on which would be a better option?

If Game Golf adds strokes gained to its statistics, it would get me off the fence and I would buy it that week.

I agree with the replies to my original post. Improvement comes from practicing the right things with someone instructing you who knows what they are doing. Strokes gained analysis isn't for everyone and it isn't a substitute for being strategic in how you play a course (shot zones, decision maps, etc.). Average golfers typically loose the most strokes on full swing shots. Some, but not all golfers know where their weakness is and what to practice (Think separation values, which aren't obvious to everyone). In my two rounds I was wild off the tee (about a 9 hdcp), putted like it was my first time golfing (about a 26 hdcp), and played my mid to long irons like a 2 hdcp. I thought it was interesting to know. I am signing up for an Aimpoint clinic this summer and expect to see my handicap drop. If someone can keep track of their distance from the pin and lie they can do this. It isn't hard to use the websites and it can be a do it yourself project like RandallT. I am a bit surprised more people aren't interested in it. I guess I would never turn away from good data if it is available, but perhaps that is why I teach statistics.

I would start my 6 iron on the yellow line toward the bunker and let it draw a little. Wedge into the green from there. The other option would be to start my 7 wood a little to the right of the line and fade it, but that is a shot that is more likely to get away from me and it would also be headed to a narrower part of the fairway. How do I get a LSW logo on my posts?

I agree that Game Golf is a valuable tool and I have it on my wish list. I also have Lowest Score Wins and think it is great. I buy into the shot zones and decision maps approach. I just think that strokes gained might be of interest to other golfers because it provides additional data to show strengths and weaknesses and it is better data than the regular stats that people use to track their golf game.

It was helpful for me to see exactly where I am giving up the most strokes relative to tour pros and others who score lower than I do. That, in turn, will help me prioritize my practice efforts. It was also fun to see that I had some shots where I actually gained strokes relative to the average tour player.

Ever since I read Mark Brodie’s Every Shot Counts I have been intrigued by the idea of having access to a stokes gained analysis of my own golf game. As far as I can tell, there are two options at this point where you can do it on the internet. (1) ShotByShot.com is owned and operated by Peter Sanders who came up with and performed the first strokes gained analysis. He is the stats guy for Zach Johnson and other professional players, the Stanford golf team, and I don’t know who else. (2) StrokesGainedGolf.com is a newcomer website that launched in December 2014 and does strokes gained analysis. I recorded data on printable scorecards my last two rounds and entered the data into the websites. (I don’t have a smart phone, so I can’t comment on the apps.) Below are the pros and cons for the two websites. http://wwv.shotbyshot.com/ Pros Very little data is needed and it is easily recorded during your rounds The analysis utilizes over 200,000 rounds of golf that have been entered into it You can enter your handicap and compare yourself to it or to another handicap It gives you a top priority to work on to improve your scoring It reports putting results based on key distances to make (4-5’) Cons It costs $59 a year It doesn’t give you as many statistics as StokesGainedGolf.com http://www.strokesgainedgolf.com/ Pros It costs $25 a year (at least right now it does) It gives strokes gained values for every shot, by type of shot, by distance, by round, 5 round averages, and per season Cons It requires you to record more data during your rounds and to input more data when you enter rounds, though it is not burdensome It is based on PGA performance, so you can’t compare yourself to your own handicap or to an aspirational handicap, though this could be added once enough rounds are entered It doesn’t give you any priority of what to work on, though you can see for yourself where you not doing that great It wants the distance to the flag for every shot. I used my GPS watch and went with the middle of the green distance unless I was greenside or putting, so it was quick for me, but the idea of being behind someone who slows down play to use their rangefinder for every shot during a round isn’t appealing. (It also ignores the fact that most of us, most of the time, should stop aiming at the flag http://thesandtrap.com/t/72445/stop-aiming-at-the-flag ). You can get one round analyzed for free on ShotbyShot.com (and your money back if you subscribe and are not satisfied). You can use StrokesGainedGolf.com free for two weeks. I am interested to see what some of you think about these websites and the analysis that they provide. If you use Game Golf you probably already have the data you need to enter your rounds. Also, if you decide to subscribe to StrokesGainedGolf.com, there is a discount when you renew if others join with your code. If you subscribe and would like to help me out, use the following link, www.strokesgainedgolf.com because it would give me credit for you joining. Steven

Another review of Game Golf by Mark Crossfield. Based on Game Golf he pulled the 4 iron from his bag. He loves it.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I know that they have been talking to Mark Broadie about how they can improve their product. I am sure that they would be glad to get your ideas as well. I can't wait to hear what you have to say and I already told my wife that this may be on my Christmas list.

I am excited to hear what you have to say about it after you have used it for a while. Game Golf seems to be open to feedback about their product. I read just the other day that they have been talking with Mark Broadie about the stats and analysis aspects of the software ( http://www.golfwrx.com/235721/review-game-golf/ ). Steven