These long game and short game debates are ridiculous, IMO

[johnrobison]

If you play against another 42 handicap, I'd bet on you. Said that already.

I agree with that but a decent to somewhat decent short game can take you only so far. You have to be somewhat near the fairway off the tee and somewhere near the green to be an ok golfer.

 

Right...that's what I said. The difference between different skill levels is how you hit it....the difference writhin skill levels is often shirt game.

I never thought of it like that. So, do you mean tucked-in vs un-tucked? Are you flashing your navel to your opponent in their back swing? I admit I don't spend a lot of time on shirt game so apologize if the questions are naive.

 

Your next lesson just cost you an extra $25.

If I get to play the shirt game, it's a deal!

[oikos1]

"The difference between golfers of different levels is how well you hit the ball. The difference between golfers at the same level is how good your short game is."

 

Thread should have ended with the above, yet it will go on and on and on...hit the ball better and you will be a better golfer...

[Techgolfer1]

I played college golf with a 3 time PGA tour winner. I wanted to be a PGA golfer. It was my dream. He came to town and flew it 65+ past me and just as straight. I had a better short game but he was hitting lob wedge to my 7 or 6 iron. Pretty tough to beat. I stuck to my intended major and have played some pretty good amateur golf since. Obviously his short game has improved now, but man distance makes a huge difference!

[oikos1]

I played college golf with a 3 time PGA tour winner. I wanted to be a PGA golfer. It was my dream. He came to town and flew it 65+ past me and just as straight. I had a better short game but he was hitting lob wedge to my 7 or 6 iron. Pretty tough to beat. I stuck to my intended major and have played some pretty good amateur golf since. Obviously his short game has improved now, but man distance makes a huge difference!

 

Ya think? You get it. Play with a bomber and it becomes quite apparent. It's been like this since the beginning of the game. Short knockers can work their way around a course and play solid, but bombers more often than not will have the advantage...

[Krt22]

My long game and short game are garbage, but my shirt game is on point. If you can't play good, you better look good.

[Twoironblade]

I totally agree that ball striking ability is the number one priority.

 

With that said, you have to have a proficient short game to "finish it off." You can't leave shots out there. It's like in bowling...If you're striking like crazy, but miss more spares than your competition, you can't keep up. I'm talking about higher level bowling (PBA events).

[that0neguy]

Shirt game is undervalued when compared to other parts of the game. John Daly has some of the best shirt game I've ever seen & he has two majors.

 

[Krt22]

All shirty jokes aside, I think Monte nailed it on this one. All of the previous debates neglected over all skill of the golfer, comparing short game stats of PGA pros to mid-high caps is meaningless. If you are a mid-high capper, having a great short game simply means saving yourself from big numbers, but if you want to make a significant improvement in your game, ball striking needs to improve dramatically.

[Ripper212]

I nominate Monte's original post for the WRX hall of fame if there is one. Clearest and most accurate post that I have ever read on the instructional forum. I see no point in ever reading another one. We should all forget the forums, go out and have fun!!!

[Webby58]

It's as ridiculous as asking what's more important to survival, food or water?

What's more important in losing weight, excercise or diet?

 

Not going to be successful for long without some of both.

 

Everyone always assumed that since I was a long drive champion, I didn't make the tour because I had a bad short game and was a bad putter.

 

Every person who ever was snide about drive for show and putt for dough, lost money to me on the putting green.

 

I had a very good short game and while not the greatest putter, I was good enough.

 

I was inconsistent off the tee and with wedge distance control. The question was not which one I needed to fix to take the next step. I needed to get a lot better at one or the other, or get a little better at both. Didn't happen.

 

As an instructor who sees every level of golfer every day it's pretty obvious where the differences are. Statistical outliers and anomalies aside, here is what observation will tell you. There are some great short gamers that achieve a higher level in spite of how bad they hit it. There are some great ball strikers who achieved a higher level, in spite of poor short games.

 

The misnomer is the level of badness. Vijay is known as a horrible putter, but would likely stand up well against the best putter at your club. Brad Faxon has a rep (well deserved) that he hits it poorly, but he would line up quite nicely against the best ball striker at most clubs as far as getting in position to score.

 

Those two examples are of skill levels that are below par at the PGA tour level, but not golf in general. I have seen them both in person. I have played with Vijay, he is far from a terrible putter, he's just not Crenshaw.

 

I was one shot back at a Web.com event sitting at 13 under through 3 days. I had a reporter ask me if it was frustrating to not be able to make any putts. This is the kind of thinking that distracts people from making their own games better. Adherence to myths and cliches.

 

 

The difference between golfers of different levels is how well you hit the ball. The difference between golfers at the same level is how good your short game is.

 

The difference between an 18 and a 10 is ball striking, pure and simple. However, bring me two 10's and I'll bet on the one that gets it done around the greens better.

 

Good short game days make you shoot your low scores, bad ball striking days are where you shoot high. Which is more important?

 

Now if you want to to sell me people don't allocate the appropriate amount of time to short game practice, I will buy that...but their long game practice is allocated just as poorly.

 

You position yourself to score with long game and you score with short game. How can you say one is bigger than the other?

 

You want to be a better golfer, hit it better. You want to shoot lower, tighten up that short game. How's that for twisted logic?...but it's true.

 

Practicing is nothing more than time passing excercise, unless you're doing something productive, so just saying you need to practice short game and putting more to get better is not the answer. Golf is hard and getting to the next level, no matter what level you're at, is very hard.

 

These debates are looking for simple answers and there are none. It's a hard and complex game, like life. Saying if you made more money, you'd be happier...or that if you could just find the right women, you'd need nothing else.

 

The simple answer is there is no right or wrong way of doing things. All you can do is try and be better against yourself.

 

For some it will be tightening the swing, for others it will be distance control on pitches, others will be better face contact on the putter...for some, it's just a plain hopeless quest in search of some mythical short cut to better golf.

 

Brilliant post Monte. Finally some common sense thinking about golf.

 

Unfortunately I think I am to blame for this Short Game vs the Long Game debate. All I did was ask "Do we focus to much on just the swing" and she kind of exploded from there. I didn't realize there was two factions of golfers here, the long gamer and the short gamer. Next time I'll be more careful.

[larrybud]

The way I see it, generally the long game is what is going to turn a par into a double (or worse) quickly with one bad swing. That's generally not going to happen with the short game. Reloads and penalties is what kills the score.

 

So if you're a consistently good ball striker with a bad or average short game, your range of scores is going to be much tighter than a bad ball striker with a good short game. That guy is going to have wild swings in his scoring range.

 

It's as ridiculous as asking what's more important to survival, food or water?

 

The answer is water, as you die much quicker without water than food! ;-)

 

I would equate water to long game, food with short game.

[spoonek9]

No one can shoot goods scores if their short game stinks. I shot 36 yesterday in league. I had hit one fairway and 2 GIR but only had 12 putts (6 one putts). My score could have been 5 strokes higher if I hadn't made some putts.

[iteachgolf]

No one can shoot goods scores if their short game stinks. I shot 36 yesterday in league. I had hit one fairway and 2 GIR but only had 12 putts (6 one putts). My score could have been 5 strokes higher if I hadn't made some putts.

 

And I've shot 34 while having 18 putts. Lee Westwood got to number 1 in the world with the chip yips. He is -2.8 SG putting a round and -0.8 SG around the green, so -3.6 shots a round short game yet has a stroke average of 70.7. Worst putter on tour but is 39th in the world. You can shoot good scores with a poor short game.

[starsail85]

As long as you have a somewhat useable short game and putting game, long game is more important IMO

 

If you rip it, you are gonna struggle to shoot a bad number

 

If you can't hit a fairway or green you are gonna struggle NOT to shoot a bad number

[spoonek9]

No one can shoot goods scores if their short game stinks. I shot 36 yesterday in league. I had hit one fairway and 2 GIR but only had 12 putts (6 one putts). My score could have been 5 strokes higher if I hadn't made some putts.

 

And I've shot 34 while having 18 putts. Lee Westwood got to number 1 in the world with the chip yips. He is -2.8 SG putting a round and -0.8 SG around the green, so -3.6 shots a round short game yet has a stroke average of 70.7. Worst putter on tour but is 39th in the world. You can shoot good scores with a poor short game.

 

Played a kid in match play and he drove the ball 290 yards in the fairway and hit a bunch of GIR. I drove the ball 250 yards crooked and struggled to hit GIR! Guess who couldn't putt and lost that day? You can hit greens all day long, doesn't mean anything unless you can put the little ball in the hole!

[starsail85]

No one can shoot goods scores if their short game stinks. I shot 36 yesterday in league. I had hit one fairway and 2 GIR but only had 12 putts (6 one putts). My score could have been 5 strokes higher if I hadn't made some putts.

 

And I've shot 34 while having 18 putts. Lee Westwood got to number 1 in the world with the chip yips. He is -2.8 SG putting a round and -0.8 SG around the green, so -3.6 shots a round short game yet has a stroke average of 70.7. Worst putter on tour but is 39th in the world. You can shoot good scores with a poor short game.

 

Played a kid in match play and he drove the ball 290 yards in the fairway and hit a bunch of GIR. I drove the ball 250 yards crooked and struggled to hit GIR! Guess who couldn't putt and lost that day? You can hit greens all day long, doesn't mean anything unless you can put the little ball in the hole!

 

Good luck shooting 66 missing greens

[chippa13]

That was a one round anomaly. Statistically speaking, the guy who hits fairways and greens should win a vast majority of matches against a wayward driver that misses greens. Just because you had a good scrambling day, that does not discount the value of being long and straight off of the tee.

[iteachgolf]

No one can shoot goods scores if their short game stinks. I shot 36 yesterday in league. I had hit one fairway and 2 GIR but only had 12 putts (6 one putts). My score could have been 5 strokes higher if I hadn't made some putts.

 

And I've shot 34 while having 18 putts. Lee Westwood got to number 1 in the world with the chip yips. He is -2.8 SG putting a round and -0.8 SG around the green, so -3.6 shots a round short game yet has a stroke average of 70.7. Worst putter on tour but is 39th in the world. You can shoot good scores with a poor short game.

 

Played a kid in match play and he drove the ball 290 yards in the fairway and hit a bunch of GIR. I drove the ball 250 yards crooked and struggled to hit GIR! Guess who couldn't putt and lost that day? You can hit greens all day long, doesn't mean anything unless you can put the little ball in the hole!

 

Of course it does. The guy hitting greens all day putting like a blind man shoots 75. A horrible putter averages 35-36 putts a round. if you played 10 matches and you both hit it the same exact way he wins at least 8 of them. A guy struggling to hit greens has to chip and putt out of his mind to shoot low 70s. Anything can happen once. Over any length of time ball striking wins out

[MonteScheinblum]

No one can shoot goods scores if their short game stinks. I shot 36 yesterday in league. I had hit one fairway and 2 GIR but only had 12 putts (6 one putts). My score could have been 5 strokes higher if I hadn't made some putts.

 

And I've shot 34 while having 18 putts. Lee Westwood got to number 1 in the world with the chip yips. He is -2.8 SG putting a round and -0.8 SG around the green, so -3.6 shots a round short game yet has a stroke average of 70.7. Worst putter on tour but is 39th in the world. You can shoot good scores with a poor short game.

 

Played a kid in match play and he drove the ball 290 yards in the fairway and hit a bunch of GIR. I drove the ball 250 yards crooked and struggled to hit GIR! Guess who couldn't putt and lost that day? You can hit greens all day long, doesn't mean anything unless you can put the little ball in the hole!

 

In a section match a few weeks ago I had a rough short game day. I didn't make a putt over 5 feet, hit it 320+ and only missed 2 greens, broke par and beat a guy who had about 20 putts through 14 holes 5&4.

 

You're using a small sample size of your own experience to deny the facts.

 

The biggest difference between golfers of different levels is long game. On a given day, players of fairly equal level, short game has a more likely chance of being the difference maker.

 

[RichieHunt]

I believe there is a big disconnect between amateurs for various reasons:

 

1. They watch TV and they see Tour players making a ton of putts and they assume that's how it always is. Television producers always want to show made putts more than they want to show missed putts. What they don't see is the missed putts and don't see what the actual %'s are of making putts from various distances. For instance, from 12-feet a Tour player is 2.3 times more likely to 2-putt than 1-putt.

 

2. Because putting is shown so much on TV during events, it seeps into the golfer's mind watching at home that putting must be more important.

 

3. Shooting a single round low score for a Tour player vs. a 10-handicap tends to be a little different in terms of what goes on with the performance.

 

For instance, while a Tour player has to putt well to shoot...say 63...shooting that score has much more to do with ballstriking than putting.

 

A good example was Jim Furyk when he shot 59 at Conway Farms back in 2013.

 

Furyk did putt very well.

 

However, he hit every GIR and only missed 1 fairway. Furthermore, he had 14 birdie opportunities inside 20-feet. And that does not include the eagle he made on approach shot from 125 yards.

 

Every instance I can think of a Tour player shooting 63 or better since 2010 has derived from incredible ballstriking. I keep track of how many birdie opportunities they have inside 20-feet on those rounds and usually you're looking at least 11 of those opportunities per round.

 

For the average amateur, that low round is likely to be a bit more about putting than ballstriking. I surmise, based on the research I've done, that a 10-handicap that shoots, say a 74, will probably be more likely to hit the ball a bit better than they normally do, but they may start dropping a bunch of putts.

 

However, in the end they are not going to continue to drop that many putts no matter how much they work at it. And their handicap will drop the most when their ballstriking improves significantly. So they get fooled into thinking that their low round where they made putts from everywhere means that if they want to substantially drop their handicap...they need to work just on their putting. Instead of understanding that round was an outlier that is not likely to be replicated again by putting lights out and hitting the ball near their normal level of play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

RH

[chippa13]

Interesting that you say that. Thinking over some of my better rounds of late, they were all the product of hitting fairways and putting myself in position for makeable par putts. Since I'm not one to pound it out there 290 off the tee, that means I had to strike everything well in order to get myself in position for those par opportunities. The best way to score in this game is by giving yourself the shortest putts possible. If that is by hitting greens with your 4 iron or by chipping/flopping with the best of them, the scorecard doesn't care. But you do have to get there somehow.

[PutterKilledTheDream]

C'on down to poana-ville, muni style. Where the greens are 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the tour stops. Proximity is the only way to 'go low' despite the benign scorecards. Or bang putts in risking running everything several feet long. So yes, getting the approaches closer us a function of ballstriking, but the putts are often fairly short range anyway and after you see enough 10 footers wiggle offline or lip out..... You can kiss the full swing goodbye.

 

Good ballstriking without the ability to convert will always keep your scores in the respectable range...... but when you know you hit good enough to be posting 68-69s on the regular and yet you hover around par or worse, believe me, you're not thinking about the couple of greens you missed by a few yards. These courses don't punish you that bad. We're not talking US Open set ups. Hell, even the local am events or qualifiers either.

 

I've never played consistently enough on 'pure' greens to know the truth.

[iteachgolf]

C'on down to poana-ville, muni style. Where the greens are 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the tour stops. Proximity is the only way to 'go low' despite the benign scorecards. Or bang putts in risking running everything several feet long. So yes, getting the approaches closer us a function of ballstriking, but the putts are often fairly short range anyway and after you see enough 10 footers wiggle offline or lip out..... You can kiss the full swing goodbye.

 

Good ballstriking without the ability to convert will always keep your scores in the respectable range...... but when you know you hit good enough to be posting 68-69s on the regular and yet you hover around par or worse, believe me, you're not thinking about the couple of greens you missed by a few yards. These courses don't punish you that bad. We're not talking US Open set ups. Hell, even the local am events or qualifiers either.

 

I've never played consistently enough on 'pure' greens to know the truth.

 

I make way more putts in so cal on Poa than on muni Bermuda places like Riverwalk had greens as good as many nice country clubs in Florida. Coronado looks like Augusta compared to munis here. I've never putter better than when I lived in SoCal.

[PutterKilledTheDream]

C'on down to poana-ville, muni style. Where the greens are 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the tour stops. Proximity is the only way to 'go low' despite the benign scorecards. Or bang putts in risking running everything several feet long. So yes, getting the approaches closer us a function of ballstriking, but the putts are often fairly short range anyway and after you see enough 10 footers wiggle offline or lip out..... You can kiss the full swing goodbye.

 

Good ballstriking without the ability to convert will always keep your scores in the respectable range...... but when you know you hit good enough to be posting 68-69s on the regular and yet you hover around par or worse, believe me, you're not thinking about the couple of greens you missed by a few yards. These courses don't punish you that bad. We're not talking US Open set ups. Hell, even the local am events or qualifiers either.

 

I've never played consistently enough on 'pure' greens to know the truth.

 

I make way more putts in so cal on Poa than on muni Bermuda places like Riverwalk had greens as good as many nice country clubs in Florida. Coronado looks like Augusta compared to munis here. I've never putter better than when I lived in SoCal.

Riverwalk is not representative of the area and is one of the easiest courses in the county. Coronado is all over the map, Brian would tell you the same thing, good... bad, everything in between depending on the day. Neither of those examples you just gave require any ball striking skills to score.

[iteachgolf]

C'on down to poana-ville, muni style. Where the greens are 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the tour stops. Proximity is the only way to 'go low' despite the benign scorecards. Or bang putts in risking running everything several feet long. So yes, getting the approaches closer us a function of ballstriking, but the putts are often fairly short range anyway and after you see enough 10 footers wiggle offline or lip out..... You can kiss the full swing goodbye.

 

Good ballstriking without the ability to convert will always keep your scores in the respectable range...... but when you know you hit good enough to be posting 68-69s on the regular and yet you hover around par or worse, believe me, you're not thinking about the couple of greens you missed by a few yards. These courses don't punish you that bad. We're not talking US Open set ups. Hell, even the local am events or qualifiers either.

 

I've never played consistently enough on 'pure' greens to know the truth.

 

I make way more putts in so cal on Poa than on muni Bermuda places like Riverwalk had greens as good as many nice country clubs in Florida. Coronado looks like Augusta compared to munis here. I've never putter better than when I lived in SoCal.

Riverwalk is not representative of the area and is one of the easiest courses in the county. Coronado is all over the map, Brian would tell you the same thing, good... bad, everything in between depending on the day. Neither of those examples you just gave require any ball striking skills to score.

 

Where did I say anything about ballstriking? Your post even says they aren't punishing ball striking wise. I said the greens out there were much easier than out here to make putts on. I played a ton of golf courses out there, public and private, and I made way more putts out there than here in Florida on bumpy Bermuda. It was 100% about putting. The greens out there are miles better than here as your weather is way more predictable and consists any. 99% of munis don't require great ball striking to score.

 

This is how munis in FL often look. Never played a course that looked like this in SoCal.

 

 

[AndyC]

.......The difference between golfers of different levels is how well you hit the ball. The difference between golfers at the same level is how good your short game is.

 

The difference between an 18 and a 10 is ball striking, pure and simple. However, bring me two 10's and I'll bet on the one that gets it done around the greens better..........

 

Don't two 10 handicappers shoot roughly the same score? Why would one be better because they had a better short game? If they had a better short game they would necessarily be worse at ball striking otherwise they wouldn't be a 10!

[PutterKilledTheDream]

C'on down to poana-ville, muni style. Where the greens are 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the tour stops. Proximity is the only way to 'go low' despite the benign scorecards. Or bang putts in risking running everything several feet long. So yes, getting the approaches closer us a function of ballstriking, but the putts are often fairly short range anyway and after you see enough 10 footers wiggle offline or lip out..... You can kiss the full swing goodbye.

 

Good ballstriking without the ability to convert will always keep your scores in the respectable range...... but when you know you hit good enough to be posting 68-69s on the regular and yet you hover around par or worse, believe me, you're not thinking about the couple of greens you missed by a few yards. These courses don't punish you that bad. We're not talking US Open set ups. Hell, even the local am events or qualifiers either.

 

I've never played consistently enough on 'pure' greens to know the truth.

 

I make way more putts in so cal on Poa than on muni Bermuda places like Riverwalk had greens as good as many nice country clubs in Florida. Coronado looks like Augusta compared to munis here. I've never putter better than when I lived in SoCal.

Riverwalk is not representative of the area and is one of the easiest courses in the county. Coronado is all over the map, Brian would tell you the same thing, good... bad, everything in between depending on the day. Neither of those examples you just gave require any ball striking skills to score.

 

Where did I say anything about ballstriking? Your post even says they aren't punishing ball striking wise. I said the greens out there were much easier than out here to make putts on. I played a ton of golf courses out there, public and private, and I made way more putts out there than here in Florida on bumpy Bermuda. It was 100% about putting. The greens out there are miles better than here as your weather is way more predictable and consists any. 99% of munis don't require great ball striking to score.

 

This is how munis in FL often look. Never played a course that looked like this in SoCal.

 

Weren't you hear for like 6 months? Those pics look like punched greens. Pretty typical during fall/spring. So you putt better here? It's hard to go low when you're already disadvantaged on the green, especially if you have your-level ball striking abilities to begin with. I'm not sure comparing my stats on the courses I play now against tour players to their courses tells you much. Of course for them it's harder. But my stats as far as GIR are similar, or even better periodically given the differences in difficulty yet somehow my scoring average is much higher. How can you attribute that to ball striking? I've been talking all about my own personal index/scoring average fwiw... not strikes gained/lost.

[bph7]

.......The difference between golfers of different levels is how well you hit the ball. The difference between golfers at the same level is how good your short game is.

 

The difference between an 18 and a 10 is ball striking, pure and simple. However, bring me two 10's and I'll bet on the one that gets it done around the greens better..........

 

Don't two 10 handicappers shoot roughly the same score? Why would one be better because they had a better short game? If they had a better short game they would necessarily be worse at ball striking otherwise they wouldn't be a 10!

 

Two identical handicaps aren't necessarily created equal. Handicap is based on best 10 out of 20. Someone who is a 10 but has his ten "dropped" scores be in the mid 80s is obviously a better golfer than someone who is a 10 but has some "dropped" scores in the 90s and higher. Id say a bad ball striker with a good short game who is a 10 is more likely to have some terrible rounds than vice versa.

[iteachgolf]

C'on down to poana-ville, muni style. Where the greens are 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the tour stops. Proximity is the only way to 'go low' despite the benign scorecards. Or bang putts in risking running everything several feet long. So yes, getting the approaches closer us a function of ballstriking, but the putts are often fairly short range anyway and after you see enough 10 footers wiggle offline or lip out..... You can kiss the full swing goodbye.

 

Good ballstriking without the ability to convert will always keep your scores in the respectable range...... but when you know you hit good enough to be posting 68-69s on the regular and yet you hover around par or worse, believe me, you're not thinking about the couple of greens you missed by a few yards. These courses don't punish you that bad. We're not talking US Open set ups. Hell, even the local am events or qualifiers either.

 

I've never played consistently enough on 'pure' greens to know the truth.

 

I make way more putts in so cal on Poa than on muni Bermuda places like Riverwalk had greens as good as many nice country clubs in Florida. Coronado looks like Augusta compared to munis here. I've never putter better than when I lived in SoCal.

Riverwalk is not representative of the area and is one of the easiest courses in the county. Coronado is all over the map, Brian would tell you the same thing, good... bad, everything in between depending on the day. Neither of those examples you just gave require any ball striking skills to score.

 

Where did I say anything about ballstriking? Your post even says they aren't punishing ball striking wise. I said the greens out there were much easier than out here to make putts on. I played a ton of golf courses out there, public and private, and I made way more putts out there than here in Florida on bumpy Bermuda. It was 100% about putting. The greens out there are miles better than here as your weather is way more predictable and consists any. 99% of munis don't require great ball striking to score.

 

This is how munis in FL often look. Never played a course that looked like this in SoCal.

 

Weren't you hear for like 6 months? Those pics look like punched greens. Pretty typical during fall/spring. So you putt better here? It's hard to go low when you're already disadvantaged on the green, especially if you have your-level ball striking abilities to begin with. I'm not sure comparing my stats on the courses I play now against tour players to their courses tells you much. Of course for them it's harder. But my stats as far as GIR are similar, or even better periodically given the differences in difficulty yet somehow my scoring average is much higher. How can you attribute that to ball striking? I've been talking all about my own personal index/scoring average fwiw... not strikes gained/lost.

 

They aren't punched greens and I was there for over a year (have also been out there many times after moving to teach clinics and at events). Those are giant dead spots on large portions of the greens, the one green with punch marks is a private club in town 10 weeks after they were punched.

 

Yes what I'm saying is the greens are easier to putt out there than bumpy Bermuda. And to me it's not even close. You may be a poor putter and that's the issue. Entirely possible. My point was your putting would be even worse here.

[AndyC]

.......The difference between golfers of different levels is how well you hit the ball. The difference between golfers at the same level is how good your short game is.

 

The difference between an 18 and a 10 is ball striking, pure and simple. However, bring me two 10's and I'll bet on the one that gets it done around the greens better..........

 

Don't two 10 handicappers shoot roughly the same score? Why would one be better because they had a better short game? If they had a better short game they would necessarily be worse at ball striking otherwise they wouldn't be a 10!

 

Two identical handicaps aren't necessarily created equal. Handicap is based on best 10 out of 20. Someone who is a 10 but has his ten "dropped" scores be in the mid 80s is obviously a better golfer than someone who is a 10 but has some "dropped" scores in the 90s and higher. Id say a bad ball striker with a good short game who is a 10 is more likely to have some terrible rounds than vice versa.

 

So you are disagreeing with the OPs assertion that the better short game would rule between two 10s.

 

I don't think that you can assume that one type of player will have higher dropped scores than another type of player. I think everything would depend on the consistency of the individuals game be it in ball striking or short game.