So what does Broadie (strokes gained) say are...

[SNIPERBBB]

A lot of the SG stuff is obvious,at least to better players. Newer players should find it fairly useful for planning their practice time and course strategy.

 

Then again, some guys just can't objectively look at their game. I'll never forget my brother years ago bring mad after topping his drive me said, "I hit that solid!"

[smashdn]

Read Every Shot Counts to understand the concepts then grab a copy of Lowest Score Wins and I think you will be closer to finding the answer to what shots you need to be working on.

The way it is laid out in LSW it takes into account how often you hit that type of shot, what other shots benefit from working on that particular shot (does getting better at long irons help with pitches) and how far is the average 80 or 90's golfer away from PGA average - his ceiling.

LSW dovetails nicely behind ESC. Broadie tells you a lot of the why and then Lowest Score Wins goes into the how much better imo.

[Krt22]

So this begs the question, have you read the book?

[smashdn]

If you only had 30 minutes that you could devote to practicing golf, are you better off chipping and putting, hitting drivers or wedges to around 100 yards?

[DaveLeeNC]

It will do something else that is very useful - and that is knowing what kind of shots and problems that you face frequently vs. not so often. Like how often are forced (or do you choose) to hit LW from inside 30 yards. If that is a tough shot for you but you don't do it often, then fine. But if that is s tough shot that you are doing 5-6 times per round, maybe you should reconsider those shots. Lots of stuff like that.

I did my own version of "Strokes Gained" starting back in 2003 (no longer do that simply because I am no longer a serious golfer). Sometimes 36 putts is terrible putting and sometimes it is not so bad. I just liked knowing that, even though I am not sure that it actually helped my game.

dave

[DaveLeeNC]

IMHO, it varies by golfer and the right answer IS NOT to work on the part of your game that is the weakest. The answer is to find the part of your game that 'yields to practice'. I have seen driver swings that are so badly out of control that practicing these swings will yield little to no benefit, even though driver is the weakest part of said golfer's game. Give the guy/gal a clue as to what to work on, then maybe. But if you don't have a clue and have no path to get a clue, then find something else that 'will yield to practice'.

dave

[bladehunter]

Yes and no. I have made a cursory Lap through it. Which is my own quirk. I read fast and often times from back to front. Not the words just pages. I like to know the outcome before I hear the story. ( yea I know. What spectrum that is I don’t know ?) Anyway. I’m headed back around to try to digest it further , but initially I’m thinking what I already knew. Any glaring issue is well .... already glaring. Like my putting last year. I worked all winter to turn it into a strength. Now I’m working from proximities 200-150 .

I’ve watched his videos. And it all sounds fine. But. I don’t think it wows me. And hearing others talk about it makes me expect a wow moment. I’m only saying that I don’t think it’s for everyone if a wow is expected. Not saying others don’t have a wow moment from it. Some folks need stats to tell them things. Some just know the whole time where they are loosing shots.

thats what led me to click here again. I’ll refrain from posting more until if forced myself to go front to back and make notations. I’ll digest those and see if I glean anything new. Wasn’t trying to argue here. Just saw the other guys post and wanted to explain why all the questions always pop up.

[bladehunter]

Depends on who it is in my opinion. But if you’re asking me. I’m hitting wedges from 50-80 yards. Or putting. Since I have a putting green beside my wedge range I can usually get some reps on both inside 30 ish minutes. If you’re pumping drivers OB every round .... then getting off the tee makes more sense. I don’t hit it out of play very often. I have 9 tournament rounds in this summer and only 1 ball OB . I’m trying to get it in the hole now.

[North Butte]

I never had a wow moment reading Broadie. I'd been doing almost exactly the same concepts and calculations on data collected from my own game for several years before he published his book. Instead of wow, my reaction was to turn green with envy because he had been granted access to every single shot in the PGA Tour ShotLink database.

[smashdn]

I think the both of you that said it depends is correct. I don't think Broadie contradicts that either. What he does do well in his book explain that what you might perceive to be a grave weakness in your game is actually not that bad nor encountered all that often and so really isn't the thorn in your golf game's side you may think it is. It helps you challenge your perceptions about your game. I thought my short game was a weakness because I was losing shots there. I was losing shots there because I was taking too many short game shots but my abilities were actually quite good. It was a mis-perception on my part.

Everyone can benefit from more distance. I was guilty of thinking of thinking I was "long enough" off the tee. I could "afford" to hit an iron off the tee to keep it in the fairway and that was better than being closer to the green but in the rough. What I found was that I was not accurate with the shots I was leaving myself and I would have been better off taking the time I was using for chips and pitches and putting and devoted it to gaining more confidence and distance with driver. I also needed to work more on making pure contact with my full-swing mechanics. The full swing mechanics improvement has leaked over into pitches and chips as well. Putting is no better nor worse since I basically quit practicing it, but I am on the GIR more often. When I miss I am getting up and down more often. It is a night and day difference playing when my driver is on versus when it is not. Golf is easy in the fairway with around 100 left to the green. It is hard to score when you are 160+ out or hitting 3 from the tee.

I am not saying this is right or wrong but this is what I work on on the range. I hit a few wedges to get started getting loose. Then I move to driver to finish getting warmed up and start there. If I can hit five drives in a row within about a 15 yard spread of my target I will quit and move to irons. I only hit irons at the 150 flag on the range. Usually start with a 7 iron then drop to 8 then up to a 6. If I am accurate with those clubs to 150 I know I can cover a good swathe of distances I encounter a bunch. I'll hit a 3 and 4 a handful of times not for distance control but direction control. I aim them at the 150 too and obviously go well past. Next I drop to a 50* and hit shots to 100. Then 54* and finally 60* to 100.

I don't get hung up on honing my 170 or 180 shots. I figure that the motion is the same for a 150 shot, I just use a different club. Same with 130 or 120. Direction has improved greatly because I am putting the club face on the ball consistently and correctly now.

[MelloYello]

This is totally outside Broadie's work but along the lines of figuring things out on your own: it generally holds true that the cost of a mistake directly correlates with the length of the shot. That assumes you have a reasonable short game, but I think it's reliable. A bad tee shot can go OB forcing a re-tee. A (long) approach can find a hazard forcing a drop. A (short) approach can force a challenging up and down. A wedge can force a difficult lag putt.

In general, GIR tells the story of a golfer. Having played with a ton of excellent golfer this year, the thing I notice is their ball-striking and their ability to bounce-back from a bad hole with a great hole.

Playing good golf is all about keeping the positive momentum going and being able to grab control and steady the ship quickly when thing go sideways. Both of those are best done through ball-striking. That's really the key to being someone worth watching.

[juststeve]

The analysis so far ignores the low hanging fruit. We live in the real world where most people can't drive the ball 300 yards or hit an iron into a green at 200 yards. If you can't do those things it will do you no good to spend a lot of time trying. Instead, devote your practice time to learning to those things you have the physical ability to do.

Steve

[Krt22]

It doesn't ignore anything, it instead quantifies everything such that you can deduce what is the actual low hanging fruit. And there is nothing in the book that says you need to hit it 300 off the tee, but being able to do so is absolutely an advantage. Just about everyone can improve their swing and add length. most just don't want to.

[North Butte]

Even for short hitters, the Strokes Gained stuff gives some insight into the tradeoff of distance versus risk. A lot of the driver swings I see are pretty repeatable and hit a lot of fairways but only because the golfer is swinging "within himself" and basically not seeking anything like his maximum potential distance. I think in most situations that is, in fact, a sound approach. But they are possibly leaving 20 yards on the table and unless the extra 20 means not being able to keep it between the tree lines, they may be naively overestimating the value of hitting 12 fairways per round instead of 9 or 10.

But in my experience, a well thought out Strokes Gained analysis of my game often "reveals" exactly I always thought was the case. I find that reassuring but only because I have a healthy respect for how easy it is to delude ourselves. In my case deluding myself most often tends to be in the negative direction as I have a pretty "glass half empty" type of personality. Having Strokes Gained confirm that yes I really do hit into bunkers pretty often and yes, I waste multiple strokes per round by not having a better sand game is kind of like having a playing partner confirm that yes, this putt is going to break five feet and be moving fast once it gets past the hole.

[The Pearl]

Great discussion.
Here are my non-Broadie observations based on my game, playing with my regular groups of buddies and the odd single that joins us.

A bad drive usually leads to a bad outcome. The modern driver seems to be one of the easier clubs to hit. Even averages golfer's seem to be able to get the ball out there pretty good. GIR seems to be a huge in terms of scoring and hdcp level. I play with a few guys that can drive it good, but might hit 3 greens a round. They should shoot mid-70s and shoot mid-80s. The worst skill set , by far, with the cross-section of players I encounter is pitching and chipping. Second worst skill set is putting within 5 or 6 feet.Lesser evils that seem to be consistent:
The 3 Wood is Kryptonite along with the LW and trying to chip with the SW for most golfers.
Nearly every double digit hdcp is always short on every approach or par 3. If you could bet this at Vegas you would be a Gazillionaire.
Atrocious course management. And I mean just outright stupidity.

Not sure how this fits into Broadie's work, but thought I would throw it out there for feedback.

[bortass]

1 - depends on context. A bad drive is normally costly. The rub is are you looking at a single drive or a large number of them. ESC reminds me of a book I read about Poker many years ago that I can't recall the name of. It boils down to there is always a correct play mathematically. Do it enough and when you succeed it will outweigh the times you lose. In this context a bad drive, if you have made a change that over time will lead to lower scores, is okay. Sure it sucks but it's the cost of doing business. You're in it for the long haul, not a one off.

2 - I don't recall equipment ever being mentioned in the book. Just that being closer, should be better. Of course last I read average scores haven't changed with the 'improvements' made with SGI/GI clubs, modern drivers etc.

3 - makes sense with Broadie's work. At the end of the day most people have a decent enough short and putting game to get by. Hitting the green more will lead to lower scores unless you happen to be that guy that just blows at putting, which is an outlier from the general population.

4 & 5 - contradict Broadie's numbers. Those aspects make of a smaller portion of the skill set that seem to make the biggest difference in overall scores. However those are also some of the easiest things to work on and improve at. So it's the low hanging fruit. You'll probably see the quickest improvement by working in these areas but it's the full swing that will make the biggest difference in the long run for most people at the end of the day.

I have been using Arccos since January and it uses SG to compare aspects of my game to other golfers in their database. I happen to fit Broadie's pattern. My approach and driving are holding me back. My short game, sand, and putting, is like a mid teens index but I driver and hit approaches like a guy in the high 20s. So my practice time is best spent on my full swing since I know there is room for improvement.

Hopefully some of what I typed makes sense, lol. Have a good one!

[Krt22]

You a re right, there isn't anything in the book about modern equiptment, but I agree with driver being the easiest club to hit in the bag. Not only is the largest head, but the fact the sweet spot is so high and you are hitting off a long tee, it makes low point less important. -3 to +3 AoA are all playable, you can't say the same about any other club in the bag

[North Butte]

And I can reconfirm that any time I like by trying to "play safe" and hit an iron or hybrid off the tee on tight driving holes. If I go to a short enough club (maybe 5-iron?) yeah I'll hit more fairways but even teed up it's amazing how much more crooked on average I'll hit a 5-wood or 3-hybrid than I do my 460cc driver. There's mishits with my driver that find the fairway and end up 20 yards shorter than usual which, if I hit them with a small-headed club, might not even get airborne or stay between the tree lines.

[Krt22]

Agree with you there. If you are hitting complete foul balls with driver, some say hit lesser club, but if you can hit a complete foul ball with a driver, you can do the same with any other long club. (Speaking from personal experience lol)

[The Pearl]

Any layup off the tee now, I use my driver. I simply choke down an inch or even two inches if necessary. Much easier to just bunt/punch a driver out there.