It is all based on Every Shot Counts by Mark Broadie, it's a great book for a player who wants to try and think a little more analytically about their game.

This calculator is awesome.

Quick question: How are 'chips' and 'pitches' defined by the calculator?

I think they are currently defined as

Chips- shots from 10 to 30 yards

Pitches- shots from 30 to 50 yard

It's just tough to categorize these when you can't really do it solely by distance.

I can change it if someone comes up with a better solution. I could just change them to just say "30 to 50 yds" and "10 to 30 yds" like most of the other categories

Thanks NXT. Fwiw I do think it would be a little clearer to label the short game sub categories by distance, just like the approaches.

Love the calculator though. Just entered in a round from yesterday and short game was my best category while approach was my worst, by far. My thoughts on my own game have always been that my full swing iron shots were the strongest part of my game, because I practice them the most and hit the ball consistently solid.

This may be an anomaly though and I'm gonna start putting every round in. Looking forward to the results.

Not working anymore.

Not sure what happened to it.

Should be back up and working now. Also removed "Pitch" and "Chip" and replaced with 31-50yds and 10-30yds respectively.

Yup, working fine again. Thanks.

It may be too late, but I wanted to respond to the problem posed in the "Iron Mike" analogy. If all approach shots are hit into the cup, your strokes gained putting is zero, which is PGA Tour average and represents VERY GOOD putting, which is misleading. Similarly, if you hit your approaches to an average of 5 feet, your strokes gained putting for that round is likely to be much better than the round where you hit approaches to an average of 50 feet. Here's why we see the discrepency:

Strokes gained stats are generally calculated on a "per round" rather than a "per stroke" basis. This is a choice that has been made, and strokes gained per round is very useful and tells us a lot. The trouble with calculating stats per round, however, IS THAT NUMBER OF STROKES PER ROUND IN A GIVEN CATEGORY VARIES WIDELY FROM ROUND TO ROUND. If you are a 20 handicap, and take 10 strokes from 0-100 yds in a round and take 20 strokes in that range in another round, then your strokes gained per round in that category will not accurately measure your skill in that category. Strokes gained per stroke for the round, however, will very accurately measure your skill in that category. Same holds true for putting. In the case of knocking all approaches in the hole, or all but one, for example, then your strokes gained putting for the round will be very low, which accurately shows that you didn't lose many strokes in relation to the benchmark. But in that case, the strokes gained per stroke calculation would more accurately measure your skill in that category. Let's say you only took one putt from 10 feet and made it. Your strokes gained putting per stroke would properly show that you gained in relation to the benchmark.

To summarize: because strokes gained is generally calculated PER ROUND, numbers can be somewhat misleading because of variation in number of strokes taken per round. If not taken in proper context, then the results can indeed be misleading. Not wrong, but misleading if taken out of context.

Don't think for a second, though that strokes gained stats are misleading. They are actually EXTREMELY ACCURATE AND VERY USEFUL. However, it is a good idea to keep "STROKES GAINED PUTTING PER ROUND and STROKES GAINED PUTTING PER STROKE. Each is useful in its own way.

I hope that all makes sense.

X-post from the What did you Shoot thread

This looks much better than I remember in the beginning, nice work!

Since we will all obviously be losing strokes due to the data being from PGA players, would you say there is more/less importance on losing X strokes from the different categories? If you're losing 5 strokes/round in both driving/putting, does that imply one should be working on those weaker areas of their game equally?

I imagine there is more data that demonstrates the varying importance of decreasing the different types of strokes lost, e.g. you benefit more from shaving a stroke off driving vs. putting (this was discussed somewhat above with % of wins due to putting)? Essentially, are there other calculations that estimate your expected scoring improvement if you decrease strokes lost in T/F/R/S/G by X?

Hopefully that makes sense, I am just positing but it would be useful to understand if it's more beneficial for one to decrease strokes lost in D by .4 than in P by .6 -- there are probably too many variables at play here to be definitive...

Also, if anyone would like to share their spreadsheet to keep score on, that'd be great.

Thanks.

Im not sure there is any evidence that there is varying importance of decreasing different types of strokes lost. I think that is basically the beauty of strokes gained calculations in that it is able to put every shot on an equal playing field with regards to calculating how valuable it is.

Improving your ability by 1 stroke in the driving category or by 1 stroke in the putting category should be equal. The only thing about that is that it could be harder to do 1 or the other depending in how good you are in the category in the first place. Also, distance plays a pretty big role so for most people it will be much easier to improve their putting vs a tour player.

For someone who only hits the ball 230 yards off the tee, they are going to get penalized pretty good in the Driving stats. A 230 yard drive into the fairway on shorter holes is going to be about 0 strokes gained driving, but will lose .1 to .2 shots on longer holes. That's a problem since that is that person's best drive. 230 yards into the rough will lose between .2 and .4 shots. That's a lot.

If I recall I believe there was some data about 25 yards off the tee being worth roughly .75 shots per round on Tour. That is probably a decent starting # for figuring out what you can possibly attain in the Driving category. I would guess if someone averages 230 yards off the tee just about the best they could do would be losing a little less than 1.5 shots per round. So that should be taken into account when analyzing which parts of your game are actually the weakest.

Ok, that makes more sense.

Is the data that determines how many strokes you gain/lose published somewhere, similar to the driving stats you wrote above? Without knowing stuff like gaining x yds off the tee = x strokes gained/lost, or making x% of putts from x ft. = x strokes gained/lost, it would be difficult to assess which area of the game you're more likely able to improve the most in.

Then, even if you did know all of that info, you'd need to decide if you're more likely able to improve certain areas of your game vs. others.

I have a spreadsheet that will allow you to enter multiple rounds and then give you cumulative stats as well as per round stats, but its for putting only. You can also enter different distance ranges and it will give you stats for those ranges.

If anyone wants to use it send me a PM and I'll email it to you.

Bump...if you still have I am PM'ing you my email address...Thx

Love the calculator such a good indication of where i am loosing my strokes thanks for this.

I also sent one if you are still sending people this