That sounds really, really awesome. For some reason the link to that list on pgatour.com hadn't been working for me earlier in the discussion, so I'd never seen the numbers in such detail.

I ran the numbers on my last round. I putted red-hot on the front and gained .95, but lost 3.05 on the back, mostly thanks to two 3-putts. Obviously the pros play on much tougher and faster greens, but it's neat to have a means of comparison.

I assume it would be fairly easy to substitute another data set for the PGA Tour's. Would it be possible to compile something (maybe from the OOB data of all users, or from the people who use your site to track their putts gained) to show how a scratch golfer does, or a 10-handicap, or a 20-handicap? Alternately, does anyone know of any good tables with this data for amateur golfers? I've seen a few charts here and there, but nothing in as much precision as the link you posted.) It'd probably be more useful to compare my putting to other amateurs than to PGA Tour guys.

I like where this is heading. Being able to really see how awful I am compared to others with similar HC would be pretty cool. Though I would have to start tracking my putt distances. Do we just walk these off as we go to remove the pin?

That's what I do. I usually walk it off on my way to and from the pin just to smooth out any differences if it's uphill or downhill. I started doing this a while back to get my first putt distances; now I pace off all my putts (or just eyeball them if it's only a foot or two) and am keeping a sheet of paper with makes, misses, and 3-putts from every distance.

Ya, that's definitely something I've considered. I just need the data! For now, I don't mind just comparing it to the pros, despite the differences in greens and skill. It's a good target. I can look around OOB and try to find people who track 1st Putt Dist, but my first thought was just to do it for whoever is in the 2+2 group on there and wants to be involved.

It doesn't have to be perfect. For putts under 10', I generally eyeball it to the nearest foot by body-lengths (I'm 6'2"). Between 10' and 20', I walk it off to the nearest 3', and after that, to the nearest 5'. The more people start tracking this, the better!

And if you wanna get crazy about it.....I've started tracking approach shots as well, although I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to do with it yet. I just played a round this afternoon in Vegas, and I kept the following stats:
- Score
- Drive Club
- Fairway
- Approach Dist
- Approach Club
- Approach Result
- Putts
- 1st Putt Dist

I also carded my first + Putts-Saved round in my 55-round sample, at +0.7! Yay me.

I'm probably playing tomorrow. If it's feasible, I will keep track of mine. Though I don't think I can list them on oob since I'm not an addict? Guess I could type them in the Comments section.

I noticed 1st Putt Dist was an addict stat when I was talking to my non-addict friend the other day. Eventually I'll probably add the ability to add #s directly to my site, but for now, if you write it in the notes section, I can pull it from there. Write it in the following format:
....except for 18 holes.

Shoot me a PM after you play, and I'll grab your round and post the results in here.

I processed PHB's round from yesterday, along with my round from today. I hit the ball about as well as I can hope to hit it today, but Poppy is a mother****in beast. Goal was to break 80, though, and I got there despite taking 4 strokes from the fringe on 18!

PHB's 6/23 round with Putts-Saved:
OOB Page


My round from today, 6/24 at Poppy Hills:
OOB Page


Just so happened we both took 35 putts, yet there's a 5.7 difference in Putts-Saved. Pretty nice example of the utility of Putts-Saved as a metric compared with the old Putts/Round!

This is boner inducing material right here.

Damn. Legit embarrassed at this point. lol. At least it's evident that I need to spend 40 hours a week on the putting green. Awesome stuff. Are these putts gained compared to PGA tour players? So if I let you putt for me we would have hit 85? LOL

Ya, it's compared to the PGA Tour players. If I get some more data in there, I'll do some comparisons to other handicap ranges, but for now, I like the Tour players as a target. Aim high!

From watching tour players strike the ball on the driving range I can easily say that ball striking is massively important. When my handicap dropped like a stone when I was a junior it was because I hit the ball further and with more accuracy.

An example of ball striking is the recent US Open when Rory just hit it flush for pretty much all four days.

Ship you make a very good point.

I haven't looked or know where to look, but do we know what Rory's strokes gained for the US Open only was? That would be interesting to know. He obviously was massively + but I wonder how much. Could he have been about flat and still won?

I haven't seen the # anywhere, but watching on TV, I didn't think his putting was THAT good. He was just stiffing irons in there hole-after-hole, so he had a bunch of good looks and easy 2 putts. Then again, I could be wrong. We humans suck at gauging this sorta thing, which is why the #s are so useful!

A new round from PHB and a new stat for me!

Here's PHB's round from yesterday, 6/29, with Putts-Saved:
OOB Page


Only 1 fewer putt than the previous round, but a 4 stroke improvement in putting expectation!


I've been working on expanding the Putts-Saved type stat to Approach shots and Drives. Drives will probably have to wait till after I play tomorrow, but here's my round from yesterday, with Approach Strokes Saved:
OOB Page


The methodology I used to generate this stat was to look at the average distance from the hole resulting from approaches from different yardages, as given on the PGA Tour site here, then compare the EV of that average distance to the EV of the distance my first putt came from plus any additional strokes needed to get on the putting surface. Make sense? Good.

For holes where my drive didn't result in a reasonable approach shot, the metric does not apply. This chunk of EV will be covered in the Driving Strokes Saved stat.

It's still a little buggy for par-5s where I went for it in 2, but I'll iron those kinks out soon.

Further boner inducing material

Drive Strokes Saved!

I played today, and left the course on a fairly bittersweet note...
OOB Page


For holes where I have a legit approach shot, Drive Strokes Saved measures the EV of that approach shot relative to par, assuming the drive took (par-3) strokes to get there.*

For holes with no approach, Drive Strokes Saved measures the # of strokes it took to get to the green, and then uses the expected putts from however far from the hole the 1st Putt is. This will, over time, account for the penalty of hitting a wayward drive, although it can be misleading in some specific instances, such as my #11 today, where I was able to punch out of the trees and have the ball roll up pretty close.

This now covers all the EV relative to par from tee to hole-out. I'm going to try to get the server up publicly in the next day or two, and let people mess around on their own.

*There's still the little issue of it not recognizing when I go for it in 2 on a par-5. OOB doesn't really have a stat that I can keep to mark these instances (I might just track them in the comment box like PHB did with 1st Putt Dist), so I'm going to have to add a little code to try to guess from the rest of the stats whether the approach was my 2nd or 3rd shot. It should be pretty easy to do for the majority of cases, but in the meantime, Approach Strokes Saved is high by 1 stroke and Drive Strokes Saved is low by 1 in those spots. So for this round, #6 and #18 should have 1 stroke each moved from Approach Strokes Saved to Drive Strokes Saved.

kbfc,

could you run the putts saved for the round i played today? i posted it to OOB and put the 1st putt distance in the notes section...if you could run it that would be great, im kinda curious just how good it was putting. i hit 18 greens with 27 putts so obviously i was hot but i wonder what the putts saved number is. my username is "mweaver27"

OOB Page


....

Thinly veiled brag......kidding, nice round!

Good lord, nice round.

thanks...the putts saved seems pretty accurate just based on my own expectations. if i putted how i normally hope to putt i dont make the 25 and 30 footers and maybe one or two others so 3.4 is pretty close to what i figured. i was thinking something around 4.0

I patched up the Par5 issue, and I've looked through the 7 rounds for which I have the required data tracked, and I think I can say a few concrete things about the OP question now.

Here's a repost of my Poppy Hills round from 6/24, with the new stats included. I chose this one, because it's got a nice variety of situations that test the metrics:


Here's a chart of my last 7 rounds with Drive Strokes Saved (DSS), Approach Strokes Saved (ASS, har har), and Putts Saved (PS):


Anyway, things I think I can say:
- Driving distance in general doesn't matter all that much (within a range), but accuracy matters a TON. The difference between a 200yd approach and a 130yd one is a few tenths of a stroke, but if you drive it into jail, the penalty is more like a full stroke+. (This sort of assumes that your approach game tails off similarly to a pro's as you get farther away; if you're deadly from 150, but can't get a 4-iron in the air, then obviously your driving distance goes up in importance.)

- The exception to this is on Par-5s. If your length allows you to take a shot at the green in 2, you're effectively lopping 1 off the par, and gain nearly a full stroke in EV. Of course, accuracy still matters here as well! I might go as far as to say that tee shots on reachable Par-5s are the most important (highest-leverage) shots in a round.

- On approach shots, hitting the green is much more important than pin-seeking. Similar to driving distance, the difference between a 20-ft leave and a 50-ft leave is measured in tenths of a stroke. If you miss the green in a safe-ish place, the penalty is about a half-stroke, and if you miss into trouble, you're looking at a full-stroke+ again. Hitting it tight doesn't start to really pay dividends until you're around 15-ft or closer. The implication for course-management here is going to sound basic and obvious, but for me, seeing it in the data makes a huge difference in my decision-making: Don't risk trouble aiming at tough pins unless you have a club in your hand that you think you can hit to inside a ~15' radius circle!

- Making putts matters a little, but what really matters is not 3-putting. This reinforces the idea behind dagolfdoc's putting practice drills. Even the pros don't make that many birdie putts outside of 10 or 15', so missing those putts is only costing you a few tenths of a stroke. 3-putting, however, is another one of those full-stroke+ errors. Converting short putts in the 5-8' range is more important than the 15-footers, but at around 0.5 strokes, still not as vital as avoiding 3-putts. My lag-putting has been pretty strong of late, so my biggest putting problem is bleeding EV, a half-stroke at a time, missing those damn makeable putts, but I suspect, as PHB's recent rounds suggest, that for higher-handicap players, 3-putting avoidance is a bigger issue.

- For my lovely little 7-round sample, it looks like iron play is what drives my scoring more than anything on a day-to-day basis. Additionally, I made a little swing tweak right before this sample started, and I'm hitting my irons significantly better than I have ever before (unfortunately I don't have any data to compare before and after), yet it is still the dominant factor in differentiating my game from a pro's. I'd guess that this can vary by player and by ability-level, but without getting some more golfers/rounds into the DB, I can't say for sure. My suspicion, however, is that for guys in my range -- single-digit handicappers with goals of scratch -- iron play is going to be the thing.


I'm open to suggestions as to ways to interpret the #s differently, though, so if anyone has any thoughts, let's hear 'em!

Oh, and it certainly wouldn't hurt if more people started tracking the following OOB stats in addition to "1st Putt Dist":
- "Approach Length" (only track this when you have a reasonable shot to the green in regulation or better -- unobstructed fairway or light-rough -- otherwise leave it blank)

These next 2 aren't mandatory, but help tremendously in resolving uncertainty about Par-5 approaches:
- "Fairway"
- "Approach Shot" (this is the hit-or-miss? stat)

This thread doesn't need tits. This thread IS tits!

When you are adding up your putts, do you count the puts that you made off the fringe?

holy crap.. nice work kbfc.. and everyone else.