No, if you use the putter from the fringe or anywhere else that does not count as a putt.

If you putt from the fringe and sink it you mark down 0 putts for that hole.

This deserves some love. Lots of food for thought...ty!

This is how they measure on tour so this is correct. Personally I count putts from the fringe as putts. There are a couple reasons for me doing this.

I am more concerned about having accurate putting stats than ballstriking stats. If I putt from the fringe, I count it as a GIR and count the putts as putts on GIR. My reason for doing this is so that I do not artificially inflate my up and down statistic since if I miss the green I will now have an up and down opportunity where I am not chipping. This also helps make my 3 putt statistic more accurate since putts from the fringe could potentially be from distance. My method leaves some gray area as far as what is a chip and what is a putt and a GIR...so I figure that if I have to decide whether to putt or chip then I have missed the green and count my stats accordingly.

This is a little different then how the tour does it, but I feel it gives me better feedback on my putting which I am more interested than my ballstriking. The main stat I am interested with regard to putting from the fringe is 3putts/round. My method just makes it so that I don't pad my up and down stats by calling a two putt from the fringe as an up and down since I have technically missed the green. I'd be curious if anyone else counts it like this, I know its not correct but I think it would benefit amateurs if they counted it this way cause they get a more accurate representation of what is actually going on around the greens since this is the area most people are losing the most shots.

I really don't think driving accuracy plays a huge role in scoring unless you can hit long irons well from the fairway. I know I'm going to hit the green more often from <140 yards in rough and moderate trees than I am from 200 and in the fairway, so I just rip away.

It also depends on the course, I suppose. Most courses here have about half the size of the greens on the PGA. On tour I think accuracy becomes a bigger importance because hitting the green in the fairway from 200 becomes exponentially easier compared to the greens I'm used to playing. There you can afford to be knocking your approaches to 50 feet and 2 putting all day, while getting a couple lucky birdies on par 4s and 3s while hopefully getting a few easy birdies on par 5s.

I like your thought process here and I do the same. But, I also count it the Tour way so I can compare all stats to theirs. Not sure if your ultimate goal is to play the Tour (I think it is) but if it is I think having stats exactly how they do is important. It is how you will find the leaks in your game and allocate your time the most efficiently. Your 3 Putt per attempt will be higher from the fringe but you don't have a good data set to compare against. You might move your percentage of 3 putts up 1% and think you have a leak when in reality if you didn't count those you would find out you are right in line with Tour average. I think that once you get to Tour average in 3 putt avoidance your incremental return from 3 putting less is not as good as more time chipping or whatever.

I count it like Stadler, and consider fringe shots to be putts. I'm more concerned with grouping "like" shots together than anything else, and to my mind, a putt from the fringe is a hell of a lot more like a putt from the green than any other type of shot. Also an approach shot that ends on the fringe is a hell of a lot closer to a shot on the green at that same distance than it is a "real" missed green. However, if I'm farther off and going through more grass or something, but still using my putter for whatever reason, then I won't consider that a putt.

As to ship--this's comments about comparing 3-putt stats to PGA stats, that's the reason to use Putts-Saved in the first place! You shouldn't care about raw 3-putt totals anyway, but only how often you 3-putt when also considering how far your 1st putt was. And for this, I'd rather include a 40' putt that started on the fringe in with all my other 40' putts.

I agree to some extent. That's why I added the disclaimer about long-iron play tailing off similarly to the pros. In practice, however:
a) the choice between hitting a conservative drive and swinging out of your shoes is probably not a 60-yard difference, so the approach differences aren't going to be THAT drastic in most cases, and
b) if your long-irons are that much worse (relatively) than your short-irons, then the stat is correctly penalizing your approach game, and telling you, "hey, your long irons need work! if you got them up to snuff, you wouldn't have to drive it as far to overcompensate!"

Agreed. It's going to depend on the course. There are plenty of places where you can get away with bombing away on every drive and then playing out of the rough and light trees, but there are also plenty where a wayward drive is a guaranteed stroke penalty or more. Drive-Strokes-Saved considers any drive that generates a reasonable approach shot to be an "accurate" drive, so that includes times where you are in the rough, but have a decent lie and clear path to the green.

I got the site set up for public viewing on my webserver:

http://keithboyarsky.com/golf/

If you want to be able to import your own stats from OOB, send me a PM and I will set up a user account for you. Otherwise, I don't want a bunch of people hammering the OOB servers out of my control. As of now, I've got PHB's, stadler's (mweaver27), and my own stats up there.

I agree with that being the point of putts saved, but I think it will be difficult to get a completely accurate Putts Saved stat on your own. On the other hand it is quite simple to have a perfectly accurate 3 putt avoidance to compare to the Tour stats. Since you already have the data you might as well make it accurate. I disagree that raw three putt numbers aren't important. I agree that the starting distance of that 3 putt is more important but my point to Stadler, who is a VERY good player, is that he won't be 3 putting often from 15 feet and if his 3 putt avoidance runs high it will most likely be due to poor initial lag putting. If he is 3 putting from 15 feet often it really won't matter considering the level he is trying to play at.

If you are running 2.5% above Tour average simply getting to Tour average saves you almost a half a shot a round...that is huge and it might be easy to miss as you aren't talking about an event that happens that often in the first place. Thus I think it could be easy to not realize you are running at 5% 3 putt avoindance instead of the goal of 2.5%.

According to PGATour.com, the average 3-putt % is around 3%, or about 0.5x per round. If you mean 2.5% of that is hard to notice, then I agree, but at 0.01 strokes/rd, it's not a big deal. If you mean an absolute 2.5% higher, then yes, it's about 0.5/rd, but it's also twice the pro rate, and imo, very very noticeable.

I'm guessing you mean the latter one, however, as seen at http://www.pgatour.com/r/strokes-gai...ine/index.html, you can also get that 2.5% decrease in 3-putt % by hitting your approach shot to 25' instead of 30'. So when you're measuring your 3-putt% against the pros, the distance of your putts quickly becomes the dominant factor in determining 3-putt %, and a slightly-weaker approach game could very easily hide a completely acceptable lag-putting game if you only look at raw %s.

Putts-Saved exists to account for this -- along with the shorter putt lengths that come from missed greens, and all other sorts of situations -- and makes sure putting ability is being correctly isolated in the data.

Awesome work, Keith! How do you keep track of DSS and ASS (lol)? I don't have GPS but if there's any way I can track this I will try to.

I agree with what you are saying about once you get good at 3 putt avoidance there are small incremental gains from 3 putting 0.35 or 0.4/round. I may not have explained it well, but my up and down statistics are also a factor in my decision because I don't want to count fringe two putts as up and downs. As far as ball striking, that is the least of my worries as far as getting to the next level. I think you and I have similarities in that you seem to drive it pretty well and do the rest tee to green well and I drive it well and my iron play is pretty sharp.

A guy from my area is on tour this year and was on nationwide last year and I played with him periodically and he basically said that I'm not gonna make huge advances improving my ballstriking cause it is by far the strongest component of my game, but that I need to get good around the greens and inside 120 or so. So this is the reason for my stats that are biased towards more difficult short numbers because this is the area I need the most improvement and I feel that using a two putt from the fringe as an up and down rather than GIR and two putt is more productive and a better representation of my actual chipping abilities, rather than my "scrambling" as the tour refers to it.

I understand how tracking GIR stats to a tour standard is important, but I think I stand to gain more by having more precise up and down stats that reflect my chipping, rather than my "scrambling" as that is very broad since an up and down from 100 yards for par is the same as chipping it close from around the green and tapping it.

One stat I wish PGA Tour had was the up and down percentages form various distances. In order to track wedge play I track up and downs from 31-60, 61-90, and 91-120, but there is nothing that I can really find that is totally comparable. Proximity to the hole is close, but doesnt factor in the putting although the ultimate goal with only wedges is proximity.

There's only 1 main stat you need to track to get those 2 stats: Approach Length in yards. Only mark the stat for holes where you have a reasonable approach shot at the green in regulation or better. Otherwise just leave it blank. No need for GPS. I've got dreams of building an app to track this stuff eventually, but that's way down the road. For now, just do it however you would normally to measure your yardages in those spots. Walk it off from sprinklers or yardage stakes or whatever. It doesn't need to be exact, just in the ballpark.

If you want to be a little more accurate on par-5's (if you have a lot of chances to go for it in 2), then track Fairway and Approach Shot as well, as that'll let me better figure out whether your approach was shot 2 or 3.

Please do track these next time out! I'd love to see what the #s look like for different players!

Have you seen this?
http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/filter/?6

I'd like to do some sort of scrambling thing eventually, but as you've noted, it gets a little more complicated than just distance in determining the difficulty level of a shot, so it's a tougher thing to do without reams of course-specific data.

I did mean the latter in a raw 2.5% decrease. I agree it could be just due to having longer initial putts due to poor ballstriking. However, I think that would wash out for the same reason. Poorer ballstriking leads to fewer greens hit…which leads to more chips…which leads to shorter first putt averages, or probably the same overall first putt averages. I agree if you are running at 5% vs 2.5% it SHOULD be obvious, but it is possible to have 2 or 3 one day then none for a couple of days and not realize you are running at 5%.

Again, I obviously agree the putts gained metric is the best one for study (that’s why I started this thread in the first place) but I just think since you have the data you might as well run it the way you want and the way the Tour does it. I am not saying this attention to deatil is for everyone, but for a kid like Stadler trying to make the Tour I think having as much data to study off the course as possible is huge.


Stads....your listed handicap here is +2.9, not sure if that is still accurate or not. I am actually saying that the incremental gains from decreasing your 3 putting 2% or so (if you are high) is HUGE. If you can get a 2% improvement that is a .36 improvement in scoring average.

Use and abuse the link kbfc gives above. It has all the data you are talking about. It is also one more reason I think it is just best to now track exactly the way the Tour does. In years past the scrambling stat was kind of useless. It was purely miss the green/make par or better ratio. But with the stats now they are so detailed and run a million ways you can figure out any data you want.

Take this stat for instance http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?468 it is for greens missed more than 10 yards but less than 20 yards. The pro’s conversion rate is lower than I would expect and those stats certainly include fringes. If you don’t include fringes in your calculation it would be easy for you to think you suck but in reality not counting the x% of fringe up and downs is dragging your numbers down. Don’t get me wrong, I doubt your short game will ever be so great that practicing more is a waste of time. What I am saying is that you need to build a spreadsheet that ACCURATELY reflects where YOUR leaks are. You can then use that spreadsheet to determine exactly where your time is best spent to yield the greatest return in scoring average.

Are you sure that link includes fringes? It's a little confusing, because it doesn't say one way or the other, which makes you think it does, but at the same time, there's another page here - http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?364 - that is for fringe scrambling specifically. Either way, I'm a little skeptical as to how useful those scrambling stats are given the small sample sizes and the wide variety of situations you may find around the greens.

Methinks some emails to the PGA Tour stat dept may be in order....

Grunch

Being a bad driver will cost you a lot more shots than being a bad putter. I am not sure where that saying came from, but its at best misleading. Also, a saying like " Drive it OB, pay a fee" is way to obvious to be repeated ad nauseam.

kbfc - sent you a PM

Can you confirm what stats we need to track? So far I've got:

Putts
1st putt distance
Approach length (if you are trying to hit the green in regulation or better)
Driving distance
Fairway hit or miss

I don't do anything with Driving Distance. Approach Length more or less catches the same thing, and it's a more useful number.

Approach Shot would be the main one you'd want to grab. That's the stat the has hit/miss/left/right/long/short for approach shots. That one, along with the others, allows me to figure out par-5s when you go for it in 2.

I also track the club off tee and for approach. I don't use that for anything in the Strokes-Saved stats, but down the road it might be useful for reference, if you want to split stats by-club or something.

I don't post regularly so my handicap is basically meaningless, only some tournament rounds get posted when playing state association tournys etc. I think in the computer I'm a +4 but that has rounds from about this time last year and I obviously play much more than that.

With regard to 3 putting, I putt pretty well but speed has been an issue especially from distance. I have made a few changes in my routine and how I visualize getting the ball to the hole and that has helped me roll it at a more consistent. I think I was averaging something like 1/round so over 5% during the last year or so (no bueno) but have been on somewhat of a putting heater the last 15ish rounds and am at about 0.55/round I think, so 3.1%. I think this number will be higher for me compared to others due to the number of greens I hit and therefore causing my misses to be long putts rather than chipping

As far as the link, I have used it in the past to look at distance specific stats. I don't have distance specific up and downs in my spread sheet, I could consider doing that though. I realize that fringe two putts would boost my stats and be more in line with tour averages. An observation (no stats, just something that seems pretty obvious to me) is that I am probably 8-9 times out of 10 scrambling from the rough, so using the rough scrambling statistics would be a better gauge of where I stand in relation to guys on tour. It may be a good idea to break these stats down further to rough, fringe, etc and see where I am strong and weak

Im mainly just posting to follow this thread.

But I must say you guys look at golf completely differently than me.

kbfc, thanks for loading my recent round. -7.2 man I need to get better. On my chip-in (0 putt) I see that it says I saved 1.0 strokes putting on that hole. How is this determined? I thought it would just be 0, since a PGA pro would have also logged 0 putts with that chip-in.

Sent you a pm. I fixed that. So it's really -8.2....

This analysis makes sense to me. If you are a decent to good putter, your misses should really be burning the edge or within a ball of the edge for putts between 5-15'. That's my goal when putting. There is a lot of variance in putting with the green speeds, spike marks, imperfections, grain, quality of the cut of the hole (i.e. how clean the edge is), etc... There are so many factors affecting a putt that are basically out of your control and you can easily get a hop here or there to knock you off path. To be a good putter you get good enough at reading that you are missing by a ball length on either side. If you're missing by 6" or more consistently then you should probably work on your reading.

Anyway, the point is that the variance is pretty large with putts outside 5' and even if you're doing everything right with reading and speed, you could still miss all of your putts. If you performed a random walk of 18 putts of various lengths and using the proper variance I'm sure the number of putts made would be hugely variable.

On the other hand, like ship said, off the tee you control so much more. Basically wind gusts and bad bounces are all that can get you in trouble. And on approach you have a little more variance with divots and random issues with grass, but that affects a full shot much less than a putt, which is in constant contact with the grass.

kbfc- If you need any data for anything you might be working on let me know. I will most likely be coaching a high school golf team this year and could get you a lot of data if you need it.

Made some changes to the site at http://keithboyarsky.com/golf/.

Here are examples of 2 new reports I have:
Putts Saved Splits


Approach Strokes Saved Splits


The putting splits confirm my suspicions that my lag-putting is pretty solid, but I'm bleeding strokes left and right in the makeable "scoring" range (5-15'). I've been doing a lot of tweaking to my setup trying to find a comfort zone where I can put the ball on-line consitently. My distance control has been good, so the lags, which I'm not expecting to make anyway, are fine, but I'm making some brutal efforts at putts that I really need to be converting at a much higher rate if I want to break par with any regularity.

The sample size for the Approach splits isn't nearly as large, but already it's apparent that my long-irons and wood approaches could be better. Mid-irons aren't as far off, however improvements there have a bigger ceiling for payoff, as I get more chances per-round from those distances. I think my long-irons are pretty damn good compared to the average single-digit 'capper, but they need to get even better! Pros are good!

kbfc did you find anything interesting with the stuff i sent you? feel free to post whatever if you did some stat magic