Saw a quote from the conference that went something like...

"If you can't putt you can't score, if you can't drive the ball you can't play"

PGA Tour players have had these guys on their payroll analyzing their strategy for a couple years now. They are paying big bucks for assistance in finding their leaks and using the info kind of like a push fold chart.

Oh yeah, another point...it took a Columbia genius a few years to intelligently write a book about the exact subject I laid out here 3 years ago. So here is another data point that maybe, just maybe, experience DOES in fact have some merit. Did I have access to all of this years ago when I first stated this is the way it works? No, but it appears this was all correct.

Broadie must be my pen name based on this article:

http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-tours...k-broadie.html

There is so much bias and bad science in this game the weaker teaching pro's can't seem to get rid out of their heads. Trackman showed some of it, and now Broadie can hold the weaker teachers hands with regards to strategy.

Broadie's research began way more than 3 years ago and was posted in this thread 3 years ago when you first created it. It's not like he just stumbled onto your secret or it's some revelation just coming out that the analytics backed up your hypothesis.

I recognize that, I'm the one who said the book was in the works years ago. My point was now you'll be able to see all the data that only his team has had access to since it took years to write. The PGA Tour has never released all the data they track due to exclusive arrangements with Broadie.

I'm just telling you that you will no be able to fully confirm with data what I already told you....and I'm sure much more obviously.

And also clearly just wanted to lol NXT yet again for being clueless.

I am proud of you NXT for getting the book, let me know when you modify your position on this.

Sweet quote from 3 years ago. The problem with my post and your OP is that GIR is a very flawed stat and thus SGP is a much better predictor of skill than GIRs. Thus i concluded putting was still more important. I know now after spending a lot of time reviewing golf data that this stance was incorrect.

Which is why I said:

The strokes gained ball striking stats weren't available and thus I had to use what was available. But, my intuition and point (again, there goes that damn experience card) was dead on balls accurate.

Bump. This thread is gold for anyone wanting to better their scores heading into this golf season.

I just know that if actually could putt, I'd be in the mid-70s or better every round.

Can't relate. I turn 82s into 74s with my golden hands.

I'm exactly the opposite!

Dom we would make a great scramble pair. If I can just get off the tee consistently I am always in the 70s.

I am sure this has been said - I haven't read all the pages of posts - as a mid handicapper I need to be consistent off the tee to score within my handicap. If I wanted to score like I used to I would have to work on the practice green A LOT. But I don't have that time - or back - any longer. So not giving up shorts off the tee is critical for us middlings.

I want to expand on my thought process on this too. If you hit a bad drive (3 off the tee, etc) there is basically no way to make a par. If I hit the fairway, even with a below average iron and/or short game, you can have a decent expectation (based on the ability of the golfer) of making a bogey, sometimes better, sometimes worse. Off the tee that is just not possible.

I like the thought that off the tee is key to middling handicappers and around the green is key to low handicappers.

Long game is 100% what leads to lower scores regardless of handicap. Sure there are outliers with the yips or whatever who can hit it, but can't putt. But that is not the norm.

Grunching pretty hard here but since it's clear you need to be damn good at both to win consistently on tour, wouldn't a better way to say this (in terms of understanding the overall point) be that a world class ball striker can usually become a sufficiently good putter with enough practice/instruction to win on tour, while a world class putter will likely never become even a mini tour level ball striker with years of instruction and practice?

Alternatively you can take a 20 year old 90th percentile level athlete and with high probability get him very close to tour level in putting in terms of strokes gained with instruction and 10,000 hours of practice. Trying the same with ball striking won't likely ever get him even close.


Putting = 20bb HU NL
Ball striking = 200bb HU NL

I think when it comes to winning on tour sometimes (most tournaments?) its as simple as running hot with the putter in a few key spots where you misread a putt and also mi**** it and it goes in or it slightly bobbles onto a more appropriate line. There are also the times where guys hit it with the wrong pace, but its either just hard enough to go in the low side due or carrying too little pace and falls in the edge or creeps in the front.

Also, winners frequently get a few above average breaks from errant drives where they end up with clean lies and/or good looks at the green in spots where they could easily be blocked out.

Being more talented means you need less of this luck, but its pretty rare for guys to run cold and still win on tour just because the margins are small and in a field of ~100 guys who can win some of them will run hot by definition.

It's unquestionably impossible to win on tour today while running below your expected score for your playing form. The last guy who could win while running (very slightly) cold was probably Tiger at his peak, and even that's debatable.

Its definitely not impossible to win while running cold. That's completely lol. Its possible to score far better than your median expectation while running cold simply by playing a lot better than your median expectation. Its possible to play 2-3 SDs above expectation and run 1 SD below expectation and still win if you're one of the elite players on tour.

thank god someone trying to save past me from having the worst posts in this thread

what is incorrect in my post? If a player like DJ or JT or Spieth scores at a clip 1-2 SDs better than their expectation is it really far fetched to think they could win a golf tournament? They've won tournaments in the past scoring worse than that. 1.5 SD better scoring can definitely be achieved by playing 2 SD better and running .5 SD worse than average.

only if you have ridiculous definitions of what constitutes "playing better" vs "running better"

playing=how the club contacts the ball

running=what happens after that outside of the ball speed/spin/launch angle imparted by contact

if the wind shifts or an undetectable bump in the green moves a putt or a green runs slightly faster or slower than others or a ball hits a tree and bounces into a good/bad area or a ball plugs in the sand or anything like that it is running good/bad.

Things like hitting the ball consistently close to the hole or hitting fairways without beneficial bounces are playing better.

I mean if you're convinced that luck/randomness isn't one of the inputs that ultimately determine ball speed/spin/launch angle and that those things are 100% determined by your playing form I can understand your position, but that's just a ridiculous way to define things.

Think about a breaking 10 foot putt on a perfect green. You take a few practice shots at it to make your reads. Then you take 10 shots at it in a row and make 5 of them. You didn't make the 5 putts because you "played better" on them even though the result was almost entirely determined by having the correct ball speed/spin/launch angle.

Same goes for driving the ball. You're going to have variations in your contact, face angle, club path, and swing speed that aren't just determined by your playing form.