2 Best Golf Stats to Keep Track of. Start with ‘Major Mistaks’!

[@oliver69cork46]

Great channel,straight talking, factual and useful. Well done. Just subscribed.

[@GolfingFocus]

Many thanks for subscribing and delighted you’re finding the videos helpful! 👍

[@alisonburgess345]

I did this today - it was easy. I counted missed par 3 greens as driving errors, cos I find it really difficult to get up and down on par 3s for some reason and I don't get any shots on them. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out over the coming months.. Thanks!

[@GolfingFocus]

That's great Alison and thanks for feeding back on how you got on! Hope it makes a difference through the oncoming season and helps with your scores.

[@craig3775]

Nicely researched and presented video as always. I agree with your conclusions regarding putting but not entirely with driving. The statistics and golf strategy best served for Touring Professionals isn’t necessarily the same for most golfers. If you remember that the average golfer is a 90 shooter who racks up many penalty strokes per round. These penalty strokes invariably come from using their driver. Personally I play the same golf course 90-95% of the time so know which drives I can use the rough and which are essential to hit the fairway. Angles and elevation is important for me when I have more than a 6-iron in my hand for the approach so is a consideration. As is wind and flag position. I play off a handicap of 2 and have several clubs I can use from the tee to position my ball for the MOST important shot which is the approach shot. This shot determines more about the result than my tee shot. My tee shot is just an entrée to the main event. Sensible strategy aligned to your skill level and keeping a calm demeanour is possibly more valuable than collecting tour pro level stats.

[@GolfingFocus]

This is an interesting one for sure Craig and many thanks for your comments. Would challenge you a bit though on the driver point. The penalty strokes a player takes many times I would argue results from them using driver AND picking bad targets. And it's the latter of these I would suggest that makes the most impact. Players don't know their dispersion patterns well enough and so continue to aim up the middle of the fairway every time and the ball then goes out of bounds when they slice it 40 yards right as normal. If however they aimed into the rough on the left with driver and hit their 40 yard slide it would not go out of bounds. Or if they hit it straight for a change they would be in the rough and as the stats in the video show that would not make a huge difference to their eventual score versus being on the fairway. 'In the rough is in play' is the key takeaway I think from this one. I 100% percent agree also the approach shot is the most important but the way to make that easier is almost always for all standards of player being as far up the hole as possible off the tee. The alternative of hitting 3-wood off the tee for example versus driver is regularly a poor trade for almost all players too as the stats show the dispersion for 3-wood versus driver is pretty much the same for the vast majority of golfers so all you are doing is sacrificing distance for no improved accuracy. I would also always counsel against players chasing angles for flag positions as we are typically simply not good enough to do it and listening to a lot of pros podcasts I don't think they do it as much as we would be led to believe either. It's a fascinating topic and hard to debate the nuances and I couldn't agree more with your latest sentence especially the calm demeanour part. Something I need to work on for sure 😂

[@plusfour1]

@@GolfingFocus I think that as a golfer progresses to scoring sub-90 golf they must start minimizing penalty strokes, 3-putts and duff shots. Understanding your dispersion and course management can go a long way but for a player to score sub-80 golf they're going to have to play at least as many holes at par or better as over par and this is going to take skill. Narrowing dispersion, hitting greens, getting up and down and not 3 putting. Statistically, I believe that greens in regulation correlate with better scores more than every other component of a very complex game.

[@GolfingFocus]

Agree for sure@@plusfour1 GIR is the best traditional stat and a key differentiator for approach shots where the biggest differences in scores are found. Issue we have always found with this for the majority of golfers though who are scoring 90 plus is it is a bit of a dispiriting stat to track when it is usually either 0 or 1 or 2. Until that point the major mistakes measures hopefully serve the average golfer a bit better and can be improved more easily. 👍

[@carlr2837]

That was what I found last year with my hand tabulated stats. I computed what I called SGA, "shots given away", which consisted of 1 for every really bad drive, approach shot, and chip, and 1 for every three putt. Subtracting SGA from my score, on average, I was within a couple of par. I focused primarily on eliminating the bad shots, and was able to reduce SGA from 18 down to about 13 at the end of the year, with a matching decrease in my computed handicap. This year I just acquired a Shot Scope V3, so I now have some additional information that I never had before, including fairways hit, and exact distances for each club, and GIR. I only have a couple rounds in, but mostly it confirms what I already knew: 1. Most of my shots are adequate, so long as I avoid the really bad ones 2. My chipping need a bit of work 3. My putting is abysmal 4. Combining 2 and 3, I almost never get up and down. The plan for this year is the same as last year: Eliminate mishits with all clubs, get pitches a bit closer, and reduce 3-putts. I do wish that the Shot Scope, in addition to tracking "Shots gained" would track "Shots given away".

[@GolfingFocus]

Awesome, thanks for this Carl and that's great news on the handicap improvement last year tracking SGA. Looking at your comments I think if you focused on the putting first and foremost and reduced those 3 putts you will see another big fall this year. If you can get your speed control right on the greens you will be in great shape and then hopefully that will put less pressure on your pitching also as, as long as you get it on the green you will hopefully feel confident enough that you have a decent chance of 2 putting. Would love to hear how you get on during the season with this and very much hope the handicap continues to tumble down!! 👍

[@carlr2837]

@@GolfingFocus Per the Shot Scope, on today's round, my drives, approaches, and chips all matched a ten handicap, while putts were 4.3 strokes worse than a 25 handicap. I know I can improve several more strokes tee to green, but putting is the big area where I need to focus.

[@GolfingFocus]

Best of luck with the putting Carl. Great thing when that’s the weakness is the drop in scores is the fastest compared to everything else! A great incentive and hope you soon see the results of focusing on it!

[@carlr2837]

@@GolfingFocus I watched several KZbin putting videos. Apparently I have been putting all wrong. I was set to play yesterday, and had only 30 minutes to practice the new approach, so I didn't expect much. The new approach felt foreign, and unnatural, but I went with it. Shockingly, I putted remarkably better, taking only 33 putts. I was 13/13 under 3 feet, 3/4 at 3-6 feet, and 1/2 from 6-9 feet, plus made one from 27 feet. My only 3-putt came on the final hole when I was rushing to get in before dark. I didn't expect instant results. I'm calling this beginners luck, but I'm optimistic now that I can be a better putter, and that puts my goal of a single digit handicap within reach. Saving 5+ putts a round will be huge, if I can do it.

[@GolfingFocus]

One 3 putt is great! Delighted you’re seeing such quick results and you should definitely see the scores failing if you can maintain that. 👍

[@chrisjuhl801]

I still look at the number of GIRs in a round. Great video and keep them coming.

[@GolfingFocus]

GIR still a great number to track for sure Chris and one of the few if not only traditional stat that tells you anything meaningful! 👍

[@craig3775]

One more thought regarding stats. I think most golfers need to understand that the game they see on television isn’t the same game they play. I wouldn’t study a Formula 1 drivers strategy and apply it to my daily commute to work. The racing driver is in a race, his braking zones, width into the apex of corners and speed of acceleration out of corners has nothing to do with my drive to work. We are both on tarmac with a four wheeled vehicle and a steering wheel but the intent isn’t the same. A Tour Pro HAS to play against the other players in the field in order to make a living. Their strokes gained relative to the field is a great metric for their success. We however, play against the par of the course plus our handicap. Our strategy should be to maximise control of our golf ball and not minimising control in exchange for distance. Tour Pros don’t miss the middle of the golf club, we do. I also bet that Tour Pros, in the off season, don’t employ tournament strategy whilst playing with their mates. It’s a shame we don’t see that on TV ⛳️

[@GolfingFocus]

Interesting again Craig and there is no doubt alot of sense in what you say. The control vs distance debate is the big one I think in alot of this. Distance is without question, and has been proved by Mark Broadie, and all the stats gurus who have followed him to be a huge key across all standards of the game and does not discriminate whether you are a pro or a 110-scoring golfer. How far you hit the ball is going to put a ceiling on how good you will be able to get eventually and sacrificing distance for accuracy is statistically a poor trade. Saying that as you rightly point out losing control and knocking the ball out of bounds is a scorer killer so every player no matter their skill level has to find a balance. Suppose main point I'm making then is that given the statistical significance of distance you have to have a very good reason not to use a driver to hit the ball as far as you can down a hole.

[@LionelMessi-ct7tu]

I’m a big follower of this site and he usually gives out great info (apart from the one about golf balls which I found to be disappointing) but unfortunately this is not a video I can agree with in any way. That said, I play of 4.6 so maybe it’s aimed at higher handicap players. Fairways hit, putts per round and “up and down saves” from inside 30yds are the holy grail and backbone of my own stats. Nevertheless keep up the great work.

[@gtsgolf9410]

dude, fairways hit is the only good stat i've got!

[@GolfingFocus]

😂 many apologies gts golf! Didn’t mean to take it away from you!

[@gtsgolf9410]

@@GolfingFocus worse thing is i know you're right. 😢