Most important club in the bag

[jdchelsea]

hello all

Just thought I'd throw a question out here to see what people think. I've added a poll for a bit of craic too.

What do you think is the most important club/clubs in the bag?

Is it the driver/fairway woods - the clubs that sets up the whole hole from which you can score well or puts you in tremendous trouble?
Is it your irons - Hitting those all important approach shots or rescues you from those tight situations?
Is it your wedges - for the all important short game and its versatility around the green?
Is it the putter - the club that finishes or ruins every hole?

 

[DCB]

Got to be the Putter IMO as that's where you can really put together a score if you have confidence and get on a roll.

 

[One Planer]

I voted for wedges.

Simply because I believe that from 100 yards in is where a round is made or broken.

 

[jdchelsea]

I voted for driver myself.

If i'm driving well it gives me confidence in the rest of my game, gives me the ideal position for my approach shot, takes the big numbers off my score card and puts pressure on my opponents due to them seeing my drives flying down way down the fairway.

 

[surefire]

Went with the putter.

You use it more than any other club, and generally because you use it later on when playing the hole, you can't recover from a bad putt.

Hit a tee shot and miss the fairway and a decent number of times you can still get on or at least get near the green.

Same with approach shots, you can miss the green, but still save your score by getting up and down.

Wedges, even if you don't stick them close, you can save the score with a good putt.

 

[chrisd]

Couldn't do the poll as I dont have an answer. Every club pulled out of the bag is the most important at that time


Chris

 

[jdchelsea]

Couldn't do the poll as I dont have an answer. Every club pulled out of the bag is the most important at that time


Chris

There's always one isnt there
Cant belive we havent had the quote "drive for show putt for dough" yet....whoops just did it myself didnt I...d'oh !!

 

[The23rdman]

Putter without a shadow. When I could putt I could shoot low 70's. When it went tits up I struggled to break 80. confidence with the putter breeds confidence with the rest of the game.

Look at Lee Westwood, or even more extremely Sergio, wonderful ball strikers not winning enough cos if the short stick.

 

[rosecott]

You missed out option 5 - the c*****r

 

[JT77]

The putter for me, can really pull you out the muck at times!
Can also make you look silly too though

 

[jdchelsea]

Did I little statistical dig around there to see if anyway to measure it.

From pga tour website i looked up stats that I felt best represented each of the groups. the stats i used for each group where as follows:

Driver - Driving distance ( http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?317 )

Irons - Greens in regulation & Approaches greater than 100 yards( http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?02331 & http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/wm1.html?103)

Wedges - GIR from within 125 yards
( http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?330 )

Putter - avg Putts per round
( http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/wm2.html?119 )

I then looked up the world rankings for the top 5 in each area and added them together. Therefore you could argue the area that had the smaller total (and therefore better ranked players within it) would suggest that this area was the most important factor when it came to determining world ranking. The results were as follows:

Driving: 215
Irons: 372 & 426 (two stats looked at for this one)
Wedges: 198
Putting: 300

Therefore looking at those stats would rank the clubs for importance in the following order:

1. Wedges
2. Driver
3. Putter
4. Irons

Just to note the putting stat was heavily skewed because Greg Chalmers is in the top five who has a world ranking of 188. if his ranking was 86 or better putting would have came out on top. other interesting stat both striker and donald (both ranked in top 5 in the world) appear in both putting and wedge category top 5's. Best short games rule the world?!!

I know this little test is very small and very open to debate (especially in regards to stats used) but I thought it might interest some.

 

[One Planer]

What do I win for getting it right

 

[jdchelsea]

Gareth for answering correctly you win this little story about how easy it is to get distracted and the importance of concentration during a round. Congratulations!!!

Two men were out playing a game of golf. One of them was teeing off at the third hole, when a gorgeous naked lady ran past. Naturally, this distracted him somewhat, but the true wannabe pro that he was, he went back to the much more important task at hand. As he was about to hit the shot again, two men in white coats ran past. This was of course less of a distraction, so it was only a few seconds before he was ready again. He was again distracted by a third man, running by in a white coat, but this man was carrying two buckets of sand.

Eventually, he was ready again, and took his shot which landed 300 yards in the middle of the fairway. As he was walking down the fairway, he asked his companion what he thought had been going on. His companion knew and told him:

"Well that lady, once a week, manages to escape from the loony bin beside the course, tears off her clothes and runs across the fairways. The three guys you saw were the nurses. They have a race to see which can catch her first, and the winner gets to carry her back."

"What about the bucket of sand?"

"Well, that guy won last week, the buckets of sand are his handicap."

 

[surefire]

I know this little test is very small and very open to debate (especially in regards to stats used) but I thought it might interest some.

I think it would be better to look at scoring average, rather than world ranking.

 

[stevie_r]

has to be the club you use on every hole - the putter

 

[golf_bug]

has to be the club you use on every hole - the putter

Sometimes I don't get as far as using my putter, because I have sliced my driver into the woods 3 times off the tee!

Its driver for me...all the way. If I could find fairways I would have super high confidence, which would translate into more holed putts.

 

[d2cko]

has to be the club you use on every hole - the putter

I don't use it every hole, according to my Scoresaver2 I 0 putt 2% of holes!

Pedantic, I know...I did vote for putter though!

 

[Bobirdie]

I think its the putter it contributes to atound 40% of your score!

 

[surefire]

Looking at the answers it depends how you look at this.

If one area of your game is absolutely terrible, that's probably more important to you. It's no good being an awesome putter if you slice every driver OOB, or top the ball 15 times down the fairway before making the green.

If all areas of your game were ok, and you want one area to be great, I think you'd gain the most shots through good putting.

 

[CMAC]

If you took 18 shots off your score would that be good?

Single putt 18 and that's the result so it has to be Putter followed by wedges........IMO