D
Deleted member 29109
Guest
The standard GM single data point!
The great drive for dough putt for show debate thread.
bobmac
Major Champion
No, he didn't say the debate is settled, he said he thinks he knows the answer.
Slime
Tour Winner
It's actually two hundred and forty nine yards and thirty five inches, but I get, and agree with, your point.
D
Deleted member 23270
Guest
Thanks Bob, at least you got the humour unlike some others
cleveland52
Active member
Ask yourself;
On a given golf course or hole, can you recover from.....
A bad drive---Yes (with a great iron shot)
A wayward Iron----Yes (with a great chip shot)
An awful Chip-----Yes (with a spectacular putt)
A three Putt........Absolutely not
Draw your own conclusion.
On a given golf course or hole, can you recover from.....
A bad drive---Yes (with a great iron shot)
A wayward Iron----Yes (with a great chip shot)
An awful Chip-----Yes (with a spectacular putt)
A three Putt........Absolutely not
Draw your own conclusion.
bobmac
Major Champion
Is the bad drive OOB, lost in thick rough or deep in the trees?
Brownie22297
Member
The putt is crucial
Backache
Assistant Pro
I've never lost a putt.
D
Deleted member 29109
Guest
In what way?
Thats an ill posed question. Deliberately I guess, or tongue in cheek. But some people might miss the point and think you really are advocating putting as more important than driving.
“A three putt….” Yes, with a spectacular 4th putt.
Every shot has a value, i.e. one shot. Each shot is crucial to your final score. Hit 14 good drives and you will have saved a number of shots. Hit X number of good iron shots, especially if they give good birdie chances, and you will save shots. Drain some good putts and you will have saved shots.
Those with a low handicap or scratch+ value every single shot equally. Play off 18 and you can afford a duff on every hole. Play off scratch and you can’t.
Voyager EMH
Slipper Wearing Plucker of Pheasants
"Dough" is about winning on that day or that week.
It is not about making sustained improvements to your game over a longer period. Which would clearly benefit us all.
My most recent memorable win was the club championship in 2019 where I had only 12 putts in the last 9 holes of the 36 holes on the day.
Level par for those last nine holes, because the rest of the shots were merely adequate and barely so. One or two poor ones.
"Putt for dough" has always rung true for me - throughout the last 50 years.
It is not about making sustained improvements to your game over a longer period. Which would clearly benefit us all.
My most recent memorable win was the club championship in 2019 where I had only 12 putts in the last 9 holes of the 36 holes on the day.
Level par for those last nine holes, because the rest of the shots were merely adequate and barely so. One or two poor ones.
"Putt for dough" has always rung true for me - throughout the last 50 years.
Strokes gained people, strokes gained.
Not the case. A duff a hole means they have to play scratch for all the other shots. Thats not the way to look at it correctly.
Strokes gained...
True indeed. But the thread is about which is more crucial for your level of golf. And that is long game.
Sure, at whatever level, we can have a golden day once in a while with the putter, shoot out best score, and win. But we havent improved our golf level in that case.
Voyager EMH
Slipper Wearing Plucker of Pheasants
"Drive for" long term sustained improvements to your game. I think I covered that one.
"Putt for" winning games on the day or making a good score on the day. I think I covered that one as well.
D
Deleted member 1147
Guest
Long game is more important because it's more fun to smack a drive a long way.
Case closed m'lud...close the thread
Case closed m'lud...close the thread
Yes, I see this thread as more of an updating those still think this was a debate, when in fact, it has niw been definitively resolved. Long game, and pretty much even how far you hit it, defines your average game. Putting is a trimming on that that has a big influence on how you will score in you range on a given day.
D
Deleted member 25575
Guest
In fairness you need both to win on the day, you could have 18 putts if you slash every other tee shot OB you’ll still not win.
For me this whole debate comes down to where the real big separation is, if I were to take on a tour pro at one single part of the game I’d choose putting, as I suspect would many others. The reason being there is less separation between their putting and ours. Nobody is going to realistically 3 putt every green, nobody is going to realistically miss a 1ft putt.
More distance off the tee leaves less club into the green = closer proximity to the pin = less putts per round. This is true with out working on your putting, staying at the level you are now.
Better putting… well realistically how much better can you get? Tour pros make rate from 8ft is ~50%, none of us are ever going to better that level consistently, so shorter off the tee, more club into green, longer putts , regardless of how good you get at putting that’s still not a recipe for sucess
Voyager EMH
Slipper Wearing Plucker of Pheasants
Although it was 53 and a half years ago, I still remember my first par very clearly.
It was a single-putt-par, obviously. The chip was fairly good. The two previous shots were so-so.
It was a single-putt-par, obviously. The chip was fairly good. The two previous shots were so-so.
Orikoru
Tour Winner
Everything that could possibly be said about this has been said now, yet people keep spying the thread and bumping it back up. 
It's not possible to draw a conclusion because it's different depending what angle you look at it. A bad drive can cost you 2 or 3 shots whereas a bad putt typically only costs you one. So driving is more important? But we've all played against low-ish players who didn't drive it any better and just holed every putt to win. So putting is more important. If you were to start driving it 15 yards longer, your handicap would be lower as you hit less club into every green and hit more of them. But if you holed two more putts per round your handicap would be lower as well. I think I started this thread in favour of driving being more important, but then I've spent this golfing year driving fairly well and struggling with up-and-down putting, and my handicap has gone up, so maybe I'm softening my stance a little.
In summary: both important for different reasons.
It's not possible to draw a conclusion because it's different depending what angle you look at it. A bad drive can cost you 2 or 3 shots whereas a bad putt typically only costs you one. So driving is more important? But we've all played against low-ish players who didn't drive it any better and just holed every putt to win. So putting is more important. If you were to start driving it 15 yards longer, your handicap would be lower as you hit less club into every green and hit more of them. But if you holed two more putts per round your handicap would be lower as well. I think I started this thread in favour of driving being more important, but then I've spent this golfing year driving fairly well and struggling with up-and-down putting, and my handicap has gone up, so maybe I'm softening my stance a little.
In summary: both important for different reasons.
