The great drive for dough putt for show debate thread.

[Albo]

1. Then it needed a title that did not reference the famous phrase attributed to Bobby Locke.

2. I don't.
But putting far better than your average on the day is a possibility and one can keep one's mind open to this.
Driving significantly longer than your average on the day is not such a possibility.

But realistically how much in terms of gains can you make from your average putting round to a great one?
You’re not going to hole more than 50% of your 8ft putts, nobody does. You could realistically reduce 3 putts and save what 2 shots in a round? But if your driving is average (for you not talking about increasing distance on any given day) you won’t be in a place to benefit from that putting.
Keeping the ball in play off the tee and at a good distance (for you) on every tee shot will give you a better chance of winning (dough) and to do so you will still need to putt adequately

 

[Voyager EMH]

But realistically how much in terms of gains can you make from your average putting round to a great one?
You’re not going to hole more than 50% of your 8ft putts, nobody does. You could realistically reduce 3 putts and save what 2 shots in a round? But if your driving is average (for you not talking about increasing distance on any given day) you won’t be in a place to benefit from that putting.
Keeping the ball in play off the tee and at a good distance (for you) on every tee shot will give you a better chance of winning (dough) and to do so you will still need to putt adequately

I think I've done that on many occasions. A significant number of those will be when I won dough.

When I won my club championship in 2019, I holed 4 putts from off the green. One of those was for a par.
Last nine holes my tee-to-green shots were poorer than the previous 27 holes, but I had only 12 putts - two of those were from off the green. Merely level par for those 9 holes.
That is how I won.
I've had many successes over the decades. I know what I can attribute them to.
I increased my distance significantly in my mid teens as I grew taller. Got my handicap down from 18 to 5 in two years. I know exactly what increased distance does to enable lower scoring.
I don't need to be told.

 

[Backsticks]

I think I've done that on many occasions. A significant number of those will be when I won dough.

When I won my club championship in 2019, I holed 4 putts from off the green. One of those was for a par.
Last nine holes my tee-to-green shots were poorer than the previous 27 holes, but I had only 12 putts - two of those were from off the green. Merely level par for those 9 holes.
That is how I won.
I've had many successes over the decades. I know what I can attribute them to.
I increased my distance significantly in my mid teens as I grew taller. Got my handicap down from 18 to 5 in two years. I know exactly what increased distance does to enable lower scoring.
I don't need to be told.

You can hope. But mastery of the 8 footers is out of your control, and tour level performance will only have you hole half of them no matter what you try. They are a roll of the dice on a given day. They do not change you golf level.

 

[Backsticks]

Before I go play tomorrow, how can I add significant distance to my drives?

There is good evidence that even a single session before tomorrow with a Rypstick/SwingSpeed/StackSystem type program will increase your swing speed. Possibly a low hanging fruit few miles an hour, for a 10 yard gain.

 

[Voyager EMH]

You can hope. But mastery of the 8 footers is out of your control, and tour level performance will only have you hole half of them no matter what you try. They are a roll of the dice on a given day. They do not change you golf level.

And yet on the day, if you hole plenty of them, you could win dough.

 

[Voyager EMH]

There is good evidence that even a single session before tomorrow with a Rypstick/SwingSpeed/StackSystem type program will increase your swing speed. Possibly a low hanging fruit few miles an hour, for a 10 yard gain.

Or I could simply buy a new driver. Either way, after a bit, my handicap comes down and then I will be back to putting well for a win in nett comps.

 

[garyinderry]

25 handicaps aren't hitting 50% of fairways. Calling BS on that stat.

 

[Albo]

25 handicaps aren't hitting 50% of fairways. Calling BS on that stat.

Excellent.
So what is the basis of you calling BS?

 

[Deleted member 23270]

The data below.
And just to note that while the discussion has widened into the also interesting topics of accuracy versus distance (rather than putting versus distance), and, into which area a given golfer might find more fruitful for their efforts to improve, the original debate of the thread was whether putting or driving mattered most.
The distance versus handicap correlation is very strong and unarguable at this stage. It governs whether you are a 30 hc or plus 5. Putting, covering a similar handicap range: 25-scratch has a 4 shot difference. So the average 25HI, improving his putting to that of a scratch player, will become a 21. Scratch overall is still oceans away. On accuracy, while a peripheral rather than core discussion see also. Fairways hit is not correlating at all strongly to handicap, the data either noise, or taken at face value, could be argued tells us it is better to be inaccurate and miss more fairways! But from the distance data, we know what is happening is that any loss of accuracy is more than recouped by the distance factor. And with irons, accuracy is almost flat from 36HI down to single fingure. Nobody significantly in that range is shifting their handicap needle by accuracy. Below 10 they are....but only as distance increases (not at all below 125yds), and more so with increasing distance.

Rather than criticise this data (and much similar data telling the same story widely available by our friend google), can anyone actually post any data saying putting is more important than driving ?
View attachment 50596View attachment 50597View attachment 50598View attachment 50599

View attachment 50600

A 5hcp hits 49% of fairways and a 25hcp hits 50%

 

[Albo]

A 5hcp hits 49% of fairways and a 25hcp hits 50%

I know crazy to think how unimportant hitting fairways are

 

[garyinderry]

Excellent.
So what is the basis of you calling BS?

I just don't see then hitting every 2nd fairway when I play with them.

 

[Albo]

I just don't see then hitting every 2nd fairway when I play with them.

So the stats provided from millions of golf shots hit all over the world are rendered moot because you personally don’t see it happening when you play with someone of that handicap level?
Ok

 

[Deleted member 1147]

Why are people still discussing this?
I told you the answer last week!

 

[garyinderry]

How Many Fairways You Need to Hit a Round

Golfers spend vast sums on new clubs and lessons in search of the secret ingredient to hit more fairways, with improving accuracy from the tee essential to avoiding those card-wrecking disasters. We have studied thousands of rounds submitted into the Golfshake Score Tracker and broken down the...

www.golfshake.com

I've googled it and golf shake was the first site that came up. To me that is more believable numbers. They could also have made them up sitting at a desk but they look more believable.

 

[Steve Wilkes]

Let’s take a look at the PGA strokes gained putting and we find ….
Scotty Scheffler leading money earner (dough) down in 162 in the putting stats
Jon Rahm second leading money earner down in 37
Viktor Hovland 3rd money earner down in 54
And on and on and on
Xander down in 10th on the money list with a grand total of 0 wins last season is the first player on the list to be ranked higher putting than his place on the money list

What about strokes gained off the tee I hear you ask..
Why number one on that measure just so happens to be none other than Scotty Sheffler, who….hang on let me scroll back up… ah yes, who was number 1 on the money list (dough).

Someone should tell Scotty that he’s “got to hold them putts… Matey”

These 2 lines could be a misleading, Top Money(dough) lists are skewed by wins and 2 or 3 wins in the big tournaments will put you right up at the top. finishing 10ths instead of 25ths don't make a lot of difference.
Unless you've got the stats to say where he was in the putting stats in the big wins that put him at the top, you can't really read anything into this
He might win when he Drives well and Putts well, and doesn't win when he Drives well and Putts badly

 

[Deleted member 25172]

Have just finished reading Mark Broadie's book "Every shot counts". I'm not the brightest shining star in the world, but I think I gathered from the book that if you want to improve - over time - hitting it further and generally improving (lateral dispersion included) your long game overall is what is gonna give you the most bang for the buck as that accounts for a bigger chunk of the strokes gained, typically, over the rest of the field. I hold it open to that I've misunderstood what he's writing though.

 

[Backsticks]

25 handicaps aren't hitting 50% of fairways. Calling BS on that stat.

Its the case. Its a good example of how people impressions are totally at odds with the facts. Some have the flexibility of mind to stand corrected, some stick to their mistake no matter the evidence presented to them.
This thread in a specific instance.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Thing is with fairways hit is you can hit one and be blocked out by trees, or I can miss a fairway completely, hit the next one over and have a great shot in. Alternatively you can roll 1 inches into light rough and it not count either.

I gave up tracking them as per hitting the shortest cut and just recorded them on whether I had a genuine chance of hitting the green or fairway with the next shot.

 

[garyinderry]

Its the case. Its a good example of how people impressions are totally at odds with the facts. Some have the flexibility of mind to stand corrected, some stick to their mistake no matter the evidence presented to them.
This thread in a specific instance.

Golf shake have posted completely differnt stats.

 

[garyinderry]

Thing is with fairways hit is you can hit one and be blocked out by trees, or I can miss a fairway completely, hit the next one over and have a great shot in. Alternatively you can roll 1 inches into light rough and it not count either.

I gave up tracking them as per hitting the shortest cut and just recorded them on whether I had a genuine chance of hitting the green or fairway with the next shot.

This is the way golf is played. Its not in ticks and x's.