With so many stats available on your golf game, it can be overwhelming to know where to start when it comes to analysing your game.
Fear not.
We picked out 5 stats, from the hundreds that Shot Scope users have access to, that all amateurs should be aware of in their game if they want to shoot lower scores.
1. Driving – Tee Shot Tendency
Starting from the tee box, knowing your tee shot tendency. The saying drive for show, putt for dough has some truth in it, but if you can’t get to the green, then does it matter?
By knowing where you are most likely to miss, you can save strokes without getting a lesson.
If your data says that you seldom miss the fairway left but are prone to going right, then just adjust your aim a tad and allow for what comes naturally.
If it is a viscous 60yd slice, then perhaps a quick session with your local pro is something to consider, or just keep aiming further left – it’s up to you!
2. Club Distances
Club distances and their importance are a bit of a recurring theme when it comes to performance knowledge and improvement, but for good reason.
A lot of the shots you hit on the course that can have the most costly impact on scoring require knowledge of club distances and gapping.
If you are hitting over a water hazard, you can run up penalty strokes easily.
Whereas, if you just chunk a chip you are not going to incur any penalty strokes – undoubtedly a blow to your morale but not as costly to your score.
So knowing how far you hit each club has huge value and can/will save your strokes.
With Shot Scope, golfers get a Performance-Average distance for their clubs. P-Avg. essentially gives them a distance that a well-struck shot will travel by removing extreme outliers, both good and bad, from the dataset.
3. Greens In Regulation
The third one, Greens in Regulation, kind of ties in with the first two.
To give yourself the best chance of hitting the green in regulation, knowing your tee shot tendency helps to navigate your way off the tee. Then, picking the right club will help to minimize the chances of missing the green in the most common place for amateur golfers…
Short.
For amateur golfers, the most common miss on approach play is short of the green with the average player, 15hcp, coming up shy of the green 54% of the time (all approach shots beyond 50yds).
It could be mishits, it could be underclubbing, it could be any one of a number of possible reasons; whatever it is, having better knowledge of your club gapping should help prevent the avoidable error of not taking enough club.
Hit more greens to save strokes cause getting up and down is hard – which brings us on to the next stat.
4. Up and Down % by club
A slightly more specific stat, and one that you will almost certainly need a performance tracking product for, number four is up and down % by club.
Getting up and down when you miss the green is difficult.
From inside 50yds, the average golfer has roughly a 1 in 3 chance of getting up and down, which means there is a 66% chance of them dropping a stroke.
However, with shot tracking, you can learn which club you have the most success with around the greens, and then it’s just a case of leaning into it, right?
Obviously, depending on the situation, you may be forced to use a certain club, but knowing your up and down likelihood with every club you use around the green is a game changer.
5. Make % Inside 0-3ft / 3-6ft
Last, but by no means least, we have your make % from 0-3ft and 3-6ft (the likelihood of you making a putt at these distances).
Why the two distances? A couple of reasons: to highlight how good you need to be inside 3ft and to highlight how important finishing inside 3ft as opposed to outside it is.
Here we have the data for inside 3ft:
You can see that for all handicaps, holing 9 out of 10 putts inside 3ft is the benchmark. If you hole less than that, you are dropping strokes on your fellow golfers.
If you are not proficient from this distance, then you need to work on your short-range putting.
Although 3ft does not seem like a huge difference in distance, it does make a huge difference in terms of make %, as the data below shows:
The chances of holing a putt drop significantly from 3-6ft.
For a 25hcp golfer, the likelihood of making the putt drops from 9 out of 10 to 5 out of 10…
Even for the scratch golfer, they will miss 1 in 4 attempts from this distance. A drop of 23% compared to inside 3ft.
So the next time you find yourself with a lengthy putt, the perfect ‘miss’ is inside 3ft and beyond the hole.
There you have it, five stats that you should familiarize yourself with ahead of the upcoming season. All of these and more (including Strokes Gained) are available (subscription free) with Shot Scope performance tracking products.
