Carl Woodbridge

Handicap: +1 Age: 35

Home Club: The Oaks Golf Club

Started using Shot Scope: July 2019

Golfing for over 20 years, Carl is a keen golfer who started to track his performance using Shot Scope in 2019. During this time Carl was able to identify that 2 areas of his game – club selection and putting were letting him down. This case study looks at how he addressed this and improved his golf game.

Carl's Shot Scope Journey

"The biggest improvement I have seen is in my decision making as I am more confident in the actual distances I hit and also my strategy of using the Driver more often. This has seen my handicap go from 7 to +1."

"The biggest improvement I have seen is in my decision making as I am more confident in the actual distances I hit and also my strategy of using the Driver more often. This has seen my handicap go from 7 to +1."

How did Carl reduce his handicap by 8 shots?

1. Hit Driver off the tee more often
2. Resulted in shorter clubs being used for approach shots
3. Increased Greens in Regulation
4. Improved scoring averages
5. Increased his confidence

What does the data say?

It is clear that Carl has started hitting his Driver more frequently with Driver usage off the tee increasing by 23%. Although there has been an increase in use, he hasn’t gained any more distance with his Driver.

So the Driver is not going further, but it is being used more, significantly more. So what changed? Well Carl often used a 3 wood off the tee on shorter holes and has now stopped hitting a 3 wood for position and started hitting his Driver further down the hole.

What impact has this had on Carl’s game?

As you might expect, Carl has increased his distance off the tee on Par 4s and Par 5s simply by changing his strategy. Interestingly, whilst gaining 11.5 yards on his average tee shot, he has also increased his Fairway hit % by 3%.

The knock on effect of this strategic change to Carl’s game means that he is left with a much shorter 2nd shot, which is why we are unsurprised to see that his Greens in Regulation have increased by 14%.

How did Carl start hitting more greens?

Carl has increased his GIR from 41% in 2019 to 55% in 2020. This improvement can be linked to the fact that he is more aggressive off the tee and as a result, leaves Carl using much shorter clubs for his approach shots. Taking a look at his club usage reflects this.

You can see that the clubs Carl uses for approach shots have become more gathered between his 8 iron and 58 degree wedge. In 2019 a total of 50% of clubs were used from this range, compared to the 58% being used now that Carl is being more aggressive off the tee.

How has this affected scoring?

Carl’s scoring on Par 3’s has actually got slightly worse, however this supports the fact that he is hitting more Greens in Regulation, not because his approach play has improved, but because he is closer to the green and using smaller clubs on Par 4s and Par 5s.

You can see that Carl’s average is 0.1 better in 2020 than 2019 for both Par 4s and Par 5s. There is roughly 14 of these holes per round which means an average improvement of 1.4 shot per round, simply due to being more aggressive off the tee.