The misperception of the short game.

[Padraig Dooley]

Mike

The four keys to success on tour are strokes gained putting, driving effectiveness, 10-20 yards around the green and 175-220 approaches.

I doubt there's many local guys who hit the ball as well as anyone on tour. Touch and short game can be taught and learned. What truly separated Hogan and Nicklaus, Norman, Tiger etc is how they hit the ball.

Padraig,

While Nicklaus and Woods were great ball strikers, the one asset they had over all others, was their ability to make critical putts when they were needed.

This is true that they holed many crucial putts. But if we use Trevino as an example, Dave Pelz used to say if Trevino could have putted well you would never of heard of Nicklaus, but he still won multiple majors because of his ball striking ability.

What truly separates golfers is their striking ability.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

Mike

The four keys to success on tour are strokes gained putting, driving effectiveness, 10-20 yards around the green and 175-220 approaches.

I doubt there's many local guys who hit the ball as well as anyone on tour. Touch and short game can be taught and learned. What truly separated Hogan and Nicklaus, Norman, Tiger etc is how they hit the ball.

Padraig,

While Nicklaus and Woods were great ball strikers, the one asset they had over all others, was their ability to make critical putts when they were needed.

This is true that they holed many crucial putts. But if we use Trevino as an example, Dave Pelz used to say if Trevino could have putted well you would never of heard of Nicklaus, but he still won multiple majors because of his ball striking ability.

What truly separates golfers is their striking ability.

Don't forget about ol' Lee Buck's short game!  Streaky putter yes, but I just got off the phone with Tony Jacklin and he wants to remind you of 1972 at Muirfield.  Completely broke Tony's spirit with hole outs and chip ins whilst duck hooking it about the course...

"In 1972 at Muirfield in Scotland, Trevino became the first player to successfully defend The Open Championship since Arnold Palmer in 1962. In a remarkable third round at Muirfield, Trevino had five consecutive birdies from the 14th through the 18th, holing a bunker shot on the 16th and sinking a 30–foot chip on the 18th for a round of 66. In the final round, Trevino was tied for the lead on the 17th tee with Tony Jacklin. Trevino chipped in from rough on the back of the green for a par on the 17th. A shaken Jacklin three-putted the same hole from 15 feet for a bogey. Trevino parred the 18th hole for a final round of 71, winning him the Open by a stroke over Nicklaus, with Jacklin finishing third. Trevino holed out four times from off the greens during the tournament. Nicklaus had won the first two majors of the year and fell just short in the third leg of the grand slam. After holing his chip shot on the 17th in the final round, Trevino said: "I'm the greatest chipper in the world."

[Jud_T]

Padraig,

Touch is like rhythm or an ear for languages. You either have it or you don't.  A guy can learn to be a consistently mechanical short game player but he can't learn to be an artist around the greens.

I'm sorry Jud, this is wrong. Look at Seve's history, he learned a great short game, he wasn't born with it.

So you're saying that a mechanical player like Faldo can learn to become a feel player?  I'm not buying it.

[Mike_Young]

Jason,
The PGA tour has too many statistics running around out there right now.
___________________

When I say great player in the original post , I am saying anyone on the PGA or Web.com or European tours.  That comes to maybe 300 guys in the world.  As Pat Mucci says" no local guy plays like a tour player" but there are local guys that have one or two elements of a equivalent to tour players.  My statement is saying that in most cases people overlook the importance of the short game to great players because it is not talked about like driving ability etc.

[Bill_McBride]

How about that Knox guy in Augusta?   

[Mike_Young]

How about that Knox guy in Augusta?   

When you have time sometime look up the definition of amateur on wiki or something...it began with boxing and soccer I think...enough said...

[Norbert P]

. . .   Course length is overrated when compared to great green complexes.IMHO

   Certainly, the closer we get to the pin the more interesting playing golf and the course becomes.  I don't know why everybody cares about the hypothetical values of PGA players over the actual fun of solving the problem of hitting a ball with a stick.  Red herrings are everywhere. 

[Bill_McBride]

How about that Knox guy in Augusta?   

When you have time sometime look up the definition of amateur on wiki or something...it began with boxing and soccer I think...enough said...

Somebody pays him to play?

[Jason Thurman]

Mike, I'm not talking about Tour statistics. I'm talking about independent analytics studies that have quantified the difference in scoring between different players and groups of players. The idea that we all know a local guy who hits it as well as anyone on Tour is laughable in light of what that research has proven, and it hugely underrates how good the long game of a Tour pro has to be. I just got finished playing nine holes with a fantastic young amateur in my city. He's a college golfer who hit 3w-PW to our opening hole, a 470 yard par 5. He missed two greens by a combined 24 inches. You would probably cite him as one of those guys who "hits it as good as anyone on Tour." In reality, he's giving away least 4-5 shots a round against an average pro when you compare their long games, and probably more. He's also giving away a couple shots in the short game and on the green, but the biggest gap is from outside 100 yards, not inside.

Considering that Tiger's most famous shot ever is a chip, I'm not sure your premise that we underrate the short game holds. I'm also not convinced that Phil's short game deserves more publicity than it gets. I think we probably properly rate the short game's importance, and maybe even overrate it slightly. But we also attribute things to short game performance that actually have more to do with the long game, which is one of the real misconceptions that modern analytics have proven when it comes to golf.

Case in point: the amateur I played with 3-putted that opening hole after hitting the green in two. Most people would say that he messed up with the putter after hitting two great shots. In reality, his second shot was a pretty big miss compared to what a pro would expect, and also left him in a terrible position considering the day's pin position despite being on the green. It was literally impossible to get his first putt inside 5 feet, and even Tour players would average over two putts from that spot (before bitching about how unfair the day's hole location was). But, of course, a Tour quality player would rarely hit a wedge 50 feet right of that hole, especially with today's course setup.

[BCowan]

''The idea that we all know a local guy who hits it as well as anyone on Tour is laughable in light of what that research has proven, and it hugely underrates how good the long game of a Tour pro has to be''

   So somebody that has never held a tour card but competed in US Opens and missed slightly getting his tour card, got to the semi finals of the US Am isn't in the same league? 

   It comes down to putting at that level. 

[Jason Thurman]

''The idea that we all know a local guy who hits it as well as anyone on Tour is laughable in light of what that research has proven, and it hugely underrates how good the long game of a Tour pro has to be''

   So somebody that has never held a tour card but competed in US Opens and missed slightly getting his tour card, got to the semi finals of the US Am isn't in the same league? 

How many "local guys" have done that? I wasn't aware that every club had a guy or two that's competed in a few Opens and been to the semi-finals of the US Amateur.

[BCowan]

''We can talk about ball strikers all day long and we all know some regional or even local guy that can hit the ball as well as anyone on tour.'' --m. young opening post

Just one guy, who I mentioned above.  In a small city...  

[Jason Thurman]

Oh nevermind. I didn't realize you were just lost.

[BCowan]

  To be honest I haven't read every post, please fill me in..

[Mike_Young]

Jason,
Let's see.  At our club over the last few years we have had a few tour types that played their golf there on a regular basis since they were attending UGA.  Kevin Kisner, Bubba, Harris English, Bryan Harmon, Chris Kirk, and a few others.  There are college golfers and then there are college golfers.  Stats are for goobs ...have you ever played with a good college golfer?  Most that make it will tell you the biggest thing they had to learn was controlling their short game and backing off the driver.

I saw a stat that said the longest drivers were the NCAA tourney guys followed by the Web.com guys who were followed by the PGA Tour....ther eis no doubt the guys coming out now are jocks and there will be no more Hal Suttons, or Justin Leonards etc..but the short game still makes the difference...

[Jason Thurman]

You can believe whatever crap you want. The great thing about facts is that they can't really be argued with, though if you still want to try you can start by explaining the following article, which includes the quotes below (and FYI, its findings just confirm what numerous other studies have also found): http://golfweek.com/news/2014/mar/01/golf-analytics-pga-tour-total-strokes-gained/

"I want to attack what I think is one of the biggest misconceptions in golf," Broadie began. "Conventional wisdom says that putting is the most important part of the game, and what I mean by most important is the number of shots that separates the winner of a tournament from everybody else, or from the best players to the average players."

Continued... From 2004 to '12, Luke Donald, Brad Faxon and Tiger Woods led the PGA Tour in strokes gained-putting, which should surprise almost no one. However, Jesper Parnevik, Brian Gay and Loren Roberts tied for sixth (0.062), followed by Bryce Molder (0.58) and Ben Crane (0.56). Not exactly a Murderers' Row of PGA Tour winners and major contenders.

Continued... From 2004-12, here the top 10 players in total strokes gained: Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson, Luke Donald, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson.

That, not the putting stat, looks much more like a list of the players who saw their names on Sunday leaderboards.

"When you break down their games, the average of these top 10 golfers gained 1.7 strokes per round against the field," Broadie said. Broadie then pointed out that as a group, the Terrific 10 averaged a gain of 0.3 strokes against the field off the tee, 0.7 strokes from the fairway and 0.4 strokes near the green. Their collective strokes gained-putting average was just 0.2 better than the PGA Tour average.

"So, basically, two-thirds of the strokes that they gained were from shots outside of 100 yards and one-third was from inside 100 yards," Broadie said. Putting accounted for just 15 percent of the scoring difference between the top 10 golfers in the world and the average PGA Tour pro."

Again, there are tons of studies now that all find the same conclusion. Anyone who still believes it's all about the short game and putting is just plain wrong.

[Mike_Young]

You can believe whatever crap you want. The great thing about facts is that they can't really be argued with, though if you still want to try you can start by explaining the following article, which includes the quotes below (and FYI, its findings just confirm what numerous other studies have also found): http://golfweek.com/news/2014/mar/01/golf-analytics-pga-tour-total-strokes-gained/

"I want to attack what I think is one of the biggest misconceptions in golf," Broadie began. "Conventional wisdom says that putting is the most important part of the game, and what I mean by most important is the number of shots that separates the winner of a tournament from everybody else, or from the best players to the average players."

Continued... From 2004 to '12, Luke Donald, Brad Faxon and Tiger Woods led the PGA Tour in strokes gained-putting, which should surprise almost no one. However, Jesper Parnevik, Brian Gay and Loren Roberts tied for sixth (0.062), followed by Bryce Molder (0.58) and Ben Crane (0.56). Not exactly a Murderers' Row of PGA Tour winners and major contenders.

Continued... From 2004-12, here the top 10 players in total strokes gained: Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson, Luke Donald, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson.

That, not the putting stat, looks much more like a list of the players who saw their names on Sunday leaderboards.

"When you break down their games, the average of these top 10 golfers gained 1.7 strokes per round against the field," Broadie said. Broadie then pointed out that as a group, the Terrific 10 averaged a gain of 0.3 strokes against the field off the tee, 0.7 strokes from the fairway and 0.4 strokes near the green. Their collective strokes gained-putting average was just 0.2 better than the PGA Tour average.

"So, basically, two-thirds of the strokes that they gained were from shots outside of 100 yards and one-third was from inside 100 yards," Broadie said. Putting accounted for just 15 percent of the scoring difference between the top 10 golfers in the world and the average PGA Tour pro."

Again, there are tons of studies now that all find the same conclusion. Anyone who still believes it's all about the short game and putting is just plain wrong.

JASON,
I think it's great you believe that and I find it interesting.  I'm going to continue to say it's about the short game...stats are for goobs...

[RJ_Daley]

I'm probably way in over my head, but....
Rather than compare players and their putting -short game skill indicators head to head, in order to determine the validity of short game prowess to ball striking as the thing that separates and points to whether greens design is the more crutial aspect of the overall validation of weak vs great GCA;  why not find a way to catagorize the validity of great greensite design in relation to overall tournament relation to par of the entire competitive field.  That then assumes that the tiny difference in the statistical measures of all these elite players is minute.  But asks the question:  are the overall scores relative to par higher or the same on those courses that have unquestionably more complex, contoured, and sloped greens? 

We would have to stipulate the important distinction between the courses used to attempt this measure of whether short game resistance to scoring is more meaningful than ball striking.   I'm no statistician, nor have I a clue how to set up the correct parameters.  But I have a hunch that if you look at entire field of pro players on a course with what we would all agree is a course with highly complex greens to a course with bland ones,  the relation to par would be quite different, showing that short game matters more to scoring and winning.

I told you I was over my head.  I just think I know it when I see it, and I get that feeling I am watching or playing on a better course when there are great greensites demanding more skilled short game. 

[Mike_Young]

RJ,
I think it all boils down to the "4 to 8" rule on greens.  If it is a course where you need to keep the ball between four and eight to score then short game matters much more...JMO

[Mike_Trenham]

You all keep referencing the wrong Norman.  Mo Norman is the best example, short game genius trumps ball striking.

[Jon Wiggett]

So you're saying that a mechanical player like Faldo can learn to become a feel player?  I'm not buying it.

Read this comment yesterday and only just stopped laughing after almost 18 hours. Jud, you really tell a cracking joke

Oh, and I have no talent for languages yet can understand, speak and read three and write two. Feel can be learned!

Jon

[BCowan]

So you're saying that a mechanical player like Faldo can learn to become a feel player?  I'm not buying it.

Read this comment yesterday and only just stopped laughing after almost 18 hours. Jud, you really tell a cracking joke

Oh, and I have no talent for languages yet can understand, speak and read three and write two. Feel can be learned!

Jon

I agree completely Jon, just because someone works on drills (which create a new feel) doesn't mean that they are mechanical.  They just aren't insane, in trying to get better results

[BCowan]

Mike,

   I agree that stats don't tell everything.  I would like to see Normans stats in the 90's when he was making every cut, because you know consistency isn't admired much.  You could win 3 tourney and miss 7 cuts and nobody cares, but win once and never miss a cut and nobody cares unless it's a major.  Reading that article, they are just wasting their time inside 100 yards, but then Jason considers Pelz revolutionary.  So one of the math geeks is off      ''but every week on the PGA Tour you'll see people practicing from 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 yards out. Basically, it's a massive waste of time." 

[Mike_Young]

Yep.  Pelz has an entire following of geeks.  I really feel for Jason.  He probably believes the launch angle, grooves, 64 degree wedge and all of that stuff...I wonder if he realizes how much rougher soft spikes make a green surface than steel spikes?

[Adam Clayman]

If the sport was as formulaic as this thread's direction implies, we wouldn't be here today. But, if Crane continues to get the whisper, we likely won't be here in the future.

The kid that's leading the NOLA event this week is No. 1 in scrambling this week. fwiw.