[Buck Wolter]

For some unexplained reason, I generally am able to recall my rounds in my head. I can usually remember how I played specific holes, whether I hit the fairway, greens, and how many putts it took to complete each hole. I can't remember important details that actually matter, but I usually have no problem retaining useless minutiae. Go figure.

I'm the exact opposite --I am like the guy in the movie Momento where I have only short term memory on the golf course --I can't try to recreate a scorecard even right after the round if I don't write them down.

I love data and would have a lot of fun analyzing it but I have no interest in gathering it.

[Terry Lavin]

I'm with Buck on this one.

[John Kavanaugh]

I like to shoot my rangefinder back to the tee and chart my drives. Sometimes the guys waiting wave back.

[Ulrich Mayring]

For those wanting to download my tool, I've just removed the access restriction. Sorry for that, but the download should work now.

Ulrich

[Ian Mackenzie]

I have always thought about it, but have never bothered.
Basically, after much analysis, I know what the conclusion would be:


If I want to achieve lower scores, I definitely need to make more putts....


Reminds me of the time when someone asked Ben Hogan for a putting tip:


"Mr. Hogan, what advice can you give me to help me with my putting?"


"Well, son, if you want to make more putts, I would suggest hitting your approach shots closer to the hole."

[Kalen Braley]

Seems to me golf is no different than any other hobby like playing video games, watching a favorite TV show, gambling and drinking, or hell even knitting.

-- Some do it casually.
-- Others are more into it and do so often.
-- And still others are hardcore and love doing it all the way.

So I don't get the negative feedback here...if some like to keep track of all their stats, in detailed xls fashion with elaborate formulas, because they like going all the way...where's the harm?

Hell I get my excel geek on too, not with golf stuff but keeping track of stats for my daughters lacrosse games.  Its fun, I like it, so I do it...

[Kalen Braley]

Shivas,

I am genuinely interested here.  In what way is the premise flawed?

[Tim Book]

Wow, you have hit my sweet spot.  "Golf spreadsheet" created to learn excel in 1996.  Started with the basics, but has turned into any/all stat I come across.  Includes every round since 96 and in the end basically tells me that I am the golfer I will always be.  The consistency of my inconsistency is almost alarming.  Over time it is a nice reminder of where I have played.  Not unlike Kalen I have added lacrosse to my excel habit and now become known as "stat guy" by the other parents.  Probably not something you want on your tombstone.

[Steve Lang]

   I'm with Shivas on the distribution thing, but simply keep stats for holes in one... of which i have but one, so easy to remember.

[Dan Kelly]

Pat,


I have often kept my statistics on my card during a round, but have never kept the cards or compiled them anywhere.


This year, I'm going to do something else: I'm going to keep the hole by hole scores from my home course, just to see how the holes rank, for me, from 1 to 18.


I pretty much know what I'm doing well and what I'm doing poorly, so I don't need numbers to tell me how to practice.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

So today I learned that there are golf stats nerds that are even nerdier then me.  I used to track all the PGA tour stats as well in a Google docs spreadsheet.  I nicknamed it the Death Star for it's size and complexity.  Then I stopped abruptly after a philosophical shift: You are as good as your last score, pure and simple.  Want better scores?  Do everything better.  Everything.

[Dan Kelly]

I like to shoot my rangefinder back to the tee and chart my drives. Sometimes the guys waiting wave back.

I'm surprised they can see that far.

[Doug Siebert]

Do you guys ever say what you shot without prefacing the round? Like 81 with 3 three putts or 78 with an OB.

One of the things I love about playing at an overly penal course is that no one ever asks what you shot. They're afraid you might ask back.

That reminds me of my visit to Muirfield back in 2001. The rough was knee to waist high, and in one spot left of the second fairway my dad hit into, shoulder high, the fairways narrow. Not sure if it is true but the members claimed the rough would be cut down for the Open the following year and the fairways were already at Open width. Fortunately it was not true Scottish weather as it was a sunny day with rather light winds. I managed to go through the round without losing a ball until I misinterpreted the Strokesaver and chose a line across the corner that was not nearly aggressive enough, and carried my drive 30+ yards through the 17th fairway into the rough on the far side, leaving no hope of finding it.

When we went in for lunch after the round, the question people asked you when you spoke with them wasn't what you shot, but how many balls you lost. I was proud that of the two dozen people or so we talked to, the fewest lost balls I heard was three, so I felt like I played pretty well that day!

[Doug Siebert]

The only stats I keep are the number of putts on each hole, and the distance of the first putt. I started doing that when I was a teenager because my dad did after reading an article about it in Golf Digest. Sam Snead had a system he used to score his putting. Maybe once a season I'll actually bother to calculate my putting score, if I feel like I had a particularly great or particularly horrid day on the greens.

The only other thing I note is penalty strokes, I'll add a B for OB, L for lost ball, W for water hazard, H for lateral hazard and U for unplayable (I'm perversely proud of the fact that I once had a round with all five marks and still broke 80)

However, I do absolutely nothing with this information I collect. I don't put it into a spreadsheet, or look at it later to try to improve my game. I just record it out of force of habit, because I started doing it many years ago because my dad did it. I still have the scorecard for almost every round I ever played from my very first one, because my dad saved all his cards. I have several shoeboxes full now (if I played as often as some of you guys do, I'd need a full sized filing cabinet to hold them all!)

My dad always said he saved them because someday when he was too old to play he could look back at them and recall some of his best rounds. He's still playing, so hasn't tested that theory yet. I don't know if I'll ever look back them, but having saved them since my first round at age 12 (when I shot an 82 for nine holes, so at least I can demonstrate an improving trend) it would be a shame to toss them now so I guess I'm stuck with the collection!

[John Kavanaugh]

Doug,


Get your Dad's card collection and post the courses and dates that he played them around the world. It would be an interesting study in contrast to how many of us play today. My Dad is 85 and I never thought of his generation as traveling golfers.

[Andrew Buck]

Thanks for those who have been so helpful, both here and via PM.


Despite having an analytic-based career, I have been anything but analytic with my golf game in the past. I'm thinking about trying to track my rounds a little better this upcoming year, if for nothing else out of curiosity. And if anything, perhaps my findings might help focus my limited practice time better?

It may be precisely because I have an analytic-based career that I've never been able to really convert golf to an analytical exercise.  I'm not saying it wouldn't be beneficial to the game, just not beneficial to the games place in my life. 

The only place I've varied from this is tracking specific shots on specific holes, meaning if there is a risk-reward dogleg that I can carry most the time, but a miss will bring trouble into play, tracking if I score better on aggregate trying to execute the more difficult shot, or safer shot leaving a longer approach. 

[JJShanley]

I use The Grint (free version.)

[Doug Siebert]

Doug,


Get your Dad's card collection and post the courses and dates that he played them around the world. It would be an interesting study in contrast to how many of us play today. My Dad is 85 and I never thought of his generation as traveling golfers.

That's probably true in general, but my parents have traveled quite extensively, and once he got into golf more because of me he started bringing his clubs with him on most of their vacations, cruises and trips to international conferences. I'd wager he's played in more countries than 95% of the US resident GCA members, with just the international architects who have been everywhere like Doak, and a few globetrotting members able to best him. I'd guess he's played in a couple dozen countries but I really don't know the count and I doubt he does either. I've been to over 40 countries, but I think my parents have been to a significant majority of all of them. They reached the point where they'd been everywhere worth visiting a long time ago - you know you've been everywhere when you visit Antarctica twice!

Maybe I'll suggest he compile the list of where he's played and when since it sounds like a lot of work and he's retired so he's got a lot of time! 

[David_Elvins]

Keeping stats distracts from studying and learning about a course's architecture.

Its bad enough having to keep score.

[BHoover]

Keeping stats distracts from studying and learning about a course's architecture.

Its bad enough having to keep score.

When I'm playing golf, my primary concern is playing well. It's not studying architecture. I can do that when I'm not playing golf.

[Marty Bonnar]

I'm neither good enough or bad enough to give a damn about my golf score.
I am smart enough to know that I get back out of Golf whatever I put into it. Right now, that amounts to playing about once a month, never practicing, not working out with weights, never taking lessons, ignoring my friends advice and generally trying to have a fun time out there.
I love it.
Lighten up, Francis. It's a game.

F.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Keeping stats distracts from studying and learning about a course's architecture.

Its bad enough having to keep score.

When I'm playing golf, my primary concern is playing well. It's not studying architecture. I can do that when I'm not playing golf.

I'm the total opposite.
My primary concern is having fun and enjoying the course including the architecture.


When those things happen, I play well.

[BHoover]

I don't think trying to play well, having fun, and appreciating course architecture/features are mutually exclusive.

[Kalen Braley]

I have to agree with Brian here.

In a typical 4 hour round, you spend maybe 60 minutes lining up the shot or swinging the club, and on a bad day another 10-15 minutes looking for lost balls for you or your partners.  Why can't one use the other nearly 3 hours to size up whats around you?

[Tom Allen]

I use an Excel spreadsheet like many others.  New sheet for each year, course, date, partners, clubs used (lets me keep track of changes), F, G, #putts, ups and downs, sand saves, percentages based on those numbers.

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