When I think about the way pros play as compared to how I play (and consequently as most amateurs play), the biggest difference is the short game. I'm not saying I can fly the ball 300+, but I can hit it plenty far enough. But when I start to spray my driver and end up behind trees and have to pitch out to the fairway, the odds I'm getting up and down for par (or at worst bogey) from 150 yards is pretty slim. And that's where big numbers start to creep in. But when pros are on and confident, they seem to get up and down from everywhere. So a guy like Bryson doesn't have to worry much if he periodically parks a ball in the woods. As a result he pulls driver every time he can. He almost always recovers. In my case, on a tight, unforgiving hole, my best play is to hit 2-iron in the fairway and have 190 to the green, as opposed to bombing a driver, but then possibly needing to chip out of trouble.
All due respect, the numbers guys (like Broadie and Fawcett) can demonstrate that your assertion about what is your "best play" is incorrect. And their analysis is not limited to play at the highest levels of the game on the various tours. It applies to the chops of the world such as myself. . .
Mark,
At the risk of picking the nit, I think it's important to note that Broadie is providing macro information about what separates better golfers from lesser golfers at every level of the game. What he is NOT doing is giving individual prescriptions for how you or Dan or I should play the game. So Dan's take on his game may be absolutely correct IF by playing that way his proximity of approach is better.
And Broadie has sort of revised his work to include the degree of the miss off the tee; he recognizes that there is VERY large difference between 5 feet into the rough, and 20 yards into the trees. If Dan is hitting the ball in the trees, then his proximity of approach is going to be awful, along with his score.
In other words, Broadie would fully support DeChambeau's approach because his misses didn't limit his ability to score. Closer is better at the macro level, and Broadie's research proves that. But closer is better doesn't include the trees.
Wow! Somebody gets it!
It's very, very difficult to have a real conversation with certain "Broadites" (not meaning anyone on this thread). The macro versus micro thing is exactly how I try to explain it to people.
If you have pitching yips and frequently make double-bogey or worse when faced with half-shots from 40 to 60 yards (I've played with several people like this in my 30 years of golf), you are NOT better off being 50 yards than 105 yards, no matter what Broadie says.
It's hilarious to hear a Broadite try to convince you that you're wrong and that EVERYONE is better off hitting driver on this hole, or laying up to 50, rather than 100 yards.
The majority, even the vast majority, yes. But human beings often defy easy categorization -- especially golfers....
I am 110% a "Broadite". But the number of people who misunderstand his work is staggering to me, really. One group, made up mostly of people who haven't read the book, refuses to believe that the old, "Drive for show, putt for dough" saying isn't really what's going on, either on Tour or on Saturday morning in the points game at your club. The other group is made up of people who have enough knowledge of Broadie's work to be dangerous (mostly to themselves!) and think that Broadie is telling EVERYBODY to hit it as far as they can off the tee. In reality, Broadie's work is descriptive, not proscriptive, for ANY individual.
I would expect Broadie to write something soon about DeChambeau's Open performance, and I'm guessing that his analysis will show that the percentage of fairways mattered a lot less than the degree by which he missed. Those fairways were narrow, and the percentage of misses was VERY high; Brendan Todd led the field in fairways hit, and he hit less than two out of three. DeChambeau's 41% was T26, so it's not like he was just wild off the tee relative to the field. I'll guess and say that his degree of miss was relatively low, and of course he is strong enough to play out of that rough to a degree that was probably unmatched in the field.
And if you want to dive even deeper, DeChambeau's strokes gained numbers for both approach and around the green were higher than his standing in driving average for the tournament. In other words, it is a VAST oversimplification to see last week as a guy bashing his way around Winged Foot; that just isn't what happened at all. I don't like the guy, and I don't enjoy watching him play golf, but he won that tournament for a lot of reasons besides how far he hits his driver, and reacting to his win as if distance was all that was going on would be silly.