When I was a student some years back, Mrs. Pate gave me an F on a book report that I thought was well-written. I went to her after class to ask why I had received an F, and she answered that I got an F because F was the lowest grade that she was allowed to give. I didn't understand, and she explained in no uncertain terms that no matter how good my writing was, it was quite obvious that I had not read the book I was reporting on. And she was right, of course.
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I guess I have to give you and Erik an F, as neither of you have made the slightest attempt at answering a simple question about the book. Dare i surmise you haven't read it?
Erik at least claims it was from tens of thousands of rounds of golf, but criticizes my suggestion that his method was described in the article I linked. Yet still he does not state how the data was collected.
I can see why A.G. and Erik made no attempt to answer how the data was collected based on having read the book. Other than stating he used Shotlink data from the PGA Tour, Broadie says little about how the data was collected, other than to say he has lots of it. However, they have no excuse for not answering whether the research was published in peer reviewed journals. The book has no bibliography, nor does it mention any published research. So there was no reason to omit stating that other than perhaps it would upset their apple cart of idolizing Broadie.
I thought of raising their grades to C, but their utter failure to recognize that Broadie himself disputed his own assertion suggests though they may have read the book, they don't seem to remember or comprehend much from it. On page 102, Broadie wrote, “For a 90-golfer who hits wild 300-yard drives, accuracy is the weakness that needs to be addressed.” So Broadie admits that it is possible to hit it long without having accuracy! Furthermore, he discusses how Arnie learned to hit it long before learning to hit it straight by stating on the same page that Arnie's father’s advice to Arnie was: “Hit it hard boy. Go find it and hit it hard again.” So Broadie was making the same arguments that length and accuracy don't go hand in hand that I was making, and A. G. and Erik either didn't retain this from their reading, or avoided it, because it didn't mesh with their idolization of him.
Broadie further directly contradicts his highlighted assertion that A. G. and Erik have been defending here with his further statement on page 102, “Junior golfers who hit it long can often learn to hit it straight later.”
Finally on page 103, Broadie highlights the assertion, “
Longer hitters tend to be straighter hitters.”
This is a strange assertion since it appears on the same page as his statement “For tour pros, there’s little relation between distance and direction.” One has to wonder if he himself has been reading what he has been writing.
If this were a book review, I would have to give the book a thumbs down. It appears to be simply an effort monetize a simple (in his own words) calculation. It only takes subtraction to come up with the stats given the database of averages compiled from Shotlink. I found quite boring all the added fluff to fluff the content up to book size. I would recommend the Cliff's Notes (if one exists) version over the full book.