Is driving accuracy of any importance to for elite players?

[Rob Marshall]

Listening to a radio show this morning and the host was saying that the least important aspect of golf is driver accuracy, basically due to the lack of trees. This came about from a conversation about why golf is boring to watch on TV. I wish he would get and architect on to debate this issue.

[Jeff Schley]

Listening to a radio show this morning and the host was saying that the least important aspect of golf is driver accuracy, basically due to the lack of trees. This came about from a conversation about why golf is boring to watch on TV. I wish he would get and architect on to debate this issue.

The other would be water hazards, which really punishes the mid to high handicapper.  PGA National or TPC Sawgrass have water everywhere. Alternate a water hazard in the landing zones on each hole.  That way they can't just take one side of the golf course away.  Seems silly when of course a ball rollback can solve this.

[Joe Zucker]

I think it's kind of like height in the NBA, as long as you're tall enough another inch is not going to fundamentally change anything.  With top players, as long as you are accurate enough to keep the ball in the corridors, other skills have more importance. 


If you buy Scott Fawcett's opinion that all players have a dispersion pattern and can't really control where the ball ends up in their dispersion range, then you might think about accuracy differently.  In some high level amateur events, it can be striking where some very good players occasionally hit drives.

[Jim_Coleman]

    It’s not as if this has not come up here. There are many on this cite, architects and amateurs alike, who insist that removing trees does not make a course easier. It’s the emperor’s new clothes, also referred to today as “alternative facts.”
    Removing trees makes a course easier, period. Removing trees also often makes a course better; that’s up for discussion.

[Ben Hollerbach]

I remember looking into this last year after Riviera.

In general, on par 4s, players hit 25% more green from the fairway than they do from the rough. Their proximity from the fairway was ~20' better than from the rough, and scoring was ~0.25 strokes better from the fairway than from the rough.

So yes, driving accuracy does still have some importance. But I'd imagine that at a course like Riviera it might be more important than it is at other PGA Tour courses.

[Matt Schoolfield]

Driver accuracy always matters on long par threes and most par fives. It also matters when we've peppered the fairway and rough with bunkers, waste areas, water, or extremely long grass.

The reason why bomb and gouge is a problem isn't because the rough isn't long enough (it's actually better to bomb and gouge in long rough), it's because the clubs have become so easy to hit and with so little penalty, that it's better to wale away at them that it is to focus on accuracy (cue rabble rousing for rollback of the clubs). Another reason driving distances has grown so much is that mastery of launch angles has been achieved.

    It’s not as if this has not come up here. There are many on this cite, architects and amateurs alike, who insist that removing trees does not make a course easier. It’s the emperor’s new clothes, also referred to today as “alternative facts.”
    Removing trees makes a course easier, period. Removing trees also often makes a course better; that’s up for discussion.

Tree placement should be used for strategic reasons, but using them as purely penal features is incredibly lazy and frustrating. Creating a green that rewards approaches from one direction while punishing them from all others seems like a more elegant solution to me. The point of tree removal is to open up the course to the subtitles of wind, while simultaneously reducing the penal nature of the wind. Some of the people I talk to about needing trees and long rough are the same who will tell me that golf in 20mph winds is "unplayable" and won't play in the rain.

I've thought other was to penalize the use of a high launch angle, but nobody seems to want to bring back extreme green contours or sleepers, when they both penalize high launch angles while leaving running approaches mostly undisturbed.

[Jim Sherma]

I always believed that the impact of more or less trees on a given course/hole is very much dependent on what's on the ground under the trees and what it's being replaced with. Replacing large deciduous trees with thin turf/dirt under them with lost ball "native" gunch can clearly make the course play much more penal. Replacing low hanging pines or trees with lost-ball levels of undergrowth with maintained fairway/rough likely will make the course play easier. In other words, it depends.


At a given length, the straighter driver will always have an advantage.

[Michael Felton]

It certainly is. Hitting the fairway is about 0.25 of a shot vs missing it. More if you hit it in recovery positions as opposed to just rough. There are also players out there who can hit it a lot further than they do. Tony Finau for example, there is footage of him reaching 208mph ball speed, where he's probably about 180-185mph for regular play. He's dialing that back because he's trying to max out distance while remaining acceptable for accuracy.


The PGA Tour players are there primarily because they hit it far and straight. Not just far. It helps that they hit their irons close and chip and putt well.

[David Cronan]

Judging from a very small sample size (1....a multi-major winner that grew up playing at the club where I belonged), I'm inclined to say "yes". He's ranked in the top 5 in Birdies/round yet doesn't crack the top 120 in driving accuracy; however, I'm struck by his % of missed fairways that are on the "correct" side to miss, that is, the side that offers the best approach to a particular pin placement.


I never gave it much thought until one day when I was in bed with Covid, I followed a round of his via TourCast on pgatour.com. Upon closer review, almost every drive of his was either in the fairway or in the rough but with an "open" approach to the green (no hazards). So I followed the next 3 rounds via TourCast and that trend repeated itself.


That ain't by accident I'd venture to say.

[Niall C]

David


That's clearly faulty data because as we both know, angles don't matter.


Niall

[Mark Pearce]

David


That's clearly faulty data because as we both know, angles don't matter.


Niall

You're a braver man than me......

[Jerry Kluger]

I had quite a discussion with Michael Breed of the PGA Tour radio about this subject and he insisted that a course is easier if trees are removed.  Facts are that trees soak up moisture and block sun which are needed to grow healthy grass.  Fact is that pros would hit shots in the rough far more often than inside a tree line so they would have to deal with thick rough far more often than from inside a cluster of trees.  If you watch a tournament with trees you will see that getting out from inside a tree line is not that hard because more often than not you have a reasonable lie and a few options of how to play it. It is very rare that you see a pro hit a tree from within a tree line.  ANGC does not have rough and a pro would have to hit an awful shot into the thick bushes to be really in trouble. Best example was the 6 Iron Mickelson hit from the pine straw - he said it wasn't that hard because you usually get a pretty decent lie from the pine straw.  Bubba Watson would never have been able to hit the shot that he did in the playoff to win the Masters if he was in thick rough.  When Bryson won at Winged Foot his strength played a big part because he dealt with the rough better than most of the other players. So no, removing trees does not make a course easier.

[Mike_Clayton]

Jerry,


What Michael fails to understand or acknowledge is the game is easier not because trees are removed but because over two shots (a drive and a fairway wood or long iron) at the top level the ball is going 70 yards further than it was in the era pre-tree removal.
Nor does it take into account courses where trees are not an issue. - all of the links and many of the best courses in Australia.

[Tom_Doak]

There are two different topics here:


1.  Yes, it matters whether your approach is being hit from the fairway or rough, and what angle it’s coming in from, even at the elite level.  But if they can only improve their accuracy by 5-10% off the tee by hitting something less than driver, that’s not enough of a difference to settle for a longer approach shot.  It used to be worth it in Hogan’s day or even Nicklaus’s, but now the driver is way easier to hit and the average approach shot is shorter than it used to be, even on stretched out courses.


2.  Yes, generally, cutting down any specific tree makes a given course “easier”.  But the point of design is NOT to make the course as difficult as possible, it’s to make it more interesting.  Sometimes a few trees in the right spot help; other times they just punish, and in most cases they punish B players more harshly than the elite.  Elite players want more trees in play because it compounds their advantage over everyone else, but that’s not what I am trying to accomplish.

[jeffwarne]

Judging from a very small sample size (1....a multi-major winner that grew up playing at the club where I belonged), I'm inclined to say "yes". He's ranked in the top 5 in Birdies/round yet doesn't crack the top 120 in driving accuracy; however, I'm struck by his % of missed fairways that are on the "correct" side to miss, that is, the side that offers the best approach to a particular pin placement.


I never gave it much thought until one day when I was in bed with Covid, I followed a round of his via TourCast on pgatour.com. Upon closer review, almost every drive of his was either in the fairway or in the rough but with an "open" approach to the green (no hazards). So I followed the next 3 rounds via TourCast and that trend repeated itself.


That ain't by accident I'd venture to say.

Bingo.
That's why stats can be misinterpreted.
Many players will hit driver on a hole where they know missing the fairway won't hurt them and hitting it will increase their odds of birdie.
Also, that same player may miss "fairway" 60% of the time, but of those misses(60%) on THAT hole, 95% are on a certain side, where he can find it or play it. Which means 97% of the time they are playing from a good place, despite the stats indicating they only hit fairway 40% of the time.
I often aim at the left rough line or between fairways on a parallel hole with trouble on one side.
While bogie avoidance is an important stat. double avoidance is a pretty important stat for marginal club pro and competitive am events:).

[Michael Felton]

Judging from a very small sample size (1....a multi-major winner that grew up playing at the club where I belonged), I'm inclined to say "yes". He's ranked in the top 5 in Birdies/round yet doesn't crack the top 120 in driving accuracy; however, I'm struck by his % of missed fairways that are on the "correct" side to miss, that is, the side that offers the best approach to a particular pin placement.


I never gave it much thought until one day when I was in bed with Covid, I followed a round of his via TourCast on pgatour.com. Upon closer review, almost every drive of his was either in the fairway or in the rough but with an "open" approach to the green (no hazards). So I followed the next 3 rounds via TourCast and that trend repeated itself.


That ain't by accident I'd venture to say.

Bingo.
That's why stats can be misinterpreted.
Many players will hit driver on a hole where they know missing the fairway won't hurt them and hitting it will increase their odds of birdie.
Also, that same player may miss "fairway" 60% of the time, but of those misses(60%) on THAT hole, 95% are on a certain side, where he can find it or play it. Which means 97% of the time they are playing from a good place, despite the stats indicating they only hit fairway 40% of the time.
I often aim at the left rough line or between fairways on a parallel hole with trouble on one side.
While bogie avoidance is an important stat. double avoidance is a pretty important stat for marginal club pro and competitive am events:).

I played a Met Am qualifier last year at Lawrence Yacht and Country Club on LI. The 11th hole is a par 5 straight away with OB tight on the left side. The third hole runs parallel going the other way there and while there were trees between the two fairways they weren't big enough as to be too troublesome. I hit it up 3 and I'd be very surprised if I was the only one. That made the hole longer, but way less dangerous.


A better stat to keep for yourself than fairways hit is drives hit in places where you can safely advance the ball to the green from where it finishes. That stat doesn't suffer from those times where you're only expecting to hit the fairway 30-40% of the time.

[Rob Marshall]

Judging from a very small sample size (1....a multi-major winner that grew up playing at the club where I belonged), I'm inclined to say "yes". He's ranked in the top 5 in Birdies/round yet doesn't crack the top 120 in driving accuracy; however, I'm struck by his % of missed fairways that are on the "correct" side to miss, that is, the side that offers the best approach to a particular pin placement.


I never gave it much thought until one day when I was in bed with Covid, I followed a round of his via TourCast on pgatour.com. Upon closer review, almost every drive of his was either in the fairway or in the rough but with an "open" approach to the green (no hazards). So I followed the next 3 rounds via TourCast and that trend repeated itself.


That ain't by accident I'd venture to say.

Bingo.
That's why stats can be misinterpreted.
Many players will hit driver on a hole where they know missing the fairway won't hurt them and hitting it will increase their odds of birdie.
Also, that same player may miss "fairway" 60% of the time, but of those misses(60%) on THAT hole, 95% are on a certain side, where he can find it or play it. Which means 97% of the time they are playing from a good place, despite the stats indicating they only hit fairway 40% of the time.
I often aim at the left rough line or between fairways on a parallel hole with trouble on one side.
While bogie avoidance is an important stat. double avoidance is a pretty important stat for marginal club pro and competitive am events:).

I played a Met Am qualifier last year at Lawrence Yacht and Country Club on LI. The 11th hole is a par 5 straight away with OB tight on the left side. The third hole runs parallel going the other way there and while there were trees between the two fairways they weren't big enough as to be too troublesome. I hit it up 3 and I'd be very surprised if I was the only one. That made the hole longer, but way less dangerous.


A better stat to keep for yourself than fairways hit is drives hit in places where you can safely advance the ball to the green from where it finishes. That stat doesn't suffer from those times where you're only expecting to hit the fairway 30-40% of the time.

I've done the same thing Michael. Played in our district qualifer one year and was a couple under going in to 16 where I hit two balls out of bounds right, then made bogey on 17. 18 was a par 5 with OB right. I teed up and hit it down a parallel hole on the left side. Made a happy par. You don't have to be lowest, just low enough.