Stat Tracking

[MattF]

Either attach it to the post in full editor mode or use an image sharing site (postimage is good and free) and attach it that way.

[THEZIPR23]

Just received an email from Arccos regarding the fee.

 

"The app will be free to use if you have the screw in style sensors. If you were to purchase the smart grips or Cobra Connected clubs with sensors embedded into the grips that will come with an annual subscription fee..."

[HardcoreLooper]

Just received an email from Arccos regarding the fee.

 

"The app will be free to use if you have the screw in style sensors. If you were to purchase the smart grips or Cobra Connected clubs with sensors embedded into the grips that will come with an annual subscription fee..."

 

Just heard the same thing from Arccos.

[sgold7]

Update and next steps:

So I've tracked a ton over the last few months and have learned a lot about my game. Off the Tee:

	No.	Penalty	Shank	Fairway
Driver	65	31%	42%	37%
3 Wood	75	10%	28%	38%
2 Iron	21	9%	44%	41%
4-6 Iron	12	0%	8%	67%

I only get 20 or so more yards on the driver over my 3-wood so until I can start to lower the penalty percentage on the driver it's a net-negative when compared to my 3-wood even on long holes. As y'all can tell I'm mental so having this data on the tee box---knowing that the 3-wood is my best option has helped me simplify my game (though I'll emphasize I'm still putting in a ton of work on the driver this off-season).

Approaches: (10-15 shots for each sub-section of the graph. Some have a smaller sample size, mostly as you go from further out (the 100% green hit from 200-225 was on a sample size of 1 as most tee boxes are obviously inside of 200 yards)).

 

 

	75	100	125	150	175	200	225	250
Tee			33%	24%	20%	13%	100%
Fairway	56%	56%	31%	30%	33%	60%	0%	0%
Rough	29%	63%	46%	20%	25%	17%	0%	0%

The downward trend off the tee box is pretty cool, nothing really to learn from there. There are two takeaways from non-tee box approaches:

1. Being inside 100 yards is the goal. From both the rough and the fairway the most significant drop is from the 75-100 spot to the 100-125 spot. 
2. Being in the fairway on full-swing wedge shots might actually be a disadvantage vs the rough. But from inside 75 yards (where I'm not taking full swings) there is a clear advantage to being in the fairway. I think the former is mostly noise and as my ball striking gets better that gap will narrow and eventually favor the fairway. Regarding the ladder, the gap should narrow but obviously wont ever invert. 

3. Once I'm taking full swings with the 9 iron or longer (outside of 125) there is again a clear advantage of being in the fairway. 

Combining the approach data with the driving data it helps me craft a game plan off the tee for each hole thus improving my confidence greatly. When I know the data backs up my strategy it creates a much more confident pre-shot routine and swing. 

Putting: There's nothing really to take away from this as far as "how can I help my game" but it is neat having the data and seeing how I stack up against pros and what not from various distances.

Distance	Putts	Makes	% Make	2010 Pro	Me v Pro	3-Putts	3-Putt %	2010 Pro	Me v Pro
1	66	66	100%	100%	0%
2	22	21	95%	99%	-4%
3	24	20	83%	95%	-12%
4	7	5	71%	86%	-15%
5	11	4	36%	75%	-39%
6	11	7	64%	65%	-1%
7	6	2	33%	56%	-23%
8	6	2	33%	49%	-16%
10	13	4	31%	38%	-7%	1	8%	0.7%	-7%
12	11	3	27%	30%	-3%		0%	0.9%	1%
15	20	0	0%	22%	-22%	1	5%	1%	-4%
20	19	0	0%	14%	-14%	3	16%	2%	-14%
25	6	1	17%	10%	7%	2	33%	3%	-30%
30	22	3	14%	7%	7%	5	23%	5%	-18%
40	7	0	0%	4%	-4%	5	71%	10%	-61%
50	4	0	0%	3%	-3%	2	50%	16%	-34%
60	1	0	0%	2%	-2%	1	100%	24%	-76%
70	1	0	0%	1%	-1%	1	100%	31%	-69%

 

What do we learn? My 4-7 footers need work. I'm pretty darn good from 10-12 feet. The one-putt % from 25-30 feet is pretty decent but that's counteracted by my horrible ability to not three-putt from 20 feet and away. So I should be practicing putting much more from 4-8 feet and from 25+ feet. Not coincidentally, these are the distances according to Adam Young (author of The Practice Manual) suggests armatures should be doing the most putting from. 

Conclusion & Next Steps:

Really glad I tracked what I did this year from a confidence standpoint and also it gives me a great baseline to track improvement on. The new variable is that last year I didn't belong to a course and now I do---so I need to change the way I'm tracking my stats. It's no longer "find out what you do well so I can work on it more" it's now about "find out how to score on this golf course". 

I plan on continuing to track the putting and approaching just like I've been doing but I'm going to change up the tee shot data to incorporate strokes gained so my data will be broken down by hole and then again by club. So for the first hole, which I normally hit a 4-iron on I'll have an average "strokes gained" of 4 irons off the first hole. I'll also start mixing in some shots with the 2-iron and the 3-wood just to accumulate a larger sample so I can compare between the clubs. I'd still have the raw data as far as overall % of long-irons vs drivers penalty/shank/fairway % but now I'll be able to drill those clubs down even more for context. What if I'm making a smart, conservative play by hitting 4 iron off the tee on hole one, but on the 12th hole, which is longer, I'm giving back a quarter of a stroke a round by not going 3-wood or driver? Answering questions like that will be the key to phase two of this exercise: Using my compiled data to lower my scores on the actual course!

 

[romeopapazulu]

Is this just an Excel spreadsheet or a google doc you could share?

I've thought about shotscope and arccos, but doubt I will end up pulling the trigger.  I would love to give this a try for a season and see what I could do with it.

[Reesedw]

This makes my head hurt. As someone who spent the summer using the Arccos system and pouring over their data, This is painful.. 

@sgold7 Glad your seeing improvement, and this is your thing..  I want to play good golf, but more importantly I want to enjoy my rounds and this sounds like a lot.. Thanks for sharing. 

[sgold7]

10 hours ago, romeopapazulu said:

Is this just an Excel spreadsheet or a google doc you could share?

 

I have it all on excel but the formatting is atrocious and I doubt anyone would be able to get anything of value from it. I have a tab for each portion of the game: driving, approaches, putting. 

The driving is relatively easy: every shot is either left, straight, or right. And every hit is either a hook, draw, straight, fade or slice. So the format is:

Driver, No, Left, St, Rt, Hk, Dr, St, Fa, Sl. 3-Wood, No, Lt, St, Rt, Hk, Dr, St, Fa, Sl. 2-Iron, No... etc. 

Lots of columns and each row is a different round. 

Approaching is more complicated because I have three different tabs: one for off the tee, the fairway and the rough. Then each different sheet is broken down like so (each row is a different round):

50-75 Attempts, 50-75 makes, 75-100 attempts, 75-100 makes....etc. 

Putting is the easiest: 1' att, 1' makes; 2' att, 2' makes... when I get to 10 I have a third column for 3-putt. 

Now that I typed this all out I'm realizing that if you could see the spreadsheet it would make it more simple. If you want to reach out to me with your e-mail I'd just send you the actual spreadsheet so you could delete my data and plug in your own. It would definitely make it easier lol. 

Quote

 I want to play good golf, but more importantly I want to enjoy my rounds and this sounds like a lot.

This is enjoyable for me. As I said in the OG post, the in-round work is not really work at all. It takes 15 seconds per hole. The work is plugging in everything after the rounds which is fun. 

 

[LeftyHawk]

Some good reading for you are the Dave Pelz books, primarily "The Short Game Bible". Dave is also a numbers guy and has some great info and stats from tour players as well as amateurs.  

I too keep stats to help me understand my game, not much for any of the electronic gadgets or apps out there, I'm a pencil to paper guy!

Chris

[GB13]

@sgold7 Did the results suprise you at all? E.g. Did you think you were a great putter from 4-7 feet?

I'm just curious if the stat tracking revealed unknown weaknesses or did it just confirm what you originally thought. 

[sgold7]

16 hours ago, LeftyHawk said:

Some good reading for you are the Dave Pelz books, primarily "The Short Game Bible". Dave is also a numbers guy and has some great info and stats from tour players as well as amateurs.  

 I too keep stats to help me understand my game, not much for any of the electronic gadgets or apps out there, I'm a pencil to paper guy!

Chris

Pelz book is pretty much how I designed my entire short game. I have my 4 wedges and 4 shots for each wedge (Full, Choking up, 1/2 swing and 3/4 swing). It's probably the single best book to help anyone's game. 

Keeping the stats, while fun for me, is simply for making me better. As you'll see in my response to the next quote---it's already given me some legitimate improvement. But I do only use pen & paper on the actual course. The electronic gagets I use are just my computer and an excel spreadsheet. 

 

Quote

Did the results suprise you at all? E.g. Did you think you were a great putter from 4-7 feet?

Yes, there were surprises all over. 

Putting: I know I'm a good putter relative to my peers but this showed me *where* I excel vs where I need work. I was not expecting to be good in the 5-10 range. I was expecting to be good in the 3-5 range and again in the 15-20 range. What I really learned was that not three putting from 15-20 feet is NOT impressive . Pros almost never 3-putt from that range so me thinking I'm good because I miss by 6" and then tap in my 2-putt is nothing special. I thought my lag putting was good by my memory made me think that it was my 30' puts that result in tap-ins when that simply isn't the case. From 30+ I'm a bad lag putter. I will spend most of my time practicing putting while on the actual practice green from here on out from 25+ feet. I have a putting mat in my apartment so I get work on 12' and in regularly---I don't get to work on the 30+ too often. 

Approaching: Here was my biggest takeaway. On almost ALL of my approaches from the rough or fairway, regardless of distance, 30% of my shots were misses short and 30% were misses right. 20-25% were hits leaving only 15%-ish long or left. I was able to make an immediate correction---adjusting my aim about 5 yards long and left of my target---and saw immediate results. Now I'm noticing from the tee I miss LEFT way more often than right. I have yet to put this takeaway to work but going forward I will focus on teeing the ball as low as possible and go into the shot with the thought process of 'this is a fairway shot not a tee shot'.

Driving: My 3-wood being significantly more accurate compared to my 2-iron was a surprise. Not so much in fairways but that shank % being 50%-ish better on the 3-wood combined with the extra 30-50 yards I get with the 3-wood has totally eliminated my 2-iron as my "fairway finder". While I can hit that 230 pretty regularly, topping at 250 if I nut it---My 4/5 irons go over 200 yards and as you can see those clubs are WAY more accurate than even my 3-wood. Knowing (not assuming, but *knowing*) that I am now making informed decisions on the T-box has given my driving game a significant confidence boost. 

@Rome - I'll send you the spreadsheet tonight, sorry for the delay I've been a bit busy of late. 

[TR1PTIK]

Pretty good analysis of your game. I made up a spreadsheet a few years back that I keep modifying and improving. However, I tend not to look so much at individual club or shot metrics unless I'm actually testing clubs. I simply want to know how I score and see where I'm scoring from which is simple enough with an honest assessment of my game. I drive the ball reasonably well (though not particularly long), I'm mediocre on approaches, and pretty much atrocious with the chips and pitches. Putting is right up there with my driving though basic stats may not always agree, but the problem is really that I don't get the ball close enough with my wedges.

I did try using a quasi-strokes gained method of evaluating shots, but it just took too much work for me to bother with. I've used Game Golf, Arccos, and a number of smartphone apps over the years to know by now what really needs work and what doesn't. So I just try to focus on those things and wait for scores to drop. 

Excellent job though. Keep grinding and improving!