Stats: What do you track, how do you track, and what do you do with that information?

[ncwoz]

Couldn't find a thread quite like this yet, forgive me if there is one.

I'm curious what stats y'all track, how you track them, and what do you do with those stats? Does is impact your practice? Change your course management strategy? Possibly influence what's in your bag?

Personally, I use The Grint for my stats. I basically use the full (paid for) service, except for shot tracking. So I get scoring, putting, greens/fairways in reg, scrambling, penalties, etc. I use these stats to focus my practice. How do I break that down? I'm following GolfInsiderUK's guide here for some direction and pick two areas at a time to improve, then have a little spreadsheet to track my progress and practice goals from there.

It's also influenced some tweaks I've made to my driver head to miss less to the left, as well as given me extra encouragement to just aim for the middle of the green on my approach shots (which I seem to somehow forget once or twice a round  ). No direct purchases influenced from the data, but it'll definitely be factored in!

So how about you?

[THEZIPR23]

I believe that if you are going to track stats and apply practice to those stats, tracking each shot is the only way to do it. 

[cnosil]

I believe that if you are going to track stats and apply practice to those stats, tracking each shot is the only way to do it. 

Yep, you want to follow a stokes gained approach. Which clubs and which distances are causing you to lose strokes. Also want to add some dispersion metrics to see s*** tendencies.

[THEZIPR23]

8 minutes ago, cnosil said:

Yep, you want to follow a stokes gained approach. Which clubs and which distances are causing you to lose strokes. Also want to add some dispersion metrics to see s*** tendencies.

One of the biggest things I have learned through DECADE in the last 6 months is KNOW YOUR DISPERSION! Once you have that established then adjust your aim point to compensate. I have missed more shots that hit the green now than ever before. It has done wonders for my course management. 

[ncwoz]

55 minutes ago, THEZIPR23 said:

One of the biggest things I have learned through DECADE in the last 6 months is KNOW YOUR DISPERSION! Once you have that established then adjust your aim point to compensate. I have missed more shots that hit the green now than ever before. It has done wonders for my course management. 

I keep intending on tracking them and just flat out forget once I'm on the course haha. But you've motivated me to actually do it next time I'm out!

[ncwoz]

On 5/29/2020 at 2:41 PM, ncwoz said:

I keep intending on tracking them and just flat out forget once I'm on the course haha. But you've motivated me to actually do it next time I'm out!

Now I remember why I haven't - for some reason tracking shots with The Grint crashes the app on my phone mid round too often.

[Will Shaw]

Hey Ncwoz,

Just a quick message to say thanks for sharing my practice guide (Golf Insider UK). I have some custom stats software I use with pro, but sadly I haven't had anytime to turn this into anything for the public yet. It might be a future plan. 

Just thought I'd drop this message in here as say feel free to ask any questions you may have around practice or performance tracking – not sure I'll be able to answer them all but very happy to share my thought.

Kind regards,

Will

[ncwoz]

On 6/1/2020 at 10:32 AM, Will Shaw said:

Hey Ncwoz,

Just a quick message to say thanks for sharing my practice guide (Golf Insider UK). I have some custom stats software I use with pro, but sadly I haven't had anytime to turn this into anything for the public yet. It might be a future plan. 

Just thought I'd drop this message in here as say feel free to ask any questions you may have around practice or performance tracking – not sure I'll be able to answer them all but very happy to share my thought.

Kind regards,

Will

Thanks for the content you put out, and the work you put into helping the rest of us get the most out of our game!

And if you ever decide to take that to the public, I'll be all ears!

[BrownBearGolf]

On 5/29/2020 at 11:41 AM, ncwoz said:

I keep intending on tracking them and just flat out forget once I'm on the course haha. But you've motivated me to actually do it next time I'm out!

I have been using Arccos Caddie for two years now. Here are two videos I made. Part two discusses the data analysis aspect of the shot tracking. 

 

 

[Rob Fellows]

I have been using Arccos for about 6 months now and love it for tracking my game. It breaks down your handicap by 5 different parts of the game; Driving, Approach, Chipping, Sand, and Putting. That has really helped me focus on the parts of my game that are weakest and have shown gradual improvement as a result.

[ncwoz]

2 hours ago, Rob Fellows said:

I have been using Arccos for about 6 months now and love it for tracking my game. It breaks down your handicap by 5 different parts of the game; Driving, Approach, Chipping, Sand, and Putting. That has really helped me focus on the parts of my game that are weakest and have shown gradual improvement as a result.

I love that Arccos breaks it up like that; I've definitely thought more than once about jumping in on the system!

[Middler]

I use Garmin Connect/Golf and track total score, total putts, %FW (incl %L & %R) and GIR for all rounds. On my home course I also keep average score and average putts on each hole, and my dream round - currently 57 (Garmin software used to provide those stats and they inexplicably removed it, so I use Excel now). I was tracking distance with each club using AutoShot, but after 20 rounds it really didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know, so I’ve stopped that tracking.

I use the stats first for seeing if I'm improving, staying the same or getting worse, and only secondarily to dictate what I practice.

[mljones99]

Stats?  I don't even keep score 90% of the time.

But when I did I just kept track of score, fairways hit, greens hit, and number of putts.  didn't care about anything else and just put them into Excel.  Then I could manipulate them however I wanted.

[RickyBobby_PR]

I don’t track stats because I play a variety of courses with different layouts and there enough variables between them as well as golf in general that im not concerned about them. 
 

I trying to get back to a practice routine that is focused on block training where I focus on working on drill(s) related to a swing aspect im working on, another block for hitting shots to targets and a third for simulating playing a course

[Bob Jerabek]

I keep stats on Fairways, Greens, Putts, Sand saves, chip or pitch saves.  Change my practice each week to work on what is the weakest part or where I am losing shots.  Also look at greens missed L,R, S, Long.

[RickyBobby_PR]

4 minutes ago, Bob Jerabek said:

I keep stats on Fairways, Greens, Putts, Sand saves, chip or pitch saves.  Change my practice each week to work on what is the weakest part or where I am losing shots.  Also look at greens missed L,R, S, Long.

I always find tracking fairways hit interesting. If someone missEs the fairway by a few inches into the first cut it affects ones percentage but very rarely impacts ones ability to hit a green baring a bad shot. 
 

So if you have a week where you fairway hits went down but you missed a a few by a small distance how do you know what to work on to fix that? 

[THEZIPR23]

25 minutes ago, Bob Jerabek said:

I keep stats on Fairways, Greens, Putts, Sand saves, chip or pitch saves.  Change my practice each week to work on what is the weakest part or where I am losing shots.  Also look at greens missed L,R, S, Long.

When tracking those stats how do you know what to practice?

[RickyBobby_PR]

curious if anyone tracks number of shots from 100 or 125 and in as an example?

What about up and down stats and no this isn’t just for saving par.

[THEZIPR23]

23 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

curious if anyone tracks number of shots from 100 or 125 and in as an example?

What about up and down stats and no this isn’t just for saving par.

I'm guessing I am an outlier when it comes to this but I track everything. DECADE breaks it down in a couple of different ways. Here is an example of SG breakdown by approach distance. If it is inside 50 yards (I have seen 60 used too) it falls in to the short game breakdown. 

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

55 minutes ago, THEZIPR23 said:

I'm guessing I am an outlier when it comes to this but I track everything. DECADE breaks it down in a couple of different ways. Here is an example of SG breakdown by approach distance. If it is inside 50 yards (I have seen 60 used too) it falls in to the short game breakdown. 

 

That seems pretty detailed and would help develop a practice strategy if one were to focus on an area 

[ncwoz]

1 hour ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

curious if anyone tracks number of shots from 100 or 125 and in as an example?

What about up and down stats and no this isn’t just for saving par.

I do manually track up & down % from 30 yards out, doesn't matter if it's for birdie or triple, to get an idea of my scrambling ability.

[cnosil]

I'm guessing I am an outlier when it comes to this but I track everything. DECADE breaks it down in a couple of different ways. Here is an example of SG breakdown by approach distance. If it is inside 50 yards (I have seen 60 used too) it falls in to the short game breakdown. 

 

I don’t think you are an outlier. I see posts by lots of people that uses Arccos and other stat gathering platforms that enable some type of breakdown. Decade and some other platforms.

My issues; all personal:
1. I hate anything that requires interaction on the course. That includes shot editing or even writing down information to be collected later. If I am familiar with the course, I can recall most of the stat information.

2. I don’t like subscription based software. I prefer pay once and it is yours. I understand the subscription model for web based products since you are getting upgrades but that doesn’t mean I want to follow.

3. I have tried the spreadsheet based strokes gained approaches but lost interest due to how long it took to manually enter the info.

[THEZIPR23]

42 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

That seems pretty detailed and would help develop a practice strategy if one were to focus on an area 

I am a numbers guy so I just like the knowledge, however it does allow me to practice specifically what I am struggling with. 

[THEZIPR23]

5 minutes ago, cnosil said:

I don’t think you are an outlier. I see posts by lots of people that uses Arccos and other stat gathering platforms that enable some type of breakdown. Decade and some other platforms.

My issues; all personal:
1. I hate anything that requires interaction on the course. That includes shot editing or even writing down information to be collected later. If I am familiar with the course, I can recall most of the stat information.

2. I don’t like subscription based software. I prefer pay once and it is yours. I understand the subscription model for web based products since you are getting upgrades but that doesn’t mean I want to follow.

3. I have tried the spreadsheet based strokes gained approaches but lost interest due to how long it took to manually enter the info.

I can't fault you for any of that. I started with Arccos but I don't like how they calculate some of their SG. Also theirs is based off a scratch golfer's data compiled into their system. While it is good it is not great. 

I am working on a system with the good ole paper & pencil. Something that I can track as I am writing scores down. 

As far as the on course interaction I don't enjoy it either. I have gotten it down to just first putt distance and pin location on Arccos but it is annoying. 

[cnosil]

I am working on a system with the good ole paper & pencil. Something that I can track as I am writing scores down. 

I’d love to come up with some kind of shorthand notation that I could quickly jot down that gave me information that I could quickly enter when I got home.
I really want to know how many shots does it take me to get into the hole from various distances and what club I used. Basically strokes gained type information but not compared to other golfers. I want to know how “successful” I am with each club and from different distances.

[DiscipleofPenick]

I used to but then I said F it, get the ball in the hole.

Take Dead Aim

[CarlH]

I've kept various stats in the past for informational purposes on my play, but now I prefer to focus on my overall game and not spend much time fiddling with details.  I'm more interested in what I shoot than how many up/downs I have.  

[BMart519]

I use ShotScope, I picked this over Arccos because of lower cost, no subscription, and the ease to tag putts and pin locations with the watch to provide detailed putting and proximity stats. It doesn't break down Strokes Gained by area which is the only downside, but there is enough data to identify weaknesses. In my case I identified my biggest weakness is each area of my game from the data then developed a practice plan around it:

Putting - too many 3 putts FIX: ladder drill, lagging to targets
Short Game - improve up/down% FIX: get SW to match LW, develop wedge matrix from 20-80 yards in 10 yard increments. Miss greens in appropriate areas instead of automatically going for the green from 180+
Approach - major drops in proximity to pin at 90, 130 yards FIX: course manage to these distances, focus on mid irons
Driver - left miss (pulls/hooks) resulted in losing 0.5 strokes per hole compared to right miss (slice). FIX: extra driver focus, practice elements to lock-in a fade shape. Heavier driver shaft to slow hands. Implemented strength routine with target of 10 yard distance gain.

[analyticandrew]

I just started using DECADE this week. I’ve already gone through all of the month one videos, and I plan to rewatch them weekly if I have the time. 
 

I had a brief range session today and was working on two things:

1. Alignment: understanding that if my target for a 6 iron was the 175 marker, then I truly need to pick my spot to the right (I play a draw) of that and then swing. For years I would assume a “straight” spot and not truly commit. 
2. Consistency in routine: I don’t have one when I’m on the course. So for today I was practicing speaking my routine out loud for every single ball I hit. I was working on my turn so my routine was: “pick your spot, walk up to the ball, club down, check my spot, feet wide, check my spot, turn...” then boom I’d hit it. 

I had one of if not THE best range sessions of my life by making it much more focused. I’m looking forward to getting back out there for more. 
 

Any of you DECADE users, I’d love to chat. I’m in the foundations app now but would love to see/understand the value of Elite as I continue to progress. 

[ncwoz]

2 hours ago, analyticandrew said:

I just started using DECADE this week. I’ve already gone through all of the month one videos, and I plan to rewatch them weekly if I have the time. 
 

I had a brief range session today and was working on two things:

1. Alignment: understanding that if my target for a 6 iron was the 175 marker, then I truly need to pick my spot to the right (I play a draw) of that and then swing. For years I would assume a “straight” spot and not truly commit. 
2. Consistency in routine: I don’t have one when I’m on the course. So for today I was practicing speaking my routine out loud for every single ball I hit. I was working on my turn so my routine was: “pick your spot, walk up to the ball, club down, check my spot, feet wide, check my spot, turn...” then boom I’d hit it. 

I had one of if not THE best range sessions of my life by making it much more focused. I’m looking forward to getting back out there for more. 
 

Any of you DECADE users, I’d love to chat. I’m in the foundations app now but would love to see/understand the value of Elite as I continue to progress. 

That sounds like a really great system! Definitely need to be committed to the time it takes to implement.