every top player knows the importance of putting and the short game. full shots on average comprise significantly less than 50% of most golfers rounds.[*]
Yep… Bubba hit his drive 390 yds on the last hole of the WM tournament and came up with a beautiful par… a 80 yd sw to 20ft and a putt that came up 5ft short and a final putt that barely scraped in for par… yep our modern day superman hero books will be written golf Bubba’s way fantastic now almost 10yrs of Professional golf with 0 majors a fantastic 5 cuts in a row made wow . Wait Wait he has won 3 times a pure ballstriker in the modern era with a pretty pink 30 g shaft yep…2 top tens in majors since 04 the ticker tape parade is in N.Y at 10 Saturday. Yep #1 IN DRIVER DISTANCE #188 IN DRIVING ACCURACY and dont forget 68th in GIR since 9 out 10 times heas a 7 iron or less superior ballstriker what have we missed oh my. … and 49th in GIR from the rough lets remember its 5 inches of rough out there… Are you kidding me!!!
My father told me its hard to be stupid even a little kid wants to learn if Bubba is the modern day version of great ballstriking golf will be extinct in 10yrs.
I have posted a Jack Nicklaus quote on this site before in the past about how relatively insignificant he believed the short game to be considering how many greens he’d hit in a round. I don’t remember it word for word but he said something along the lines of not practicing chipping at all. I guess we might not have the same definition of a top player, but I think Nicklaus has pretty good golf credentials.
On tour, if we say that the average number of putts per round is 30, which should be pretty close, and the scoring average is 71.5, putts are less than half to begin with. Considering how many of those are inside of 4 feet, putting isn’t as significant as you might think it is in terms of how many strokes putting accounts for.
For amateurs especially, more shots are wasted tee to green than on the green. Would the average 15 handicapper shoot a lower score if:
They were paired with a Tour pro who hit all the drives and approaches, while the 15 handicapper hit the chips and putts?
Or they were paired with a Tour pro who hit all the chips and putts, but the 15 handicapper was responsible for all of the drives and approaches?
Popular golf culture tends to really overstate the significance of putting. You have to putt well to win, but your above statement isn’t accurate.
For those who want to read the Nicklaus quote, here is the link to the thread with documentation of the original source: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=2113&p=27297#p27297
You mentioned that you believe Abs is a superior way to play and would be rewarded on tour even today. Would you say Furyk is the best example on Tour today of an Abs style release? Or are there any others players you would put in the category of having an ABS style release?
Out of interest, in what position would your 76 have left you if you’d shot it in q school?
no i’m not comparing my round to q school. i’ve never played competitive golf, but i grew up with a couple of guys who kicked it around on nationwide and mini tours. they are talented, i am not. i was comparing courses and reiterating zachasus point that some pga events are held on courses that play much easier than the older, classic courses.
my point being that the q school course has a reputation around town as being tough/challenging, worthy of the pga tour.
i was told to bring my “a” game. it was designed for the sole purpose of holding a pga event. it was designed to fit the eye of a guy who can bomb it.
it was designed by a former tour player. it was designed in the titanium age. it was designed to challenge the greatest
golfers in the world. big fairways designed for a straight ball, big flat greens designed for non precise iron play. it’s course rating 74/75
(i think) from the tees i played. it is not a very hard golf course.
i play 90% of my golf on hardscrabble city courses that most people would not be caught dead on, but these courses are old and tight with trees, bad or no grass and greens that run 4-6 on the stimpmeter. they were old country clubs, designed in the persimmon age. the course ratings range from 68 to 70 from the tips . they now cater to hacks, begginers and generally bad golfers. these courses, in my opinion, play tougher than the q-school course. true doglegs, tiny sloping greens, tight fairways. part of the challenge is from dicey turf conditions, but part of it is they were designed with equipment and balls that curve in mind. they weren’t afraid to make a foursome walk single file down the fairway.
although i am in no way making score comparisons but since you asked how a 76 would have gone in q-school, i’m sure 4 or them would been dead last but rich beem shot a 75 in the last round to just qualify and move on to final stage.
I don’t really think there are any guys on tour now that are the perfect ABS model, but there are plenty of guys that do aspects of it. I think that if equipment hadn’t gotten so light and long, there would be a lot more ABS-looking moves out there. One of the things that I was amazed to see at the WM Phoenix Open was how little post-impact pivot thrust (abs module 3) there was going on. Everyone was just dumping the power package through impact. I think the drivers are so light that it’s the more instinctive way to swing them. I’m in the process of setting up my modern driver at about 44 inches and 14 ounces, and it’ll be interesting to see how that goes and how that changes things.
Maybe not on the regular tour. But, you wanna see somebody who executes ABS principles about as perfect as can be…Peter Senior is you’re guy. There is nobody else out there on any tour that in my opinion has just about every ABS principle in his swing, and executes it about as perfect as can be. The more I understand about the ABS style swing, the more I come to see Peter’s swing as damn near perfect…and he has the legacy to prove the validity of this method. There is NOBODY out there who pressures the shaft from start to finish like Senior. Nick Price would be next on my list, his mod 1,2,3 and 4 were just ridiculously good. I watched both of these guys from just a few feet away at the At&T a few months ago, and the sound coming off the face of the club was just ridiculous.
The Champions Tour is full of swings to watch for. Senior is definitely a fantastic example. Anyone who hasn’t seen it should see the video on the Gotham Golf Blog in which Lag analyzes Peter Senior’s swing.
Are you talking about Senior’s 80s swing or current? Because i saw this current swing and he has a TON of clubface roll postimpact, clubface is pointing towards the ground when it comes out above his left shoulder. It seems that a guy like Mickelson even has less clubface roll than Senior post impact. youtube.com/watch?v=utnhTrYphnA Ive always been a huge fan of Nick Price’s release.
As Lag has alluded to in the past, his post impact move has deteriorated just a bit compared to his swing of the 80’s and 90’s…which most of us here would blame on gear that is way too light, but the proper intentions are still there in spades.
I see an obvious difference in intentions…ones maintaining some wrist cock and actively pressuring the shaft upwards, one is…well…obviously not holding wrist-cock and/or pressuring anything.
Sergio is an excellent example of a modern day hitter with today’s gear.
Beautiful positions at impact and excellent rotation post impact, keeping that face squared with no roll. This is why he is one of the best ball strikers on tour.
Great stuff Andy on pointing out Peter Senior. He has great ABS intentions as well, especially his irons.
Yeah i definitely see what youre saying with the different intentions, but i was just surprised to see that much clubface roll post impact from Senior, ive never seen anything like that from Hogan or Furyk before.
Perhaps my phrasing was wrong. This will be easier to understand. You will hit more putts than any other type of shot during a typical round of golf.
For the vast majority of handicap golfers the key to reducing their scores lies within the short game.
If you had two equally matched handicap golfers and two equally matched pros and set up a game where one team used the pro’s long game and amateurs short game whilst the other used the amateurs long game and pro’s short game my money would be on team 2 and my feeling is they would lap team 1 by a distance.
Styles, I think it’s very amusing how you choose to forget one aspect of the argument when you move to defend another, as you counterattack modern game criticism. Here you completely disregard the effect the modern game setting has on this situation. You would be downright foolish (which, despite your poor argumentation, I want to believe you are not) to let the amateur handle the long game IF the equipment used and the course conditions would be set up to actually punish poor swings, thus reward consistent, pure ballstriking. I think that’s how golf should always be when you want to find out who the best is. Forgiving gear or course conditions in competition is a twisted idea to begin with. Why would you want to forgive errors in a game that’s supposed to punish for them? If you want to find out who hits it the furthest, have a long-driving contest on the range…or if you’re only interested in putting go play miniature golf instead. I guarantee you won’t have to stand in knee-deep rough after a lousy drive and perhaps your ego will take it a bit better.
Look at it this way if you prefer - A pro’s short game is so much better than an amateurs short game that it would outweigh the disadvantages of the amateurs long game.
It would be a very interesting experiment but I have read it suggested before by rotella in “golf is not a game of perfect”.
I find it had to believe anyone would disagree about the importance of the short game and putting.
It would totally depend on the ability of the amatuer as to whether or not it would even be close. It’s a fair assumption that in the example I gave of the 15 handicapper, they will miss more than half of the greens in regulation. The pro wouldn’t convert every single one of those even if they had an opportunity, but at least a few times, the amatuer will put the pro in a position to try and save bogey.
On the other hand, a pro would hit more than half of the greens, with a few good birdie looks. They’d reach a few of the par 5’s in 2, and not hit tee shots that are so bad they’d be unable to at least make par a possibility. Unless you think the amatuer would three putt more than a couple times in the round, I don’t have any idea where you could think the other team would “lap them by a distance”.
The vast majority of handicap golfers could definitely improve if they had the short game and putting of a pro, but it wouldn’t be as much improvement as they could make by improving their long game. Much more improvement can be made by improving ballstriking.
Mark Broadie, a professor at Columbia University, seems to agree:
Styles, Go have a Guinness mate…you need to chill out
I found it interesting in the file you attached about aimpoint the notation that a tournament winner ONLY hits 2.5 more greens in reg per day than last money…
2.5 per day equals 10 more per week which equals 10 more birdie putt opportunities
which also equates 10 less chances of having to salvage par with an up and down
Statistically speaking say our 10 more greens player converts 50% of those 10 extra opportunities…well he’s 5 shots up already
And then say that out 10 less greens in reg player only converts 50% of the up and downs he now has to make just to stay level with 10 more green player- ooooopps there’s another 5 strokes gone
It’s all like trying to say my car goes faster than yours because the engine sounds louder…
Putting- chipping is yes a huge part of the game…but if you can’t hit it worth a crap and are putting for pars or bogeys or worse what does it matter…you won’t be winning a silver salt shaker or a silver platter or a silver auld mug
In 1998 I played The Greg Norman International at The Australian Golf Club…I hit 63 of 72 greens and did not putt well…I shot 8 under and finished 8th only about 5 shots from Olazabal who won. I putted awful…but only relative to how well I played.
The following week I went to Melbourne for The Masters …I hit 64 out of 72 greens and putted better…I shot 24 under and won by 5 strokes.
Playing that well tee to green meant stress free golf…I didn’t have to putt well to perform well…I didn’t have to scramble much at all… I had zero mental stress
Putting certainly does and can win you tournaments…no denying…BUT if you don’t get to the green in the first place then it is all for nought or should be
Ball striking is done on 98% of the expense of land of a golf course…Putting chipping is done on 2% of the landscape of a course…ball striking should be the ultimate reward for golfing excellence… You shouldn’t be allowed to hit it all over the map and have less than 50% fairways and less than 50% greens in reg as Anthony Kim did in Houston last year to win the event…he is holding up a cheque on Sunday when he should have been slamming his trunk and be at home hanging his underwear on his clothesline washing it for the next week
If tour courses put more premium on accuracy and on actually hitting greens in regulation the putting stats wouldn’t read as such as that aimpoint ‘biased’ production is trying to show.
Grow some rough… pinch the fairways in at certain spots and STOP watering the crap out of the course to make it green for television. Let the fairways run a little…let the greens get firm so that only better struck approaches from the right positions get accepted and rewarded.
So bored right now! Should be out playing or practicing.
Welp, i guess i could do more module training, can never get enough of that.
Putting and chipping iMO is alot easier to improve on than the actual ball striking of your irons and woods.
I am willing to sacrifice a little short game to nail a 7 or 6 iron shot 3-4 feet from the hole. It takes more skill do that than to putt/chip closer to the hole.
Hugo you need to reread my post. I highlighted the importance of hitting greens. Not sure how you missed that.
My post showed that driving distance is almost negligible in winning and driving accuracy is of limited importance. gir, putting and scrambling is where the job gets done. Your anecdote reinforces what I said so thanks for making my argument for me!
When you played that event and missed only a few greens but lost by 8 did you go out and work harder to try and hit every green? Really? Spending time on green reading and putting didn’t cross your mind?