Club head speed

Is this thread basically just disputing if Strokes Gained is real or not?

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

Sorry have you got that wrong way around ? (most will get it closer from 80 yards ?) v 120 yards ?

Some people can have speed without it being bashed. And we are talking in general - that you need reasonable speed to get to a low handicaps.

We are only talking about amateur golfers here - but you will find it hard to find low player (say 5 or under) - who can not get the driver well past 250 yards - and in reality most can get it above 275 +

You seem to think all these guys are in the rough and if they are more - so what - There is a first cut - trees , there are very few courses that it is a lost ball and if it is - there will be a different strategy - you don't leave your brain at home - you hit a 230 yard rescue or whatever.

I play with lads who get it well past 270 and will hit most fairways - and certainly as many or more versus the higher handicap lads.

The closer you are to the hole - the closer the ball gets - all the stats show that.

You are saying that you can not hit a club from 80 yards. That is not really relevant to the overall concept.

Yes, i got the two mixed up obviously....

I get everything you're saying but i'm not sure my point is being understood so let me try again, one last time.....

The post said that most people will get it closer from 80 yds than 120 yds...it is important to remember that it was this point that sparked my train of thought..i didn't dispute this (though probably not true for me as i explained when he mentioned the madie upy stat of 99.9999% or whatever...thats the only reason i mentioned my uselessness from that kind of distance) and agree with that for the majority of decent golfers.....

my point was (and apologies if i'm dragging the ar$e out of it) that for the benefit to your overall game are the gains over time in the shorter putts (bearing in mind you might only hole an extra putt from the closer range every 5 holes compared to the longer range) better than any losses in going with driver to gain those extra 40 yds in the example? Remember the context of this discussion is if it is worth squeezing the extra distance at the expense of distance for the average amature.

If you understand probability and stats from the LC, let me try using a worked hypothetical example as follows. Remembering from school, for a sequence of event to occur you multiply the probabilities together:

Little Johnny wants to decide whether to hit driver and leave himself 80 yds or hit a hydrid and leave 120 yds and give himself the best chance of a par. He's conflicted because there's water on the left and his usual miss with the driver is a hook.....

Johnny's stats tell him the following:
At full tilt, wth driver he has a 40% chance of hitting the fairway. From the fairway from 80 yds he has an 80% chance of getting it to 15ft which is his average putt from that range....from 15ft he has a 90% chance of 2 putting. So the probability of securing a 4 by hitting fairway and green and 2 putting is about 29%.

With his 3 hybrid (his favourite club to tee off with) he has a 75% chance of hitting the fairway. From the fairway from 120 yds though he has a 70% chance of getting it to 20 ft which would be his average putt from that distance out when he hits the green. From 20 ft, he has an 85% chance of 2 putting. So in this case his probability of making par by the same route with a shorter club is actually 44%.

So for the above simple scenario and made up figures, statistically he has a significantly better chance of making a conventional par with the shorter club than a driver so bearing in mind the risk of water on the left, even though he hits it closer from 80 yds than 120 yds, the smarter play would be to take hybrid.......as mentioned by someone, if you dialled it back and pushed out the approaches to say 140 and 180 yds approaches, the figures would weight heavily in favour of driver so then you have to factor in the risk of the drive for a miss? rough or OB? Might still make sense to reduce risk depending on whether you're chasing a score or protecting a score.....complex

Looking at it another way, if you played the hole a hundred times with driver, you might have 10 less putts from the closer distance, but you might go OB and have to hit provos on 10 occasions which would cost you 20 shots so even though you're hitting closer when you do hit the fairway with the longer club, the penalty of a bad miss trying to get that extra length outweighs the odd extra putt you might make from the closer range...

All of the above is less relevant to elite players even at amature level as misses don't tend to be as bad as for a mid/high handicapper. With the above statistical example, all i'm trying to do is illustrate how for an average golfer who has to weigh up risk maybe more than a serious golfer, its not a simple case of i can get it closer to the hole the shorter my approach and this would be a no brainer if we could just walk up the fairway and drop it where we like. But what is the risk is getting it that far.......

As i've said loads of times, its a complex argument the distance versus accuracy one. Easy enough to argue both cases but ultimately its down to the individual as to what gives them confidence. Golf is as much in the head as anything else.

A personal example on my home course. Short par 5 dog leg left, OB all on the left, reachable in 2. Usually would nail the drive and leave 210/220 so i'd usually go for it....always used to make a balls of it and even though its a high index, it was my worst performing hole. So decided to take the indecision out of it and hit long iron off tee, 9 iron and then full lob wedge. Next time out, stress free par. I'll work on my long approaches but until i get the confidence, accuracy over distance all day long due to the risk of OB.

I find this thread interesting and is close to my heart in terms of how i think about the game so if my long posts are boring people or throwing this off, then apologies....i've pretty much exhausted my opinions anyway and if people don't get or understand what is just an opinion or outlook on the game then fair enough....others can share theirs...

ShivasIrons wrote: »

The easiest examples to show for all those who think that accuracy matters more then distance is to look at the difference between LPGA and PGA Tour players, the ladies are much more accurate, the average driver speed on the LPGA is 93/94 mph, it's 113/114 mph on the PGA Tour, not one LPGA tour player would even come close to keeping a card on the PGA tour, in fact they would do well to make a cut.


It's roughly 2.4 yards distance per mph, so 20 mph difference in the average speeds would be up to 48 yards. This 48 yards will equate to about 4-5 shots per round difference.


Distance trumps accuracy, 25 yard distance gains mean a big jump in performance. For the OP with his 5 iron and anyone else looking to get better, learn to swing the club faster, especially now when there is no golf.

Again, you just need to be accurate enough for it not to be a problem.

Distance without enough accuracy isn't useful, if it was then all the long drive guys would be on tour, and winning.

monkeybutter wrote: »

the example was a 280 person who wasn't accurate versus someone at 200 who was and wold have a few benders, they would easily give back the shots



if you change it to someone who is 280 and accurate then of course they would win if they have the same short game


if you knock it into the trees you might not get a shot at the green at all, the odds are you won't



thats the point, you will in the fairway



you need to be more accurate the longer you go to stay out of trouble

This is at the root of previous comments i've made on the subject. For your average club golfer, its not a simple case of extra length = good. It has to come with a corresponding increase in accuracy or else misses become worse....semi turns into heavier rough and rough turns into lost balls that bit more often....pros or low handicapp golfers get away with this because they have the club head speed and skill to deal with the rough better, plus they tend not to be that wild that often anyway....

Probably the easiest way to gain yardage without doing anything on accuracy is by upgrading equipment.......imagine trying to hit an old TM burner compared to the new SIM! The equipment itself will provide the increased forgiveness/accuracy with corresponding distance especially if fitted....

monkeybutter wrote: »

the example was a 280 person who wasn't accurate versus someone at 200 who was and wold have a few benders, they would easily give back the shots



if you change it to someone who is 280 and accurate then of course they would win if they have the same short game


if you knock it into the trees you might not get a shot at the green at all, the odds are you won't



thats the point, you will in the fairway



you need to be more accurate the longer you go to stay out of trouble

What you're failing to realise is how much easier it is from 25 yards closer to the hole never mind 80 yards, you're also failing to realise that the inaccurate driver isn't always inaccurate with every shot and the shots that are off line aren't always in trouble either and also that the hypothetical 200 yard golfer who is the fairway all the time doesn't exist either, they will also be in trouble on occasion.


For the tree example, yes you mightn't have a clear shot to the green but will be able to hit out and they then are in the same situation as the 200 yard golfer who won't be able to hit any green in regulation on a hole over 400 yards.


The fact the extra distance is better for golfers of all levels is indisputable, there is overwhelming evidence to support this argument, the earlier mentioned Strokes Gained from Mark Broadie, Scott Fawcett and Decade, Rich Hunt, Stuart Leong and more all have data to back up this fact.


There is no evidence to show that shorter and straighter is better, by shorter I mean 20 yards shorter and more. Anyone arguing against the fact that longer is better use individual examples of what about this hole with trouble at that distance and never look at the overall picture.


Time to open your minds and start looking at overall pictures.

The stats aren't biased by professionals they are recorded by millions of golfers of all hcap ability all around the world

GreeBo wrote: »

If you are long enough & accurate enough, then improving either will make you a better golfer.

The real argument is, assuming you are currently accurate enough and long enough, will improving your accuracy by 10% or your distance by 10% improve your scores more.

Given that neither will improve your scores by 10% and there are certainly diminishing returns for distance, but not for accuracy I think its a pretty tough argument to win decisively either way.

All the stats are biased by being both professionals and also by there being so many variables (the player, the course, the greens etc etc)

If you did it with a robot then accuracy would certainly win over distance IMO.

The stats are collected for all levels of golfers

ShivasIrons wrote: »

The stats are collected for all levels of golfers

Ok.....?

redzerdrog wrote: »

I doesn't need to be related what so ever. Again 99.9999% of golfers will shoot lower scores from 30ft than 44ft

Will they? Can you link to the stats?

i would say the stats would show the same number of 2 putts and 3 putts from those two distance distances tbh.

redzerdrog wrote: »

Where did I say that?

Here!

redzerdrog wrote:

I am a very poor 14 hcap golfer. I average 254 yards with my driver and lose a fair share of balls in hazards, trees oobs ect.

Regardless of course if you let me add 26yards distance to every one of my drives I would hammer the the 10 hcap golfer that averages 200 in middle of fairway everytime.

YOu said that if we gave you 26yards you would hammer the 10 handicap *everytime*.
He plays off ten, to beat him everytime you would have to play to at least 10, ergo you would drop 4 shots from your current handicap.


/edit, typo in my original post, clearly I meant 4 shots

etxp wrote: »

Its distance from the hole i think isnt it? does it also take into account FIR GIR etc?

its simplistic, but proximity and lie are the two main for drives, sao fairway, rough, heavy rough,trees etc, doesn't take into account being blocked out etc




putts I think are just distance based


I think that Greebo was referring to strokes gained as that was the stat mentioned


where you are compared against PGA tour players


I presume shiva is talking about the likes of shotscope data

GreeBo wrote: »

Will they? Can you link to the stats?

i would say the stats would show the same number of 2 putts and 3 putts from those two distance distances tbh.

This is the problem, you say 'I would say the stats', which is an opinion on what stats might be not what they actually are, why not find out what they are?


How can anyone think that putting from 30 feet as opposed to 44 feet will not lead to lower scores?

con___manx1 wrote: »

you would be lucky to find a ball in the rough on some golf courses. your course must be different to mine.

+1

The low handicap golfer hammers the high handicap golfer the majority of the time, regardless of the distance either of them hit the ball!

ShivasIrons wrote: »

This is the problem, you say 'I would say the stats', which is an opinion on what stats might be not what they actually are, why not find out what they are?


How can anyone think that putting from 30 feet as opposed to 44 feet will not lead to lower scores?

Obviously if all else were equal you'd probably have less putts if you were hitting every putt from 30 foot instead of 44 but as shown in the stats reference there's only a difference in 13% or so in the amount of 3 putts so that possibly translates to something like 2 extra putts.....however, and this is where the bigger picture for me comes in, as a handicapp golfer, if i have to hit driver every single time in order to get the distance advantage to play an iron short enough to get it to 30ft, then i'm fairly sure i'm gonna get into some kind of trouble in maybe a third of those drives which could result in more than 2 extra shots lost....when the consequences of big miss with a driver are a lot higher for a mid handicapp amature it means there's more consideration of distance v accuracy....high risk miss, maybe go with accuracy and play the percentages....low risk miss and no harm going for it.....risk reward....no clear winner for either IMO......there are lots of variables at play when it comes to the overall score....its well know by know that the big hitters are performing best on tour but that doesnt necessarily mean that its a clear cut case for say a decent mid handicapper because of lot of factors, including club head speed....

monkeybutter wrote: »

its almost as if its based on statistics

:P

True, but this is also true.



However causation vs correlation is always going to rear its ugly head.

Whats clear to me is that the lower your handicap the more you can benefit from distance, but distance wont necessarily lower your handicap.