It’s been far too long. Yes, it’s been since June that I posted my last update on the blog and I apologize to my both my followers and anyone else that might be reading this one today. Fortunately, this crazy summer is now done and I can get back to getting myself and my game in shape for the 2018 season. After practically taking the entire season off, only managing to squeeze in 5 rounds at a championship distance course, this winter will serve as a bit of a rebuilding one. The good news is that my GolfPad GPS App data has me looking at a new practice routine for where my game needs it the most. What I mean by this is that I used to look at stats like Greens In Regulation and Fairways Hit to determine my practice routine. What I realized looking at my shot data is that looking at raw numbers only told me half the story. By looking again at the data that the App collects, I was able to find out what clubs in my bag I was missing with the most and that is where my practice needs to start.
This is the standard screen that I would look at for setting up my practice runs after a round. Looking at the image, I was hitting one out of three greens from outside my 8 iron range and two out of three from inside that range. Not terrible numbers, but I’d love to see that 68% be closer to 90% overall. I was also leaving myself about 25 feet for my first putt. Keep in mind, that’s an average, so for every 10 footer I left, there was a 40 footer on the other side of it to balance it out. My average number of putts after chips was also completely terrible as came up just about as short as my GIR number. Overall, it seemed like working the short game was going to pay off the most based on these numbers. Unfortunately, in this case, the numbers lied about what I needed to do the most.
This becomes very clear when you look at individual irons, in this case, my 3 iron. My average distance ranged from 210 in the winter to 222 in the summer (it’s down slightly in this graphic as I did not remove a punch shot from my last round). Extra roll out would account for some of this distance gain, but so would the fact that I used it off the tee on shorter par 4’s during the summer. So, 210 yards on the fly is a great number for a long iron. Between my driver and that 3 iron, there shouldn’t be much out there I can’t hit in two, right? Well, here’s where I looked at a new number for the first time – percentage of misses. These are shots that deviated from the “normal” by a certain percentage and are not counted as good shots. It could be a topped ball, or one that fanned off into the water, or even one that hit a tree. No matter how it failed, it didn’t reach the target that it was intended to. For my 3 iron, this number was an abysmal 44%. That means almost 1 out of ever 2 shots in to the green or at the fairway or even laying up, failed to find it’s target. It may have been by 10 yards or 100 yards, but it didn’t get me into the position that it was supposed to, period. My 5 iron matched that with the exact same percentage while my 4 iron was a solid 50% miss rate. This left me an approach percentage of 14% to 17% or about 1 out of 8 to 1 out of 6 greens from outside 200 yards.
The story changes inside 175 yards, where my 6, 7 and 8 irons dropped to well under 20%. This increased my approach percentages to 30%, 45% and 69% respectively. What this translates to is that I need to work on approach shots with those middle irons if I plan on playing longer courses. If you figure that the average par 4 hole on championship layouts is well over 400 yards and an average drive is going about 270 yards, it’s going to leave quite a few approach shots in that 150-180 yard range. This will be a key area to improve on if I plan on reaching even a club championship level of play next year. What is abundantly clear from the missed shot percentage is that my odds of hitting a green from 150-175 yards is about twice as good as it is from 175-200 yards out. Of course, moving inside of 150 yards, once again, things look much different.
My 9 iron becomes the go to club at 145 yards. The percentages of “missed shots” drops to 1 in 4 and my approach shots climb to 61% with my shorter iron in hand. This is practically duplicated with my pitching wedge at the 130 yard mark. This is the last of the actual “irons” that I carry that I hit into the green often, but both of these shorter clubs are playing reliably for me with a 75% accuracy percentage that will find the green 60-65% of the time. This number should probably get dialed up a bit more, like maybe to 70-75% on the 9 iron and 80-85% on the wedge, which is exactly why I’m starting to look at these two numbers a bit harder. If I hit a great drive on a 420 yard par 4 and still leave myself a 1 in 3 chance of missing the green, I’m not going to be racking up many birdies anytime soon. Worse than that, laying up on a long par 5 can yield the same situation. With the inaccuracies of my longer irons, playing short makes sense, but laying up to a perfect club only makes sense if that perfect club ends up being hit well.
Hitting an approach shot well is what golf is all about, I’m sure of it. I know that everyone says, “Drive for show, putt for dough,” but I’m not 100% sure that it’s an accurate statement. Driving is the easiest shot in golf today. Our drivers look more like those Fisher Price clubs we had as children and can be custom fit to even the most awkward swing. Putting, well, most of the average player’s putting success will be based on the conditions they face and how consistent they are. If every green rolls semi true and nearly the same speed, most golfers will stand a chance on putting well. If not, even the best putters will struggle. Sure, practice is good, but consistency in the greens is by far the most important thing for great putting. Where I think the real money in golf is, is the wedge game. You need to be 100% accurate from 100 yards in to really reap the benefits of scoring well. I think it’s been a reoccurring theme in my blog for quite some time – get dialed in with the wedges.
In 2017, my gap wedge was mishit 34% of the time from 120 yards in. Still I found the green 68% of the time. This is consistent with missing the green from 120 yards out 1 out of 3 times, just like my pitching wedge and slightly better than my 9 iron. Yet, my sand wedge dropped to a 15% mishit rate and found the green 3 out of 4 times. Finally, my lob wedge from 80 yards in found the green 9 out of 10 times. As good as these numbers sound, they should tier off a bit more gradually than they do in reality. With taking that into account, I will really begin pressing my 7 iron and under in my practice sessions to see if I can improve on my mishit percentages and, in turn, increase my GIR/Approach Shot percentage. Becoming stronger from inside 120 yards will keep my putting stats in check and hitting greens from 175 in will easily make my scores fall this fall. I’ll keep you posted on the progress here and on YouTube soon!
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