That makes sense to me. Always play to the strengths and know your successes from all different distances.

I’ll figure out exactly which part of my game is the most reliable and hit to that!

Dan

Those stats were created by the shotbyshot software and then some through the golfshot app. I think the ones you were looking at were shotbyshot.

Thanks!

Dan

Great to hear from you and congrats on the new found level of success. there are some similarities in the golfing world and taking some time to strictly work on the physical or mental body is pretty similar to what you mention. My new plan is to strengthen my golfing mind as well as my shot process through a round and then take that to competition. I have faith after this past weekend that it’s going to be a huge step.

Have a great one,

Dan

great reading your recount and I wish you the best of luck to right that ship and to get back on the right track. Golf really is a game of fits and starts.

I had a question regarding your stats collection: what software do you use? Do you use an app? If so is it custom or freely available? I don’t know of any apps that allow you to capture stats such as GIRs based on proximity to the hole. Thanks in advance for your inputs.

Thanks for the response and the continued conversation!

David Brooks’ 500 words don’t really say anything, lets be honest; he is a just a pundit. To say things like data isn’t good at socially interactions is silly. Of course it isn’t, we don’t fully understand how to measure social interactions. Just because we don’t how to measure social interactions doesn’t mean data is bad at it.

‘Think about what you are saying. If humans are astoundingly bad at assigning causation between two events, then how astoundingly bad do you think they are at INTERPRETING data’

We are! But here we are only looking at correlation not causation. Correlation between distance(& lie) vs strokes to hole out. I’m curious as to when exactly I interpreted any of the data? I never gave any reasons for why the data is what it is. These are literally the summation strokes taken to hole from various lies and distances divided by the number of shots taken from those lies and distances. That is not interpretation. That just IS. Again, if your argument is about the validity of the data then I think we have an interesting conversation on our hands. I just don’t understand what opinions and biases I’m bringing to this data.

‘But my point is that it is not the only way!’

I agree it is not the only way…I don’t know where or when I said that it was. I remember saying that bad statistics were overrated, and; I would venture to guess that people who have found that statistics don’t help them understand where their game is at are using bad statistics(greens in regulation, putts per round, driving distance and accuracy, sand saves and scrambling %). Every one of these stats, except driving distance, depend on the shot before it. Also, does a green in regulation mean as much on a 500 yard hole as it does on a 300 yard hole. On a 500 sq ft green as a 2500 sq ft green…

With strokes gained you can compare how good your tee shot was to your 150 yard 7 iron; Your missed 1 footer to your tee shot OB.

‘If you really wanted to be the best golfer, wouldn’t you copy the swing of the best GIR% player, the putting stroke of the best strokes gained putter, the chipping technique of the best scrambling player, etc?’

We aren’t talk about swing technique whatsoever. I never pretended to have some golf tip to help someone’s putting stroke. All I am saying is you can help yourself..help yourself by looking at your results. I would suggest do what gains you the most; or in probably all of our cases, loses you the least amount of strokes per round.

‘How can Bubba win two Masters with his statistically unorthodox swing?’

Again, sound like a broken record, but I never once mentioned or ever know what it means to have a statistically unorthodox swing. I’m not slowing down swing footage and looking at angles here.

‘How about another example about how statistics fall short? If you really wanted to be the best golfer, wouldn’t you copy the swing of the best GIR% player, the putting stroke of the best strokes gained putter, the chipping technique of the best scrambling player, etc? Any golfer knows this would be disastrous to their game’

I don’t even understand what this means; nor do I think any golfer knows what this means enough to know it would be disastrous to their game.

‘Science and statistics look for logically unifying conclusions. Sorry pal, golf is not a game of science, math, statistics, or perfect. They will never tell more than part of the story, and should never be revered as more than so.’

Why can’t golf be looked at logically? It feels to me that you want to make golf skill some magical jackalop that cannot be explained. What is the other part of the story? People like to use vague concepts like confidence, trust and patience to describe what it takes to be a good golfer. What does this even mean?

All in all, Andrew, I feel like you are continually moving the goal posts. We started this conversation to give Dan suggestions on how to improve; and if Dan uses this system and it doesn’t work out for him, what does it hurt? We are just looking a summary his rounds to see how he stacks up vs a tour average player.

Good luck all,
Paul