Evaluating One's Performance

[hackzaw]

I've been keeping track of the typical stats like Fairways, GIR, Putts, but I don't find that these stats always reflect how a was "striking" the ball. Sure, they indicate the overall performance and a missed GIR is a missed GIR.... but I don't think it necessarily tells someone how well or poorly they struck the ball. Consider an approach into the green, and you put a crappy swing on it and thin a shot, but it still lands on the green, and you’ll get your GIR. Or consider a poorly struck drive that just happens to go straight and find the fairway, not because of a good swing, but just lucky it didn’t turn out worse, and you get your FIR.

Or what about a par 4 and drive lands behind a tree forcing a chip out. Now you’re hitting your 3^rd shot into the green, and no matter how beautiful you hit your shot, you’re still not getting a GIR.

Or what about a bomber of a drive perfectly positioned but just 6” into the rough… no FIR.

I was considering a different way of evaluating performance. I thought of assigning either a –D or +D to Drives, -F or +F for Fairway shots, -A or +A for Approaches, and –C or +C for chips. I suppose you could do –P and +P for putts if you want to keep track of putts well hit or not.

For each hole, you’d evaluate how well you though you Drove it, hit a Fairway shot if applicable, hit your Approach, or hit a Chip. Poor shots get the minus designation, excellent shots get a + designation and so-so shots don’t get anything remaining neutral.

At the end of the round, a tally of the Drives, Fairways, Approaches and Chips will give a clearer picture of how well you played the ball. Perhaps you could divided the number by the number of driving holes, 18 approach shots, etc, to come up with a Driving %, Fairway %, Approach %, and Chipping %.

I’ve read Peltz’s short game bible, and he did something that I’d suggest is similar. I think it was called the Percentage Error Ratio (PER). Basically it worked like this. If you had a 200 yard shot into a green, and you missed by 20 yards, your PER = 20/200 = 10% error. If you had a 150 yard approach and missed by 20 yards, your PER = 20/150 = 13.3%. Basically, Peltz identified that the lowest short game PER won the most money on tour. The lowest iron game PER was Lee Travino, but he couldn’t putt (everything’s relative). The best putters also didn’t win all the money. The only correlation to money win and PER was the short game.

I’d like to hear comments on my system and how you evaluate your game. Thanks.

[jvincent]

While I don't keep numeric stats, I do this kind of analysis after every round. Some days I will have hit the ball really solidly and not scored well for any of a number of reasons. Other days I will hit the ball generally poorly and somehow manage a scrape out a decent score. I'm more worried about the second scenario because hitting the ball poorly on an ongoing basis is only trouble.

I like your idea of tracking each aspect. Keeping it simple with +/- is a good idea but it could "compress" your rating. If you assigned each shot a rating out of 10 or 100 kind of like Pelz I think you'd get a better idea. I don't really agree with Pelz's numeric value since there may be other factors. I'd just rate each shot on how it was executed related to the quality of the stroke.

Take a good example from my last round. I had a shot to an elevated green, into the wind. I calculated it as a 3 club wind and hit what I thought was an absolutely perfect 7 iron dead at the flag. In the air I would have rated the stroke a 10/10. Unfortunately the wind was gusting and it knocked my shot into the bunker. Shot result, 3/10.

Did I hit a bad shot? No. Did I mis-judge the wind? Yes.

[hackzaw]

Same thing for me, Saturday, only not as extreme. I hit the most beautiful 8 iron into a 150 yard pin gaurded bya bunker with some headwind. In the air, everybody in the group was saying "that's all over it!!!". It was not just short of the, it was short of the bunker!! Did I hit a good shot....I think so....of course it didn't finish as well.

I'm hard on myself because my GIR's are always so low, but I don't think my iron striking is all that bad.

I'm going to think about your idea of a rating system like 10 to 100.

PS - Jvincent - TWGT rules!!! Ditch those wedges and get some CX Micros!

[jvincent]

For situations like misjudging the wind you could add a "shot management" category to rate.

Regarding the CX-micros, they were on the list for this year but I really like my Snake Eyes wedges, which are also TW designs so I decided to pass for this season. For now anyway.

[The Shtick]

So hackzaw, where do you write all of this? Sounds like one really messed up scorecard to me!

Personally, I don't have any evaluation system. I just know that I have to work on everything!