The Most Important Part of Golf Is??

[BC MIST]

A poster on another forum made a statistical analysis of the various aspects of the Tour pros golf games, as it relates to money earned in 2004. He used a correlation coefficient, probably Spearman's, to discover what part of the game is more important.

Following are the headings that he used minus one.

For the fun of it, just rank each of the following in their order of importance, or pick out the most and least important.

1. Ball striking - total driving + GIR
2. Driving distance
3. Driving Accuracy
4. Events Played
5. GIR
6. Putts/GIR
7. Putts / round
8. Sand Saves
9. Scrambling - up and down percentage
10. Total Driving

I will post the actual results in a few days.

[Kilroy]

Putts/GIR
GIR
Putts / round
Ball striking - total driving + GIR
Total Driving
Driving Accuracy
Driving distance
Scrambling - up and down percentage
Sand Saves
Events Played

[LobWedge]

Most important - Scrambling
Least important - Driving Accuracy

[Weazl]

If I were to make a guess:
Putts/GIR
GIR
Putts / round
Ball striking - total driving + GIR
Scrambling - up and down percentage
Sand Saves
Total Driving
Driving Accuracy
Driving distance
Events Played

[NoBack]

Here are my choices.

1-GIR
2-Putts/GIR
3-Scrambling - up and down percentage
4-Sand Saves
5-Ball striking - total driving + GIR
6-Total Driving
7-Putts / round
8-Events Played
9-Driving Accuracy
10-Driving distance

[NoBack]

Most important - Scrambling
Least important - Driving Accuracy

Only problem with that is, you're only scrambling for par. GIR plus putts while GIR will give you the birdies.

[Kilroy]

Good thread. Interesting answers.

[jvincent]

Some of you may recall that there was a thread on this earlier in the year. I crunched some of the numbers and based on that, I'm going to make the following ranking.

These should be 1 and 2.

1. GIR
2. Putts / GIR

I'm going to guess that the others go in this order.

Putts / round
Ball striking - total driving + GIR
Scrambling - up and down percentage
Sand Saves
Total Driving
Driving Accuracy
Driving distance
Events Played

[fireice]

My guess would have to be:

Putts/GIR
GIR
Ball striking - total driving + GIR
Putts / round
Scrambling - up and down percentage
Sand Saves
Total Driving
Driving Accuracy
Driving distance
Events Played

[EDSGOLF]

Interesting thread indeed:

1. Putts/GIR
2. GIR
3. Driving Accuracy
4. Ball striking - total driving + GIR
5. Driving distance
6. Scrambling - up and down percentage
7. Sand Saves
8. Total Driving
9. Putts / round
10. Events Played

And if there was an 11 I would say your MIND.

[golfmania]

1. Putts/round
2. Putts/GIR
3. GIR
4. Scrambling
5 Ball Striking
6. Driving Accuracy
7. Total Driving.
8. Sand Saves
9. Driving Distance.
10. Events played.

[Started2k3]

Here is my ranking:

Putts/GIR
Putts / round
GIR
Ball striking - total driving + GIR
Scrambling - up and down percentage
Driving Accuracy
Sand Saves
Total Driving
Driving distance
Events Played

This is an interesting poll, because the repondants in this poll have a varying degree of skill level and years of experience (heterogeneous players). Whereas the PGA pros are very close to the same skill level (homogeneous players).

Another thing I find interesting is that although I placed putts and GIR at the top of the list, this is not what I want to work on. I am long off the tee (260-300 yds) so driving distance is low on the list, but this means that I need to have more driving accuracy in order to be able to achieve a GIR (hard to get a GIR if you are in the trees over the adjacent fairway).

Was there a poll last spring on what people will be working on to improve their game this year?

[el tigre]

The Most Important Part of Golf Is??

For tour pros:
1. GIR
2. Putts / GIR
3. Ball striking - total driving + GIR
4. Putts / round
5. Scrambling - up and down percentage
6. Total Driving
7. Driving Accuracy
8. Driving distance
9. Sand Saves
10. Events Played

For an amateur like me:
1. Availability of Tim Horton's coffee on the way to the course
2. Weather (the less of it, the better)
3. Obedience of equipment (listening ability of golf balls especially important)
4. Friendliness of playing partners (where applicable)
5. Attractiveness of scenery
6. Reliability of beverage cart (this would rank higher if I played in the afternoon)
7. Attractiveness of beverage cart girl (hey, I'm a guy)
8. How good a deal I got on the green fee (hey, I'm a guy of Scottish descent)
9. Ratio of balls found to balls lost (its that Scottish thing again)
10. What score I shoot

[LobWedge]

Only problem with that is, you're only scrambling for par. GIR plus putts while GIR will give you the birdies.

That's exactly my point Steve. Every golfer on the PGA Tour has the ability to make birdies, otherwise they wouldn't be there. The trick is not to lose ground and protect them when you miss the fairway or the green.

[NoBack]

That's exactly my point Steve. Every golfer on the PGA Tour has the ability to make birdies, otherwise they wouldn't be there. The trick is not to lose ground and protect them when you miss the fairway or the green.

I know what you mean. I'm just saying that if you want to make most birdies you gotta be on the green first then scrambling for pars to save those birdies.

[BC MIST]

Since there have been no further posts on this topic, here are the answers.

To those who may not understand the correlation numbers, if the correlation is perfect, the number will be 1. This means that the order the players finished on the money list is exactly the same orer they finished , for example in the Putts per GIR. If the opposite is true then the correlation index will be -1. A correlation of 0 means there is no correlation.

0.530694366 -- Putts/GIR
0.510970079 -- GIR
0.460500819 -- Scrambling(Up and Downs)
0.394491280 -- Ball Striking (total driving + gir)
0.289310386 -- Putts/round
0.245860444 -- Sand Saves
0.162775819 -- Total Driving
0.117141663 -- Driving Distance
0.081792684 -- Events Played
0.016725480 -- Driving Accuracy

It is obvious from the above that driving is relatively unimportant and the short game is paramount. Nothing earth shattering here.

This is where the idea for the post came from.
http:/forums.prospero.com/golfequip/messages/?start=Start+Reading+%3E%3E

[EDSGOLF]

Thanks for the results BCMist.....makes sense.....I thought maybe the last 2 would have been switched.

[mpare]

Since there have been no further posts on this topic, here are the answers.

To those who may not understand the correlation numbers, if the correlation is perfect, the number will be 1. This means that the order the players finished on the money list is exactly the same orer they finished , for example in the Putts per GIR. If the opposite is true then the correlation index will be -1. A correlation of 0 means there is no correlation.

0.530694366 -- Putts/GIR
0.510970079 -- GIR
0.460500819 -- Scrambling(Up and Downs)
0.394491280 -- Ball Striking (total driving + gir)
0.289310386 -- Putts/round
0.245860444 -- Sand Saves
0.162775819 -- Total Driving
0.117141663 -- Driving Distance
0.081792684 -- Events Played
0.016725480 -- Driving Accuracy

It is obvious from the above that driving is relatively unimportant and the short game is paramount. Nothing earth shattering here.

This is where the idea for the post came from.
http:/forums.prospero.com/golfequip/messages/?start=Start+Reading+%3E%3E

It would be interesting to see if the correlation was the same for major events. Intuitively, it would seem that driving accuracy - while not determinative given the importance of the short game - would play a much more significant role. This would especially be so where the rough is shin deep and the greens are rock hard. But, as I said, this is based solely on my intuition.

[caddyshackgolf]

Putts/GIR
GIR
Putts / round
Ball striking - total driving + GIR
Total Driving
Driving Accuracy
Driving distance
Scrambling - up and down percentage
Sand Saves
Events Played

Yeah I agree with Dan Kilbank