Everyone I have recommended DECADE to I tell them 2 strokes without changing anything, just picking different targets and committing to each shot. After that it will depend on the player.
Just be aware that if you do sign up for it, and use during the offseason a lot of the stuff seems super simple and something that will at first appear as common sense. I have found that even though super simple it is difficult to stay on track during the round.
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To try and answer your first point, what’s your dispersion at the given distance, with that lie and that club? If you know, through experience/practice, that you generally stuff 8 out of 10 5-irons within the area two extended fists cover when they’re held out in front of your face, and you generally get 150 out of your 5-iron, then your dispersion for those 80% is, (10 degrees per fist × 2 fists x 5 feet subtended per degree at 100 yds × 1.5 (150/100)) 150 feet. How big’s the green?
Adam Young, as usual, has a few great blog posts on visualizing your dispersion, then overlaying that on your target zone to get as many of the shots on it as possible. Usually, for hacks like us, aiming to the middle of the green, with enough club to hit the back of the green, works. The shotgun pattern of shots covers the most area of the green that it’s going to, that way. If you know you never, never miss right with fade/cut/banana-slice action, then put the target focus on the far right of the target area, and let your natural miss cover more of the target.
Holy s%/t, do I feel that feel about what’s the worst that can happen. It can be absolutely soul-crushing to flat miss around the green that way. Dangerous for your playing partners too. My suggestion, borrowing heavily from our host, is to have One True Shot around the green, and master it to the point where you can at least hit the damned thing onto the green. It can be a chip, it can be a flop, a pitch, whatever, but get it to where you can hit the ball, from wherever off the green you are, somewhere into the soothing fuzzy swimming pool that is the green. Then when you can do that automatically, focus on improving things.
But get on the green.
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Since i tried taking one more iron into greens my scores have ballooned. My index has gone up 2 and it definitely seems less fun.
I’m missing more in bunkers and left and right and my short game isn’t good enough to save me from where I’m leaving myself.
I would guess higher handicaps aren’t good enough to avoid short siding themselves-they wind up wherever dispersion/luck take them rather than being able to strategically focus on one side, and the longer the club the greater the left/right dispersion.
I probably either should buy decade or stop testing little parts of it because it’s definitely not intuitive to me. It just basically seems like it helps good players and telling bad players it helps them is because good players can’t remember the range of variance for bad players. Low handicap privilege.
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How do you define dispersion? If you include 100% of results, including fats and duffs, it’s going to be pretty large. Let’s say 6i. It’s probably 10y to 190 yards carry front to back, but left to right is at least 100 yards. If you take 100 shots and exclude the 5 worst front to back and 5 worst left/right, it’s probably 165-190, with 60 yards of variance.
I know the solution is to get better, but i don’t actually know how to get better.
Yes lessons, yes practice. Yes yes yes
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In this area (versus something more formal like determining ‘circular error probable’), I look at ~80% of the shots. Maybe ‘most’ is better than some number. Fliers are gonna fly; don’t stress about them. If you were going to chunk that shot, you were going to chunk it regardless of your aim point or course management, so I don’t let those instances go into my determination of what my actual future dispersion will be. IOW, I chuck the outliers from my data set. Looks like you do too in your example.
For your 6 iron, if you were to plot each of the hits, from the 90 percent of the shots you’re evaluating, would there be clusters to the misses? For most people, that shot map won’t be circular and random. It’ll be biased to one side, and it will be extremely biased to closer vs further. Which is where Fawcett’s take enough club for the back of the green, comes in.
You at least, have a sim that can show you graphically, where all of those shots went. And can, in theory, take an overlay of a green that you play, and move that shot distribution around until you fit as many as you’re going to on the green. (With exceptions of course, if that particular aim point that maximizes total balls on green, leads to an unacceptable number of misses in a penalty area. Or taking a slightly lower number of balls on the green, if that leads to more balls that go off the green being in much easier recovery positions. And so on.)
It may be that you’re only going to fit, say 45% of the shots on the green, no matter the aim point. Which is fine; you’re still getting the most out of what you have. I’m sure you’ve already tried this, but for others, maybe a “80-90” percent iron swing gets you much better distance and spread control, even if you consequently lose 10-15 of distance? So what if I now have to take a 4H, instead of a 6I, into this green, if my dispersion tightens up from 25 yds of distance to 10, and 60 yds L-R to 40?
Or maybe that doesn’t work for you at all. But you can find out, with the monitor equipment you have. Just make sure you’re also getting data for grass lies too.
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Caught something in the “Chasing Improvement” thread, that I think is a nifty way to think about how we should try to view the improvement process. Though that whole thread is packed with neat tips and suggestions.
This part from @BIF’s post I cited, really caught my eye:
Summary:
Understand your game’s strength and weaknesses - learn from your misses - focus on a couple areas of improvement (don’t try to boil the ocean - just do 1-2 things better) - work on adding additional shots to your repertoire (especially around the green) and the shots will start to come off. Don’t get dejected if you don’t see results instantly, build the process that works for you - I didn’t need to track every single shot/stat as I had a good understanding of my game; if you don’t, then definitely track stats and let that dictate where you focus your attention.
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Let’s look at it (Decade) from a 20 hdcp. perspective. A typical round of what I call shots “LOST”, not strokes gained.
4-poor drives
6-poor approach
6-chips/pitches/sand
4-putts
Decade works, but it can’t account for MY flubs. ie. If I fat or thin an approach shot, missing my “normal dispersion” by 30, 40, 50 or more yards, Decade can’t help (imho). But when I hit them Midas touch shots & rounds where (almost) everything is clicking it helps quite a bit.
1 example from a recent round. 165 yds, uphill 30’, up slope lie, pin R center. I figured (if I ‘dinged’ it) that 6 iron, aimed left center, would leave me on the green. It did, 40’ short. The wind, which was off my 8:00 swilrled & changed to 2:00 direction mid-swing.
Before decade I wouldn’t have really known the algorithm for that shot. Can I use it to it’s fullest capabilities as a 20 hdcp., who ballooned to 24 this season? No way!
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Still, not bad. Even with the wind changing 180 degrees on you. Considering that the PGA Tour average approach proximity from 150 to 175 in the fairway, last year was 27’ 8". It’s a reasonable 2-putt either way.
Nice job.
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May i ask what your low score for par 72 course is? I realize thats a left field question
Thanks!
Best I ever shot was 85. 3 times in 2019, on 3 different courses. I was practicing 1-2 times a week. And prior to starting that year, winter of '18-'19, I had read AND studied @Adamyounggolf The Practice Manual.
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May I ask what you think are barriers to duplicating that success?
Inability to control ground strike and face control.
Not wanting to spend 2 1/2- 3 hours a week at range.
Concentration and focus on every shot.
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For people who would be thrilled to get to 10 handicap, is there a role for non driver even though the unobstructed distance is 65 yards and potentially giving up distance? Especially on long par 4s and par 5s that are not reachable?
Is there a role for a layup on long par 3s to try and avoid trouble? Giving up 0.3 strokes or whatever is not nearly as bad as being in the trees or bunker or hazard.
Thanks for thoughts
I’m not really understanding the question(s), @Qschool. The classic justification for not using driver off the tee was that you’d be much more accurate with a shorter club, and be in a better scoring position despite giving up 10-40 yards of distance. Jon had a blog post where, for him, that wasn’t the case, and indeed the large stat accumulator companies like GameGolf and Shot Scope seem to back that up. If you are more accurate with, e.g., a 3W vs Driver, it’s not by much, and the 2-3 club longer approach shot wipes that negligible accuracy gain out.
To your other point, if you’re finding yourself often thinking about laying up on a long par-3, or being unable to get home on long par-4s, you might be playing from the wrong tees. I mean, weather can change things—LOL 16th at Cypress Point, starting into 40 MPH of wind—but if you’re constantly finding yourself in these situations, maybe it’s the tees? Personally, it sucks when seemingly every approach is needing a 5W or 3I to get home. Once in awhile, OK, but when the only time you’re grabbing a PW is when you’ve missed the green? Again?? Ugh.
Sure, there are times I think laying up on a par-3 is smart. Never played Cypress’s 16th (or any of the others, LOL) but that’s a situation where sure, bail out left. 237 into that kind of wind…hahahaha. I would have ‘layed up’ at Pebble 17th if the wind was bigger. Aimed for the very front of the long, figure-8-ish looking green, or the mongo bunker front left. And it was ‘only’ 180 ish to the back from where I was hitting.
I understand Jon had a blog post and have read it.
I’m posing the question whether that is as accurate for higher handicaps as lower. You kindly answered many questions and I appreciate.
There is no way higher handicaps give up distance 100% of time with driver versus 3 wood as Scott says. The swings are not optimized. More mishits in my experience with driver than 3 wood. Sure, learn to hit driver might be the right solution, but until that happens there may be times where the skill level dictates club selection more than the course? It’s a question, not a statement of fact.
I assume that i am not explaining myself well regarding par 3s. There are for sure times where i have the length to reach a par 3. However if it hooks or slices it winds up in an extremely penal area. Hitting a shorter club and committing to be short of the green with uphill chip will frequently leave a better second shot than a moderately well hit longer club. I mean especially on some of the oblong greens playing to back of green will leave a 40-50 foot putt sometimes when the pin is in front. I think some of my question is trying to interpret partial strokes in the context of a score for each hole/round. Probably each player has some clubs that eventually they are significantly less skillful with than others.
I understand that Scott believes that 3wood dispersion and driver dispersion are mostly same, but I’m not sure that holds true for higher handicaps. I think it’s possible left to right dispersion might be similar, but I’m not even sure if that requires throwing out 10 percent of shots. If I’ve misunderstood something, please clarify. It’s not that i doubt the relative value of distance, it’s that i am not sure that driver reliably gets a better situation than 3 wood at the 15 handicap level.
If players are like me, throwing out 10 percent of shots on range will leave a way different dispersion than throwing out 10 percent of shots on course. 10 percent of shots on course might still leave roughly the same dispersion shape. I’m just typing in random thoughts at this point. I’m still fascinated by the data he has collected. I wish there was some way of prospectively validating it, but i think some parts of the golf swing are so mental it’s hard to validate prospectively.
For me the tees are dictated by men’s league and even using the standard formulas for estimating distance, most would say i can play blue tees if i choose to. I won’t be eligible by age criteria to move up for more than 15 years.
As always thank you for taking the time to consider my question.
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The only way to evaluate this properly is to get data for yourself. Like all statistically based methods of evaluation, conclusions are great for “normal” golfer, but can be poor for some individuals. So keep some kinds of records for your own swing on real golf courses. There are a number of systems available for getting this data, I can’t recommend any specific product, but you’ll make better decisions for yourself if you can base them on your own specific strengths and weaknesses.
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You’re describing a much more formal system for where to play, than I’m used to. That doesn’t sound like much fun, frankly.
I agree with some of your questions and statements on the 3 wood vs driver. Near as I can tell, the big gap in distance between 3W and 1W doesn’t happen unless the swing speeds are higher than those of most high handicappers. Which is why I included a lower bound of 10 yards in my original post. Moreover, many high handicappers who haven’t been fitted for a driver, are playing drivers with too low a loft, and perhaps also, too stiff a shaft. Probably too long as well, if people like Tom Wishon are right, and they probably are. The optimal driving charts like a lot of loft and spin, if CHS is low. Hard to get the required loft on a 10.5 driver vs 15-ish degree 3W.
Given those constraints, I definitely can see situations where most 3W shots by Golfer X, are indeed going further than most 1W shots by that golfer. For awhile, I was getting perplexed by my 3W getting higher CHS than my driver. I’ve been fitted for neither. The 3W has an R-shaft, the 1W a “bumblebee” UST Proforce in S, that used to feel like swinging a 2x4. I’ve since learned how to effectively use the 1W, with CHS and ball speed getting more where it should be—but a driver fitting is still on my wishlist.
It’s not just Broadie/Fawcett though. The Arccos people are showing a similar paradigm throughout all handicaps, AIUI.
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Could you point me to the arccos data please.
Thanks!
Is a post from them building on the “you don’t hit it as far as you think” paradigm, though it doesn’t show 3W distances or accuracy. The more I’m looking at it, i don’t think Arccos is saying that about users 3W vs 1W.
You want something really weird about Arccos users and their 3Ws? Take a look at this article: https://www.golfmonthly.com/gear/gear-blog/3-iron-vs-3-hybrid-what-the-stats-say-is-best-for-you-244995
Yeah, the title doesn’t say 3 wood, but when you read it, this blurb jumps out:
Handicaps of 5 and under typically pull their 3 iron or 3 hybrid facing shots of 220-230 yards but actually average 197-210 yards with their 3-wood. With a 3-wood, they could decrease the disparity between how far they think they hit the ball, and how far they actually hit it, by 10 to 15 yards.
Interestingly, for higher handicap Arccos players in the 20 to 25 range, the extra distance provided by the 3-wood’s loft, lie and shaft length is negligible (five to seven yards) over the 3-iron and 3-hybrid and with the 3-hybrid being a much easier club to get airborne off the fairway, and it’s dispersion being lower, it’s the smarter play for bogey golfers.
Edit: I, for one, am perplexed. I’m not that good. I’ll be the first to tell you. And likely, course distance /= range distance. Even off grass. But I would consider, personally for me, a 3W that only traveled a total of 220-230, as fairly mishit by me. Average carry on my monitor is 235, and the thing rolls afterwards, too. Sometimes further roll than my driver, if I catch a high launch on the top of the driver face.
Really, 220-230, I’m busting out the 5W. It’ll roll to that. I seent it
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I think when distances are shorter on course, it could be wind, lie, rough limiting rollout, user error. Also could be coming out of rough. Average may be affected by duffs as well. Also how did they manage slices that went into water or ob?
I think most people using monitors dont actually use average distance, they use 3/4 of best shots to determine number.
I think historically most people have trouble gapping longer clubs. Not so surprising but in my mind supportive of hypothesis that driver benefit may accrue more powerfully to lower handicaps. Not sure where breakeven point is though.
I dont know whether the data is good data or bad data. Either way good for analytical brains to converse about. 
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