I keep a journal with notes from my rounds if anything is sticking out. I track fairways, but that stat is becoming less important to me as distance gives me scoring opportunities from just about anywhere, but if I spent the whole day hitting whip hooks I want to record that, then get to work on why.
My biggest focus is the stuff inside 100 yards.
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What’s the goal for shots inside 100? Per round goal or are you trying to get an average per attempt down to 3 strokes or less?
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I revamped my excel after this little discussion…still not on par with @davidcho hole by hole wizardry but should have a little more context on where I am incurring penalties
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Sub 3 is the scoring goal. Whether or not it should be, my expectation is that I should never do worse than that inside 100.
Playing into that, though, is proximity to hole, missing the green from inside 100, etc. I keep extensive stats from 100 in so I can recognize whether the issue is my wedge play, putting, a combination of both, mental mistakes putting myself in the wrong spots, or a combo of all three.
Doing that helps me identify what I should be spending the bulk of my practice time on. If I’m flushing wedge to 25 feet (just for example sake) and in from 100 and 2-3 putting, then my problem is the flat stick. If I’m leaving it 45 feet and out from 100 in, then my wedges are the problem.
That’s where the raw data comes in to play. The notes I keep on mental lapses or details of conditions etc help me try to make better decisions going forward. Not necessarily a go out and practice benefit, but a don’t do that again ya big dummy benefit.
I should add that one of my 2021 focuses is stretching that out to 125 and in as I should be just as good with a gap wedge in my hand as I am SW or LW.
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Nice. So is total shots inside 100 for a round a meaningful stat?
I’m not going to keep shot by shot record with proximity etc so just wondering if keeping the total on a per round basis is meaningful
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I think to make it useful you’d have to only keep the stat for times when you were between 100-50 yards from the green… otherwise other approach shots would add some noise to your data.
And you’d still have imperfect information… was it four strokes because you missed the green, chipped it past the hole and missed the comeback putt? Or was it three putts from 20 feet?
I’m coming to realize with golf data the more granular you get the more actionable information you collect.
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Not necessarily. More on a by hole basis. That’s why I like that sub 3 target. I think for what I use it for it’s better to be more in the weeds than looking at a big picture.
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This is a good point and I should say that if I leave it 30 out on a 350 yard par 4 I’m recording that in a separate category as it’s more a chip than an approach shot.
Fringe to 50 out is still important for scoring, so I keep tabs on my performance there because around here there are a lot of short par 4s.
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Yeah, I’ve been on a kick of trying to figure out what data I need to make actionable change.
I’ll probably focus on 120-75 yards as one area this year as that’s a fairly common range for me and is mostly “half wedge” distances…
My big pushes are focusing on dispersion and putting… but right now I’m basically in a hold pattern as my back is still hurting (lots of golf thinking, not any golf playing).
I’m hoping to actively track those stats and one of my biggest 10,000 foot goals for the season is to really hone in on what improvements are both helpful and improvable.
I think strategy is going to be one of the bigger helpers for my handicap, just need to actually implement it!
I’m a 6 now, but think I can get to at least a 2 in 2021… If I’m right that strategy is costing me 2 strokes and putting is costing me 2 strokes, it’s a very achievable number.
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Standalone, no, I don’t think total shots is a good stat as you measure it course to course. For the most part, I’m with @Bigdadenergy in that you’re trying to keep the average under 3. The total number can be misleading: if you play a lot of 400 yard holes, then you’ll have many fewer opportunities inside 100 than if you play lots of holes that are <350 yards.
However, I do think it’s meaningful if you play the same course a lot.
I was curious, so for rounds on my home course, I ran a regression of total shots <100 against my total score for the round. [Stats alert] Controlling for course and tee, the R-squared is ~60%. Which is to say that 60% of the variance in my total score is explained by variance in shots <100 yards. That is surprising!! I would have thought it would be meaningful, but I’m surprised to see it >50%.
Now, this is a very dirty metric as there are a half dozen things that feed into this. But still, this really puts a finer point on the “first do no harm” mantra, which shouldn’t surprise me but it does. Out of my 4.0 stupid shots per round, 3.6 are either chunked chips or three putts. I’d bet that the entirety of that <100 variance is right there.
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W back injury, it would be great to work on 100 - 50 exclusively for a bit whenever you are trying to ease back into full swing
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You have a multi tab, golf stats monster workbook… respect
I have been convinced… I am going to break out a separate tab for 60ish - 120 approaches (p wedge down to 1/2 sand wedge)
Yardage, green, proximity, putts, total strokes to get started
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I’ve seen that article before - it really is great, and … I think … a really great guideline/framework for any golfer!
For example, I’m a total bogey golfer (still… dammmmit!) at this point but the principles of actively working on and improving every part of your game - including course mgmt and mental game - are totally applicable to my journey to break 90 and play 80s golf.
@Craigers - good luck to you in reaching … and crossing 
… that scratch milestone 
As a bogey golfer, I also track those things; obviously the on-going goal is to reduce/minimize the occurrence of each!
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What is your FIR %? Additionally how often are you hitting a recovery or incurring a penalty off the tee?
I think one of the critical stats is probably “successful drives”. Ie fairway or manageable rough.
Assuming this needs to be much higher than the 53% FIR quoted in @jon scratch golf article
I’ve been reviewing old rounds and am starting to see that being wild off the tee is costing me something like 5 shots around. I average over 1 penalty off tee and over 2 recovery shots.
@ScottFawcettDECADE any guidance on how frequently scratch golfers are finding fairway or light rough (ie no penalty stroke or recovery shot) and have clear look at green
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Yes! I’m the total opposite of a scratch golfer, but I do like to track…
Playable tee shot
Successful shot on green
Or: up & down
In addition to…
Penalties
2-Chips
3-Putts
No impressive numbers to report but I can see incremental progress over time.
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@papageorgio FIR% over the last 20 rounds is 48%. Average penalty strokes per round off the tee is 0.4. Average number of times I need to hit a recovery shot after a tee shot is 1.5 per round.
So call it 7 tee shots per round in the fairway, 2 tee shots where I lose a stroke off the tee, and 5 tee shots in “playable” rough.
Interestingly (maybe just to me), I ran a regression on score vs. these factors (FW%, penalty strokes, recovery shots)… and the r-squared is 6%, with only penalty strokes having a statistically significant impact on score. So effectively no correlation - it’s a real scatter plot.
Anecdotally, my max fairway day this year was 12, and I shot 84 (bizarre stats day btw). My min fairway day was 2 fairways and I shot 81. As context, my stroke average for the year is 80.
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That seems remarkably low! I’m shocked by that number… I feel like I have a better than 50% chance to hit the green from 150, but I haven’t actually tracked it!
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Shooting a shotgun! Fawcett always says “these guys aren’t that good!”…tongue and cheek for sure but its a great point
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Yeah, It’s interesting because that number is very much related to aim… if you put a pro at 150 and had them hit at the green with no pin, you’d assume they’d hit it more than 3/4s the time… maybe not, though!