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Traditional StatisticsV

Strokes Gained

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Introduction

Everyone wants to get better at golf, but how do you start improving? The first step is learning the truth about your game, knowing what you do on a regular basis on the golf course and understanding what areas of the game you need to improve.

Shot Scope’s performance tracking watches offer the golfer not only one of the most accurate GPS watches on the market, but also access to hundreds of statistics to help them learn, understand and improve their game.

Contents - Benchmark Statistics

- What are the limitations of traditional statistics?

- What is Strokes Gained?

- Understanding Strokes Gained

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Shot Scope V3 provides the golfer with GPS distances, easily accessible on their wrist, as well as an automatic shot tracking system. Hundreds of performance statistics are available to analyze on the performance dashboard or mobile app post-round.

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Over the years the request from Shot Scope users has been for some form of benchmarking statistics against differing handicap levels and abilities. The work for this is well underway, inline with our development of strokes gained, and this chapter will outline some baseline golf statistics across 6 varying handicaps.

Chapter 1 Benchmark Statistics

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Average Score to Par

Fairways in Regulation

Starting with average score relative to par. The average score to par is higher than the handicap, across all benchmarks. From 15 handicap upwards, the difference between handicap and average score is more than 0-10 handicaps, perhaps highlighting the inconsistency amongst higher handicaps.

With the new world handicap system coming into effect, it will be interesting to see if these average scores are closer to the handicap in say a year’s time.

Perhaps this is a surprising statistic, as there is only a minimal difference between all handicap benchmarks. In the Shot Scope database, scratch golfers hit on average only 4% more fairways than 20 and 25 handicaps.

Greens in Regulation

This area of the game is where the biggest difference between high and low handicaps lies. Perhaps undermined in the past when looking at statistics, but it is evident that this area of the game is where you should be investing your time if you are looking to improve your game. This could be applied to all levels and abilities in golf.

Handicap

Average Score to Par

Difference v Handicap

0

+0.83

+0.83

5

+6.33

+1.33

10

+10.88

+0.88

25

+28.97

+3.97+1.69

20

+21.69

15

+17.38

+2.38

Handicap

Fairway in Reg %

0

50%

5

48%

10

49%

25

46%

20

46%

15

48%

Handicap

Green in Reg %

0

61%

5

44%

10

36%

25

10%

20

17%

15

24%

Chapter 1 Cont... Benchmark Statistics

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Short Game Up & Down %

Average Putts Per Round

Closely following approach play, short game is where there is a significant drop off in success as handicap increases. Couple this with low greens in regulation, means not only are higher handicaps losing shots with their shot to the green, but once a green has been missed, it is incredibly tricky to recover by getting up and down.

Putts per round has a lot to do with the number of greens a golfer hits, as well as how good their short game is. If a golfer hits many greens, they will naturally have more putts per round than someone who hits less greens with approach shots. So when looking at the putt per round statistic, it is important to consider the green in regulation statistic.

Average Number of Penalty Shots Per Round

Penalty shots are one of those parts of the game everyone wants to avoid. It is evident that if a higher handicap wants to reduce their handicap and improve their game, minimising the number of penalty shots per round is key.

Handicap

Up & Down %

0

47%

5

41%

10

31%

25

18%

20

20%

15

21%

Handicap

Putts Per Round

0

29.4

5

30.2

10

31.2

25

33.8

20

33.1

15

33.1

Handicap

Penalty Shots Per Round

0

0.56

5

0.91

10

1.62

25

4.67

20

3.03

15

2.45

These benchmarks should help give current Shot Scope users a brief insight into how they compare against other Shot Scope users. Providing benchmarks like this, allows for golfers to set goals and targets for the season/following year. It gives amateur golfers an idea of how good or bad they should be performing depending on their handicap and ability. Currently when looking for statistics to compare against – it is only professional statistics that are widely available on the PGA and European Tours and for most amateur golfers, these are not very helpful. In time, Shot Scope will have benchmarking strokes gained available - as shown in the image.

Summary

While these more traditional type statistics (Fairways in Regulation, Greens in Regulation and Putts per Round) are excellent to provide a good basis for learning about your game, they are somewhat restrictive in their analysis. The previous chapter touched upon this briefly, but this chapter will try to explain why you should consider other factors when analysing your game and statistics.

Chapter 2 What are the limitations of these traditional types of statistics?

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Fairways in RegulationA golfer could miss a fairway by 1 yard, hit it in the water, 30 yards into the trees or out of bounds and all of these scenarios would simply go down as a missed fairway. The traditional fairway in regulation statistic categorises all missed fairways as equal when in reality, the trees, water and out of bounds are much more costly to the golfer than missing the fairway by 1 yard.

The new Shot Scope app now separates tee shot statistics into 5 main areas, Fairway, Left Rough, Right Rough, Bunker and Other (includes penalties and out of bounds). This offers more detail than the traditional fairway in regulation statistic, without the golfer having to dive deep into statistics to learn this about their game.

Green in RegulationThis statistic is great to provide an idea of how a golfers approach play is, however it too has its flaws. A golfer could be on the fringe, 15ft away from the pin which is classed as a missed green in regulation, whereas a golfer could hit the green but be 60ft from the pin. Using the green in regulation statistic, the latter is classed as the more successful shot, when in reality the first shot which is much closer to the pin is perhaps the better shot.

Putts per RoundThis is a stat reliant on previous aspects of the game – approach play and short game. Proximity to the pin has an awful lot to do with putts per round. Taking the example in the last paragraph, the golfer takes 2 putts from both positions. Under the putts per round stats, the shot from the fringe is classed as 1 putt and the 60ft shot is classed as 2 putts. So the 1 putt looks better overall, but in reality 2 putting from 60ft is probably the better result. This type of analysis is impossible to gather from a simple putts per round stat.

Putt

s Pe

r Rou

nd

0 5 10 252015

Handicap

28

30

32

34

These traditional stats are commonly used and while these stats are a great starting point (if you aren’t already collecting these about your game, we highly recommend you start), it is evident that they are somewhat restrictive in their analysis.

Chapter 2 Cont... What are the limitations of these traditional types of statistics?

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For example instead of just fairway in regulation, Shot Scope highlight where the misses are and which is the most common miss. This can then be analysed in even more detail with the score to par graph, where it highlights the lie type that is the most costly and the best performing. All of this extra information allows the golfer to learn about their game, understand what their trends are, identify their weaknesses and then go on to improve those areas (or play to their strengths).

Using the statistics available from the new Shot Scope app will be hugely beneficial on your journey to improvement. It takes the traditional statistics we are all familiar with, and expands on them to ensure you are able to get the most out of your game. To find out more about the updates to the Shot Scope app click here.

The next step with the update to the app is providing this level of detail within the strokes gained analysis for each of these statistics so that the golfer can obtain as much detail as possible about their game and areas for improvement.

Traditional statistics are excellent if you are able to break them down into more detail. The new Shot Scope app expands on each area of the game and gives the golfer more detail than a simple fairway in regulation, green in regulation and putts per round.

Strokes gained is a way of analysing a player’s performance level when comparing every aspect of their performance with other players within a particular dataset. It measures the golfer’s performance taking into account; the hole length, shot length and lie type of every shot and putt during a round of golf.

Using this measurement to analyse performance allows golfers to gain a greater understanding of which areas of their game they may need to work on, in order to improve their overall scoring average.

Chapter 3 What is Strokes Gained?

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Strokes gained uses a simple formula to figure out whether a shot was better or worse than average, and then how much better or worse it was, before producing a positive or negative (+/-) number for that shot. For the majority of golfers comparing themselves against Tour Players, they will see mostly negative numbers.

In simple terms, strokes gained gives golfers a score for every aspect of their game. This score can vary depending on what the comparison is against. Benchmarks such as PGA Tour are commonly used and amateur related benchmarks, such as a scratch golfer or 15 handicap golfer, are less common at the moment.

Your strokes gained score will be either a positive or negative number. Negative numbers tell you how many shots the golfer has ‘lost’ compared to the defined benchmark, whereas positive numbers highlights how many shots have been ‘gained’ against said benchmark.

Typically, strokes gained is widely used on the PGA and European Tours with TV coverage often referring to this type of statistic in their broadcast. As media coverage as grown and talks more frequently about strokes gained, it leaves many amateur golfers wondering not only ‘what is strokes gained’ but also, what strokes gained would look like for their own game.

Using strokes gained is great for developing a detailed understanding of your game, however it too has its restrictions and is best used in conjunction with the more in-depth traditional statistics on the Shot Scope app.

For example, say you have a strokes gained tee shots value of -2.72, this tells you that you are losing strokes off the tee, but it doesn’t explain why you are losing strokes, just that you are. You can then use the detailed breakdown of traditional statistics to see that compared to the defined benchmark, you either miss more fairways, or are perhaps 15 yards shorter off the tee on average. Using traditional statistics and strokes gained together will allow you to discover exactly where the room for improvement lies, and that in this example, you need to work on increasing your distance off the tee.

Using Strokes Gained and Traditional Statistics Together

Strokes gained is worked out my knowing the average number of shots players take to finish the hole from any position on the golf course. Baseline strokes gained numbers are typically based off Tour players and their performance, and these are used to calculate strokes gained for any future shots.

To calculate the strokes gained for any shot, there is an equation:

Chapter 4 Understanding Strokes Gained

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The equation uses the start and end position of the shot to work out a value. Once it has that value, you need to take off the shot that has just been hit, hence the (-1) at the end of the equation.

This equation is used for all shot calculations, whether it is tee shots, approaches, short game or putting. Any shot hit on the golf course is applied to this formula to give it a strokes gained value. Typically these numbers are positive (strokes gained) or negative (strokes lost).

Every shot has its own unique strokes gained value which is determined by, distance, accuracy and location/lie type on the golf course. To see how 2 different tee shots impact strokes gained on a hole which is the same length, we ave outlined an example below.

For example:On a Par 4 that is 381 yards long

• Player A hits a tee shot on the fairway 185 yards from the hole

• Player B hits a tee shot into the rough 60 yards from the hole

To work out the strokes gained for each player’s tee shot, we need to know the average number of shots for the players to:

How do different types of shots affect strokes gained data?

We can then use this information and apply it to the strokes gained equation, to work out the strokes gained for each tee shot.

Chapter 4 Cont... Understanding Strokes Gained

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If you have not come across strokes gained before, these numbers may seem very small and perhaps insignificant. However, this is only for one shot during an entire round. If you think about it, you have on average 14/15 Par 4 and Par 5 tee shots per 18 holes… Then all of a sudden the number becomes a lot more significant.

Also take into account that this is only an example of a tee shot. If we take a look at a full hole example, you can see how when combined together, certain holes can become an area of improvement for the golfer or are highlighted as a strength.

An example hole looks like this:

In this example, the golfer was worse than the baseline on every shot, apart from on the last 5ft putt, where they gained +0.23 shots on the average. Overall though, this hole resulted in -0.92 shots gained, or in other words it cost the golfer a total of 0.92 shots compared to the baseline.

If you are looking to improve your game, strokes gained allows you to dive into so much detail about where the room for improvement is. For example, this golfer below played the hole very well, and had a positive strokes gained for the hole.

Chapter 4 Cont... Understanding Strokes Gained

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However, breaking this hole down shot by shot, it is clear to see that their first putt severely let them down. This is where a putts per round statistics would simply show that this 2 putt contributed to 32 putts per round, without allowing the golfer (or coach) to see where the weakness lies.

How does a full round strokes gained data get calculated?To calculate a full round of strokes gained data, each shot is simply added together to give an overall value for the round. This is more commonly broken down into the 4 key areas of golf; Tee Shots, Approaches, Short Game and Putting.

In Shot Scope strokes gained analytics each shot is placed within one of the 4 key areas of golf.

Chapter 4 Cont... Understanding Strokes Gained

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Handicap Benchmarking Strokes GainedIn the Shot Scope strokes gained analytics, all of the above data is referenced against Tour players. With the 3 Phase approach to the strokes gained release, Shot Scope will expand on the initial offering, going into greater detail with each statistic, before bringing in handicap benchmarking. To find out more about the 3 key phases, check out this article.

When the handicap benchmarking is released, the baseline statistics used will not come from the Tour, but will be generated from all existing shots within the Shot Scope database (90+ million). This will provide the strokes gained value (shots to finish) for every handicap of golfer, for every shot distance and lie type.

For example, using the same table from earlier but adding in 10 and 20 handicap baseline shots to finish (THIS IS AN EXAMPLE ONLY AND NUMBERS MAY NOT BE CORRECT).

The example below uses the same tee shot example from earlier but this time, comparing the same tee shot against the baselines of Tour and a 20 handicap to highlight the difference.

On a Par 4 that is 381 yards long

• Player A hits a tee shot on the fairway 185 yards from the hole

• Player B hits a tee shot into the rough 60 yards from the hole

Chapter 4 Cont... Understanding Strokes Gained

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From the Player A example, it is clear to see that comparing against tour, the shot is worse, but when comparing against a 20 handicap, the shot is better than average.

Using Player B as an example, indicates that a drive of approx. 320 yards that results in being 60 yards from the green, but in the rough gains the player nearly half a shot compared to other 20 handicap golfers. This would mean that distance off the tee is a real strength for the golfer and they should seek to use it to their advantage when playing.

*Numbers are for example purposes only*

Offering this type of information to Shot Scope users is invaluable to their journey to improvement. This type of data not only allows for comparisons to be made against players of similar handicaps or ability, but also enables golfers to compare themselves against lower handicaps and identify the areas of their game they need to work on in order to improve.

ConclusionWhile strokes gained may seem complicated, systems like Shot Scope, do all the hard work and equations for you. It has the capabilities to break down every shot during a round because as we all know, no two shots are the same. You can analyse strokes gained data in much greater detail than traditional golf statistics and it also enables weaknesses (that that you may not have identified the traditional way) to be recognised and subsequently improved upon. Strokes gained uses multiple factors in its workings, which make it one of, if not the best golf analytical tools in the golf industry.

Shot Scope are delighted to be able to provide their users with this comprehensive level of data and statistics on their game. The path to improvement all starts with knowing your game, and strokes gained helps you figure that out.

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