Strokes gained data

[MUNIGRIT]

What is the best place to get strokes gained stats for tournaments and the whole season? The PGA tour website doesn't seem to update too quick for a tournament. Datagolf?

[Christosterone]

I’m curious too…always used pgatour site 

 

-Chris

Edited July 18, 2022 by Christosterone

[MUNIGRIT]

I saw people posting that Cam gained 11 strokes on the field for the tournament that I dont believe to be true. Cam was gained 6 on Friday which was a record day and lost strokes on Saturday. I just wonder where people get their info.

[Uncle_Buck2]

6 minutes ago, MUNIGRIT said:

I saw people posting that Cam gained 11 strokes on the field for the tournament that I dont believe to be true. Cam was gained 6 on Friday which was a record day and lost strokes on Saturday. I just wonder where people get their info.

Datagolf is a good source. 11 strokes is not out of pocket, it's not uncommon for the leader to have double digits strokes gained. 

[MUNIGRIT]

Just now, Uncle_Buck2 said:

Datagolf is a good source. 11 strokes is not out of pocket, it's not uncommon for the leader to have double digits strokes gained. 

+2.8 on data golf. I highly doubt you coukd get to +11 for a tournament with one round in the negative.

[Uncle_Buck2]

20 minutes ago, MUNIGRIT said:

+2.8 on data golf. I highly doubt you coukd get to +11 for a tournament with one round in the negative.

Where are you seeing 2.8? 

 

https://datagolf.com/live-tournament-stats

[MUNIGRIT]

3 minutes ago, Uncle_Buck2 said:

 

It is why I started the thread. I'm seeing all sorts of SG numbers thrown around. I want to know which one is the best. I always heard data golf was but never looked into it much.

Edited July 18, 2022 by MUNIGRIT

[khalespace]

2 minutes ago, MUNIGRIT said:

 

Yes, 2.82 is average per round so total 11.28 stroke gain putting. Insane.

[MUNIGRIT]

10 minutes ago, khalespace said:

Yes, 2.82 is average per round so total 11.28 stroke gain putting. Insane.

Oh ok so those numbers are per round. That is the info I was looking for.

[Krt22]

I guess we should all practice putting much more!

[Titleist99]

Think I'm gonna need a short tutorial as to how stroke gains really work, seeing as how some people believe in it religiously.......

[Titleist99]

2 minutes ago, Krt22 said:

I guess we should all practice putting much more!

This ^^^^

[TobesSC]

30 minutes ago, MUNIGRIT said:

It is why I started the thread. I'm seeing all sorts of SG numbers thrown around. I want to know which one is the best. I always heard data golf was but never looked into it much.

What you've circled is his strokes gained Putting stat.

[khalespace]

24 minutes ago, Titleist99 said:

Think I'm gonna need a short tutorial as to how stroke gains really work, seeing as how some people believe in it religiously.......

If from 8 ft, the average field putt made is 50% (1.5 average). If you make it, you gain 0.5 stroke. If you miss it, you lose 0.5 stroke. If from 50 ft the average # of putt is 2, the average 1 putt is 5% then if you make the putt, you gain 1 stroke assuming 5% people also 3 putt.

 

For irons, if from 150 yards the average is 30 feet from hole (1.8 putts) and you hit it 3 feet from the hole (1.1 putts) then you gain 0.7 on Approach to Green.

 

I made up these stats for the sake of explaining.

Edited July 18, 2022 by khalespace

[TLUBulldogGolf]

Datagolf is awesome, you can see the per round stats and the event stats which are the averages for each category per round, so total for the event would that x4. 

 

Cameron Young is going to be a menace, 3 shots a round T2G. And it was an insane putting week for Cam Smith. 

Edited July 18, 2022 by TLUBulldogGolf

[MUNIGRIT]

22 minutes ago, TobesSC said:

What you've circled is his strokes gained Putting stat.

Yes I am aware of that. I just didn't know that was per round not the whole tournament. 

[Titleist99]

13 minutes ago, khalespace said:

If from 8 ft, the average field putt made is 50% (1.5 average). If you make it, you gain 0.5 stroke. If you miss it, you lose 0.5 stroke. If from 50 ft the average # of putt is 2, the average 1 putt is 5% then if you make the putt, you gain 1 stroke assuming 5% people also 3 putt.

 

For irons, if from 150 yards the average is 30 feet from hole (1.8 putts) and you hit it 3 feet from the hole (1.1 putts) then you gain 0.7 on Approach to Green.

 

I made up these stats for the sake of explaining.

What are the scenarios that would totally throw this formular off? give me few examples please.

[khalespace]

4 minutes ago, Titleist99 said:

What are the scenarios that would totally throw this formular off? give me few examples please.

Deep rough and shallow rough. If you drive into deep rough (6 inches grass) vs driving into rough with 2 inches of grass. I think they don't account for the difference. You get penalized the same. This affect Driving stats and Approach to Green Stats.

 

Or uphill vs downhill putts. Plugged in bunker vs nice lie.

Edited July 18, 2022 by khalespace

[MUNIGRIT]

31 minutes ago, Krt22 said:

I guess we should all practice putting much more!

Well SG OTT, T2G and App have bigger predictor of success. You can practice all you want putting but it took a round of making an unofficial per round 253 feet by Smith to win the tournament. No matter how much you practice that is an unsustainable number to expect to make.

[DLiver]

3 minutes ago, MUNIGRIT said:

Yes I am aware of that. I just didn't know that was per round not the whole tournament. 

What is circled (+2.82) is for all four rounds ("Event" tab at top).

[Krt22]

21 minutes ago, Titleist99 said:

Think I'm gonna need a short tutorial as to how stroke gains really work, seeing as how some people believe in it religiously.......

The actual calculation is quite simple, for any given distance from the hole there is a baseline value for how many strokes it should take to complete the hole. The baseline values were determined by analyzing millions of shots over time (via shot link), then are normalized per tournament to assess a golfers performance relative to the field for that given event. 

 

From 1ft, the avg is 1 stroke. If you 2-putt you lose a full stroke

From 33ft, the avg is 2 strokes. If you 1 putt from here you gain a full stroke, if you 3-putt you lose a full stroke.

From 167yards the avg is 3 strokes. If you hit it inside 33ft you are gaining strokes, if you hit it outside 33ft you are losing strokes. If you hit into the water, a bunker, the rough, etc there are additional values for how much you "lose"

 

Approaching the green, it's nearly a linear relationship with how many strokes it takes to hole out (ie it keeps increasing as you get further and further away), hence the strategy to get it as close to the hole as you can. On the putting green its far more non-linear so you can "gain" a lot of strokes holing out long putts or consistently 2-putting from well outside of 33ft. You can also lose quite a bit missing short putts. Cam Smith holed out a lot of long putts ("long in SG terms is really anything outside 10ft), so that is why his SG putting stats are so high

[MUNIGRIT]

Just now, DLiver said:

What is circled (+2.82) is for all four rounds ("Event" tab at top).

Yes I was wrong though. That was his average per round he was better. You need 4x that to see how much he gained on which is the 11 stroke number. You can also go under each tab add them up and divide by 4 and you get the same number. I realize now what I wasn't fully understanding.

[Krt22]

5 minutes ago, MUNIGRIT said:

Well SG OTT, T2G and App have bigger predictor of success. You can practice all you want putting but it took a round of making an unofficial per round 253 feet by Smith to win the tournament. No matter how much you practice that is an unsustainable number to expect to make.

I know, I was being facetious. Realistically speaking he had an all world putting performance, one cannot expect such performances every time they tee it up.

[Titleist99]

12 minutes ago, khalespace said:

Deep rough and shallow rough. If you drive into deep rough (6 inches grass) vs driving into rough with 2 inches of grass. I think they don't account for the difference. You get penalized the same. This affect Driving stats and Approach to Green Stats.

 

Or uphill vs downhill putts. Plugged in bunker vs nice lie.

I've heard this mentioned quite often......

[Krt22]

25 minutes ago, khalespace said:

Deep rough and shallow rough. If you drive into deep rough (6 inches grass) vs driving into rough with 2 inches of grass. I think they don't account for the difference. You get penalized the same. This affect Driving stats and Approach to Green Stats.

 

Or uphill vs downhill putts. Plugged in bunker vs nice lie.

This is true, hence the point of looking at them as averages, the good breaks and bad breaks average out over time. The only folks who get caught up on these things are the nay-sayers who think outliers invalidate the approach as a whole

 

There also isn't a significant difference in putting stats for uphill vs downhill putts, distance is far more critical.

[larrybud]

1 hour ago, Titleist99 said:

Think I'm gonna need a short tutorial as to how stroke gains really work, seeing as how some people believe in it religiously.......

Example:
Tour average from 8 feet to hole out is 1.50 strokes. Almost everybody 1 putts or 2 putts (yes, there are occasional 3 putts but very rare and doesn't really change the average if at all, to 2 decimal places).

 

If you make an 8 footer, you "gain" 0.50 strokes *on that shot*. That's represented with a +0.50 strokes. If you miss the 8 footer, you "lose" 0.50 strokes on that shot, and represented with a -0.50 strokes. Every single shot can be calculated like this. Now, normally it's not this cut and dried. Make a 3 footer and you only "gain" a small amount, say 0.02 strokes, because almost all 3 footers are made (I made up to 0.02 number, I don't know what the actual amount is).

 

Multiple shots can be analyzed as a whole or in part. As Krt22 mentioned, from 33 feet the average number of strokes to hole out is 2.0. If you made a 33 foot putt, you gained 1.0 strokes on the field, just on that shot, because the average is 2.0, and you only took 1.0 strokes.

But let's say you missed. How bad was your miss? You can work backwards from the hole. Let's say you hit that 33 ft putt to 8 feet. Since we know the average from 33 ft is 2.0 shots, and the average from 8 feet is 1.5 shots, you "lost" 0.50 shots on that one putt from 33 feet. If you made the 8 footer, you gained 0.50 shots, and the -0.50 from the 33 ft putt and the +0.50 foot putt adds up to 0, which brings us back to having 2.0 strokes from 33 feet.

 

If you missed your 8 footer (say, to an inch), you lost 0.50 on the initial 33 foot putt, and 0.50 on the 8 foot putt, meaning you lost 1.0 strokes overall from 33 feet. 

 

Doing this gives an objective measure to each shot relative to the field or tour. With putting it's more insightful in that you could keep track of your SG by distance so you can see your overall weakness. Maybe you think you 3 putt a lot, but is that because of bad first putts, or bad 2nd putts? Strokes gained can tell you this.

 

Just be careful when looking at charts which purport to have Strokes Gained relative to a particular handicap class (e.g. 0-5, 5-10, 10-15). That data is generally compiled through shot tracking apps, and so your comparison is only as good as the data. Which also means it's only as good as the people who are entering/tracking their shots. soooo, not at all. Always compare yourself to the tour averages.

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2022 by larrybud

[larrybud]

59 minutes ago, khalespace said:

Deep rough and shallow rough. If you drive into deep rough (6 inches grass) vs driving into rough with 2 inches of grass. I think they don't account for the difference. You get penalized the same. This affect Driving stats and Approach to Green Stats.

 

Or uphill vs downhill putts. Plugged in bunker vs nice lie.

Your examples are complete outliers and noise in the data, since all of that stuff averages out over time.

 

Regarding putts, if you read Mark Broadie's work, up/down difference is miniscule.

[golfortennis]

21 minutes ago, larrybud said:

Your examples are complete outliers and noise in the data, since all of that stuff averages out over time.

 

Regarding putts, if you read Mark Broadie's work, up/down difference is miniscule.

 

And it's why there is some validity to the old saw(putt for dough).  On any given week, the winner will most likely be the guy who putts the best, because all the players at the top will pretty much be getting to the greens in reg.  Ie, putting is really the only thing that can separate guys over 4 rounds.  There can be the odd exception, but for the most part, most guys at the top of a leaderboard are taking the same number of strokes to reach the green over 72 holes.  You can't find another 200 yards to reach a par 4 in 1, but other guys can't do it.  Putting is where the number is changed.

 

But that is one week.  Any tour pro who is a great putter but not so great on tee shots/approaches can have a work where it all works and it wins, but as the stats bear out over a larger period of time, it's the guys who drive it well, and even more importantly, put it closer to the hole on average, that rise to the top.  But people think of this is a sport more than a job, so it's as though the salesperson who makes 1 $1 million sale in a year has done better than the one who makes multiple $300k sales totaling greater than a million(Win vs consistent top finishes).       

 

I always say pros aren't better putters than we are because they will make substantially more 30 footers than us if given 100 attempts, it's because they are closer to the hole than we are when putting.(I may be stealing that from someone).  But it takes lots of data.  Any one tournament can see many things happen.  Or as the Brits might say, form may be temporary, but class is permanent. 

[larrybud]

6 minutes ago, golfortennis said:

I always say pros aren't better putters than we are because they will make substantially more 30 footers than us if given 100 attempts, it's because they are closer to the hole than we are when putting.(I may be stealing that from someone).

 

30 footers that's true, but not for 6-10 footers.

 

I do think it's true that most anybody can get "hot" with the putter for a small sample size like a tournament, but consistency is based on tee to green more than putting. 

Broadie did an analysis of each category vs tour money leaders a few years ago: https://www.pgatour.com/statsreport/2014/09/20/strokes-gained-and-earnings-comparison.html

 

Driving accounted for 35% of their success, approach 40%, short game 13% and putting 12%.

 

More recent data/analysis concurs:
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/golf-stats-that-matter-most-which-skills-correlate-to-success-on-the-pga-tour

"drive for show putt for dough" is a myth.
 

[Krt22]

33 minutes ago, golfortennis said:

 

 

But that is one week.  Any tour pro who is a great putter but not so great on tee shots/approaches can have a work where it all works and it wins, but as the stats bear out over a larger period of time, it's the guys who drive it well, and even more importantly, put it closer to the hole on average, that rise to the top. 

This is actually extremely rare. You generally still need to be gaining strokes on the field OTT and with approach, then the putting puts you over the top. If you lose strokes to the field in ball striking, you have almost no chance of winning. Cam Smith putted lights out, but he also still struck the ball well. He gained 6 shots on the field T2G (where as Rory gained 13 T2G,)