Arccos Scoring Data: A 2-part Question

[Obee]

Hello All!

Question 1: Are Arccos users returning scoring data along with shot distance/dispersion data, etc.?

The reason I ask is ...

Question 2: If they are returning scoring data, how unreliable is that scoring data given that many mid and higher caps don't finish holes for pace of play and/or match-play reasons. (especially on tough courses).

Example: 

10-capper playing a very tough course in tough conditions against his buddy, an 11-capper. On the number 1 handicap hole, a par 4, he hits a nice drive and then a poor 7-wood to miss the green short-sided to a tough pin with firm and fast greens. He fluffs his first chip, then blades his next into a greenside bunker. He then hits one into the face and it roles back down to his feet. His opponent has two feet for bogey and he concedes the hole.

 

Because he's playing match play, he picks up his ball and marks down a 7, which is his max score on the hole.

How is that kind of thing handled with Arccos?

[bortass]

It’s not. I pick up at times and it’s annoying. I default to a two putt and tend to either add a shot if say I’m too far to reach the green or I will add additional penalty strokes to replicate a drop and another shot in.

 

I figure it all even out in the wash though since I have pretty much every hole I’ve played in the last 5 years tracked in Arccos.

 

ill share an example when I get a chance later.

Edited May 24 by bortass

[bortass]

Here is a bit of an extreme example from my round today. Par 3, push fade tee shot into right hazard. Drop and fat a partial SW into the stream. I was done after the chunk.

 

I added a two stroke penalty to represent the drop and a shot to reach the green. Also selected a two putt.

 

I wish there was a way to just say the hole wasn’t finished….

 

The app assumes you holed out the last shot it registered if you go to the next hole. That can lead to 350 yard aces with driver or other shenanigans. It’s why I add the ghost shots and I try to be realistic about it.

 

I have over 41k shots and about 388 rounds in the system. Picking up can mess up the stats for an individual round but as I mentioned before, it’s negligible in the greater scheme of things.

 

 

I hope this helped @Obee.

[Obee]

@iacasI am curious to hear your thoughts here. At my club, especially six months out of the year when our surrounds are dormant and the ground is mushy, I see mid and high handicappers pick up anywhere from one to three times around I'd have to take their max score on a hole.

 

At the very least, they frequently will chip up for double or triple bogey and pick up their four or five footer because it doesn't matter.

 

This would significantly skew any stats in Arcos, especially for mid and high handicappers. It would also underplay the role of the short game in scoring for mid to high handicappers.

 

My home course is quite difficult, yes, but it is certainly not a unicorn. There are many courses like it across the country.

 

Am I missing something here? Always love your perspective.

 

Forgive typos. Dictating.

[CanFred]

I struggle with arccos data for this reason as well but I’m assuming given the size of the data set, it should average out over time. Maybe that makes me naive, but I sometimes take their results with a grain of salt 🤷‍♂️

[Obee]

51 minutes ago, ChrisATL said:

I struggle with arccos data for this reason as well but I’m assuming given the size of the data set, it should average out over time. Maybe that makes me naive, but I sometimes take their results with a grain of salt 🤷‍♂️

It can't even out overtime if the data being input is skewed in only one direction. It can only "even out" if you have info on both sides of the curve being input incorrectly.

 

In this case, overwhelmingly, the "incorrect" data is always going to skew towards "your short game is better than you think it is."

 

Unless I am missing something. I don't think I am, And I do not at all think it is statistically insignificant.

 

But it could be.…

 

Edited May 25 by Obee

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Obee said:

@iacasI am curious to hear your thoughts here. At my club, especially six months out of the year when our surrounds are dormant and the ground is mushy, I see mid and high handicappers pick up anywhere from one to three times around I'd have to take their max score on a hole.

 

I'm not sure I understand the question: you're worried about whether 22 index golfers are picking up but counting their score as 6 when they would have gotten a 7?

 

Why does that matter? And in what % of rounds do you think that's happening?

 

Cuz I can tell you that among the better players, that % is really, really small. And by "better" I mean ≤ 15.

[BirdieBound]

This has long been a frustration of mine. The only app I’ve ever seen that handled this correctly was the old Golfmetrics app. It had a “pick up” feature. The new dumpster fire of an app doesn’t have the feature. 

 

My guess, and it’s just a guess, is Arccos uses GHIN rounds that are marked as “Competition.” That would give a more accurate picture. 
 

This does happen more often than you’d think. Per Arccos, a 10 handicap has double (or worse) 2.9 holes per round. A 10 handicap is far better than “average.” Even a 5 handicap is 1.6 per round. I’ve made a 12 in a tournament where it would have been a 7 in a causal round where i decide to pick up to maintain pace of play. 
 

I have this suspicion there is just one developer working on the app and they’ve fooled all the manufacturers into thinking they are a bigger company than they actually are. 😆 They almost never release new features even though they’ve been teasing this new release for months. Even running tv ads about it. The online portal is meh. In every new release it says “what’s new in version _____ and it shows the addition of GHIN connection, which was years ago. It’s been years since a meaningful change has happened. 

 

Ive been using Tangent recently and although it doesn’t have sensors, the app is great and they are constantly pushing updates.

[Obee]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

 

I'm not sure I understand the question: you're worried about whether 22 index golfers are picking up but counting their score as 6 when they would have gotten a 7?

 

Why does that matter? And in what % of rounds do you think that's happening?

 

Cuz I can tell you that among the better players, that % is really, really small. And by "better" I Of course for better players it is a rare occurrence.

 

I am not "worried," Erik. I am asking a question about which I have a hypothesis.
 

Of course it is rare for better players.
 

However to use an arbitrary number, players above an 8 index at my home club pick up, frequently. Today, for instance, in my round with four different players ranging in index from +3 to 16. There were a total of nine pick ups by the guys who were 8.6, 9.2, and 16.

 

At even remotely difficult courses, it is not at all uncommon. It happens 1 to 4 times a round for many players between 8 and 20 on difficult courses in difficult conditions if they are actually playing any kind of a real round of golf.

 

An example would be my home course, which from just the blue tees at 6410 yards still has a slope of 134 and greens that run 11 to 14 depending on the season. 

 

Five months out of the year, it is easy to play ping-pong on the greens for players who don't have very solid, reliable short games. So they just pick up and move on when they have lost the hole at match play inside of their group. This is not a rare occurrence, at all, at many clubs around the country.

 

And it's also not just one stroke that we're talking about here. There are frequently times when somebody marks down a six or seven when they would've made nine or 10. I have seen this at every single club I have ever played at when you have an "aggregate" tournament round for a team tournament where both players must get the ball actually in the hole on all 18 holes of a round. No picking up. Ever. 

 

When they are playing match play (which the overwhelming number of rounds at private clubs across America are played at), they pick up and take their maximum score on the hole when they could've/would've made some potentially big numbers, otherwise. 
 

Our club stopped doing aggregate day as the final day of any club tournament because the handicap players simply didn't have fun and had too many triples quads, etc.

[iacas]

59 minutes ago, Obee said:

I am not "worried," Erik. I am asking a question about which I have a hypothesis.

 

There are multiple definitions for "worried." 🙂 I'm not suggesting you're losing sleep over this. Just that you're wondering about it, asking about it.

 

I'm going to skip over a good bit of what you said that is… well, I'll just re-ask my question:

 

 

59 minutes ago, Obee said:

And it's also not just one stroke that we're talking about here. There are frequently times when somebody marks down a six or seven when they would've made nine or 10. I have seen this at every single club I have ever played at when you have an "aggregate" tournament round for a team tournament where both players must get the ball actually in the hole on all 18 holes of a round. No picking up. Ever.

 

So, again, what's your concern or question?

 

Let's stipulate that this happens on 8% of the holes for a 10 handicapper and 22% of the holes for a 20. What is your concern here? That the data positions them as better than they are? That they're vanity capping their stats a little?

 

Here's the nut of it, though: there are ways to clean up the data, and both Lou and I tend to do that. You can pretty easily identify outliers. Don't quote me, but I think Lou uses only rounds where the Arccos and the GHIN-posted score match.

 

That goes a long way (maybe 98%? 99%?) toward eliminating "vanity staticapping".

[Obee]

42 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

There are multiple definitions for "worried." 🙂 I'm not suggesting you're losing sleep over this. Just that you're wondering about it, asking about it.

 

I'm going to skip over a good bit of what you said that is… well, I'll just re-ask my question:

 

 

 

So, again, what's your concern or question?

 

Let's stipulate that this happens on 8% of the holes for a 10 handicapper and 22% of the holes for a 20. What is your concern here? That the data positions them as better than they are? That they're vanity capping their stats a little?

 

Here's the nut of it, though: there are ways to clean up the data, and both Lou and I tend to do that. You can pretty easily identify outliers. Don't quote me, but I think Lou uses only rounds where the Arccos and the GHIN-posted score match.

 

That goes a long way (maybe 98%? 99%?) toward eliminating "vanity staticapping".

I am wondering how much, statistically, this phenomenon devalues short game (if any). Still not quite sure I understand how all of this works with strokes gained for players who use Arccos.

 

In other words, if handicap players are losing more strokes in short game/putting than are being reported, then it would affect questions like, "Which part of my game should I work on?" Or, " How much more important is driving/approach play than short game/putting?"

Edited May 25 by Obee

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Obee said:

I am wondering how much, statistically, this phenomenon devalues short game (if any). Still not quite sure I understand how all of this works with strokes gained for players who use Arccos.

 

In other words, if handicap players are losing more strokes in short game/putting than are being reported, then it would affect questions like, "Which part of my game should I work on?" Or, " How much more important is driving/approach play than short game/putting?"

 

Negligibly.

 

I think Lou will tell you the same thing, as we don't just take EVERY shot entered by anyone in doing some of these types of analyses.

[Obee]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

Negligibly.

 

I think Lou will tell you the same thing, as we don't just take EVERY shot entered by anyone in doing some of these types of analyses.

Gotcha. 
 

Negligibly for all golfers, I would agree. But for certain golfers who play at very difficult courses, I'm guessing there might be something there. 
 

For instance, if you ESC three short game shots a round due to tough conditions five or six months a year, and one or two the other five or six months, I'm guessing that would be statistically significant for any player like that.

 

But maybe not?

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, Obee said:

For instance, if you ESC three short game shots a round due to tough conditions five or six months a year, and one or two the other five or six months, I'm guessing that would be statistically significant for any player like that.

 

Then… you're doing it to yourself. I mean, if you give yourself automatic two-putts on every green, you're lying to yourself in thinking you're a better putter than you are. But why would anyone but the self-conning guy care?

[CanFred]

11 hours ago, Obee said:

It can't even out overtime if the data being input is skewed in only one direction. It can only "even out" if you have info on both sides of the curve being input incorrectly.

 

In this case, overwhelmingly, the "incorrect" data is always going to skew towards "your short game is better than you think it is."

 

Unless I am missing something. I don't think I am, And I do not at all think it is statistically insignificant.

 

But it could be.…

 

Ahhh, I'm sorry, I misunderstood the initial question.  No, I think you are correct in assuming that if you only feed it skewed data, its going to spit out bad results.  Apologies for the mix-up!

[CasualLie]

After using arccos the last 10 or so rounds, I see your concerns @Obee.  And to me, that's just tip of the iceberg.  The GPS and detection is off significantly enough that if you don't adjust shots regualrly, you are +/- 15-20 yards on 4-5 holes; minimum.  I can't tell you how many times I laser an approach to 138 yards and later I check Arccos and it's 150.  Over time, this will make your iron yardages pretty much inaccurate.

 

And then there's the pin relocation on greens.  It's painful.

 

After looking at the data my first reaction is what's the point?  

 

I started removing the sensors today...it's not worth the headache.

[roll_the_dice]

I have had arccos for the last year and am a 12.3 handicap as of today.  I have never picked up on a hole in the last 35+ years of playing when I was bad, good, OK or indifferent.  I question the legitimacy of their handicaps if they don't finish holes.

 

It's not hard to edit holes on Arccos however...I find the yardages fairly accurate.  However, like anything I usually check with my range finder to get distance to objects and pins.