The Swing Analysis (2013 Edition)

"I figured it out!"

I've said that probably two dozen times over the years with reference to my golf swing.  My brother has said it at least that many to me.  Our dad has easily doubled that.

We're always (eventually) wrong.  But that doesn't mean it's not worth working on.

This year's "I figured it out" moment came courtesy of a Sean O'Hair tip in Golf Digest.  You can see the video version below.  What he says isn't revolutionary, but it's the imagery of the hands and clubhead being on train-tracks on the take away that really clicked for me:

My problem historically has been what O'Hair refers to as "sucking in;" that move gets the club too far inside, and I have to make a big adjustment to get on plane at the top of the swing.  Sometimes that works, but sometimes it doesn't; just depends on my timing.

So for the past month or so at the range I've been rehearsing the "train tracks" take away over and over.  Below you'll see some video of my swing with this mental image at the forefront of my mind:

7 iron

Driver

A couple of things I learned from this: (1) this is definitely better, less of a wrap-around take away than I've had previously, and leads to a controlled but powerful weight transfer (especially with the driver); and (2) no matter what I think I'm feeling, the video tells a different story -- I'm still too far inside.

7-iron swing sequence - click to make larger

Ultimately I think I'm doing a better job with the first 25% of the backswing, but then I go right back to rotating the club as I continue backward as opposed to lifting it.  The past 2 range sessions (after these images/videos) I've been focusing on the full backswing, and I feel it becoming ingrained.  The question now is how long I can keep it that way before the old habits creep back in.

The Amendment

I need to make an amendment to the last post on my short game statistic.  My brother (the math teacher) pointed out that making an "arbitrary" assignment of 5 putts saved as "perfect" didn't make a whole lot of sense after all the intricate calculations that came before that.  He recommended using normative data for strokes gained-putting to assess how the adjustment should be made.  Unfortunately, I didn't have normative data for strokes gained-putting.

So... I decided to go straight to the source.  I emailed the guru himself, Mark Broadie, and asked if he could help out.  And he graciously sent along the distribution of PGA strokes gained-putting ranging from +5.5 to -5.5.  Based on that, I was able to asses that (a) it is indeed normally distributed, and (b) the standard deviation is about 1.735.

One problem with that, though -- although I refer to the number as an estimated shots gained-putting, what I'm really trying to calculate is something more like "shots gained from short game shots."  So putting-only distribution doesn't quite fit (obviously there are fewer putts in a round than there are total short game shots including putts; therefore the range should be a bit bigger).  Fortunately, Broadie's research comes through again here, as it turns out an average round's short game play can be split into about 75% putts and 25% short game shots.

Based on all that, here's the final calculation for short game score:

SG = 0.75 + [(SGP*0.75)/1.735] * 0.1

where SG = short game, SGP = estimated shots gained-putting

That yields a short game score of 0.750 (or 75% efficient) when SGP = 0, and goes up or down by 10% for every standard deviation above or below the PGA mean, adjusted for the added short game shots.  Ultimately this works out close to my original "arbitrary" assessment, but it's definitely more precise -- and I like that.

Using this calculation, by the way, obviously changes my short game scores that I had reported in the previous post.  Here are the updated values:

Red Tail Golf Club (SGP +0.672) -- short game score 0.779 (down from 0.784 by original method).

Butter Brook Golf Club (SGP +3.213) -- short game score 0.889 (previously 0.911).

Fox Hopyard Golf Club (SGP -6.145) -- short game score 0.484 (previously 0.443).

The Must Plays: 2013

This is happening right now:

That means two things: (1) no golf for me any time soon, and (2) more blog posts for you!

So let's review last year's "must-play" list and delve into the courses I'm looking to get to this year.

First up, the courses from last year's list that I made it out to.  It was good year as "must-plays" goes, as I made it to 3 of the 5 courses on the 2012 list, plus one from the 2012-2016 list.

MUST PLAYS 2012: COURSES PLAYED

1. Wintonbury Hills Golf Course, Bloomfield, CT.  I played this one very early in the season, just after opening.  I really can't say enough about this course, a varied design that plays fairly open on the front side, and more tightly through the forest on the back.  It's the perfect stop half way between Boston and New York.

2. Meadow Brook Golf Course, Richmond, RI.  I ended up here on a last minute decision -- I had spent a night in Providence and was thinking of heading down to the Connecticut casinos for some poker, but at the last minute decided play 18 instead.  The course comes as advertised: "7400 yards from the back tees with rolling fairways and multiple elevation changes throughout, allowing golfers to use every club in their bag."  It still needs a little bit of maturing, and there is one notable oddity -- the first tee is quite a distance from the pro shop -- but it has the potential to be the prime choice for golf and gamble trips in the future.

3. The Ailsa Course, Turnberry Resort, Ayrshire, Scotland.  As perfect a place as I've ever been.  If you haven't read about it yet, click here.

4. The Oaks, The International Golf Club & Resort, Bolton, MA.  I had put this one on the 5-year list, but suggested that I would try to get there in 2012 because it was newly semi-private, and there's always a chance it would go back to full-time private.  I actually ended up playing there twice, 10 days apart.  It immediately vaulted to one of my favorite courses, a perfect mix of challenging but still fair, with fantastic conditioning and a tremendous hole variety -- not to mention some of the best views of the Worcester Hills and Mt. Wachusett around.  I cannot recommend this course enough.

Although it was an awfully good year for courses played, there will still be some carry-overs this year.  Before we get to the this, let's review the rules again:

• "Must plays" for the year (or the next 5 years) cannot be courses that I played last year.
• "Must plays" for this year should all be fairly local so that it's realistic; must plays for the 5-year list can be a bit more extended.
• I want to be somewhat pragmatic.

MUST PLAYS FOR 2013

1. The Springfield Country Club, West Springfield, MA.  As I mentioned last year, my friend Kevin (of Asher Invitational fame) joined here last year, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to play.  That will change this year as I have been invited to their member-guest, a 5 day (!) affair.  Can't wait.

2. Shaker Hills Country Club, Harvard, MA.  Shaker has long been one of my favorite courses (and still features my favorite hole, the par-5 16th).  That's why it was shocking to hear that the course was shuttered and sold at auction last spring.  Fortunately, the buyers didn't decide to turn it into a movie production studio, and instead have been at work renovating the course and clubhouse.  I'm looking forward to getting back there this year to see the updates.

3. Taconic Golf Club, Williamstown, MA.  Golf.com ranks it as the #39 on their "Top 100 You Can Play" rankings; Golf Digest has it ranked as the #19 course overall in the state of Massachusetts.  I was fortunate enough to play there back when I was about 18 years old, and really I was too naive to appreciate it then.  But, lo and behold, when I looked at the schedule for The TOUR of Greater Boston, there it was, marked down for October 7.  I'll be there.

4. Acushnet River Valley Golf Course, Acushnet, MA.  Another carry-over from last year's list.  It's too good a course to go ignored, and now that I know there's a pro-level Titleist fitting facility nearby it's a no-brainer -- I think it's time for new wedges.

5. The Black, Bethpage State Park, Farmington, NY.  In the words of Jack Shephard, "We have to go back!"

MUST PLAYS FOR 2013-2017

1. Chambers Bay, University Place, WA.  I've said it once, and I'll say it again -- this course is #1 on the list until I play it.  It seems like some of the buzz for the course has died down recently, but I'm sure it will pick up again soon enough with the U.S. Open coming in 2015.  My post-Scotland obsession with links-style golf has only enhanced my desire to get there.  It will happen.

2. Cabot Links, Inverness, NS.  The only new course on the 5-year list this time around; this one is my newest obsession.  Not only is it Scottish-links, its in Nova Scotia ("New Scotland").  And the early reviews are spectacular.  Unfortunately, it turns out to be more difficult to get to than I had hoped (apparently there no longer is a Boston-to-Halifax ferry), but I'm convinced that the wife can be swayed to go away for another "unique" vacation.  

3. Pine Barrens, World Woods Golf Club, Brooksville, FL.  Too close to my parents' house to not get there.  It's only a matter of time.

4. Ballyowen Golf Course, Hamburg, NJ.  This is the 3rd course on this list which advertises itself as being born "in the Scottish tradition" or to actually have a picture of a man wearing a kilt playing the bagpipes on its website.  I may actually have a problem.

5. Boston Golf Club, Hingham, MA.  The reviews (ranked in the 70s on both the "top 100" courses lists).  The secrecy.  The proximity.  This: 

If anybody knows a way to get on there (or any members who want to invite me), just let me know!

The Short Game Statistic

This, by the way, might as well be a mathematics thesis paper.  I'm not saying I'd get a good grade, I'm just saying I spent a lot of time on it, and the math is complicated.  If that's not interesting to you, I suggest you stop reading now.

For those of you still here, I brought up a statistic I simply referred to as "short game" in my last post.  What I've attempted to quantify in one number is how effective were the shots taken within 20 yards of the green and on the putting surface for a given round.  It is essentially the complement to my previously described "shot efficiency" statistic.  I played around with a number of different formulas over the past several years, but last year I settled on one that I think works well.

First, a few assumptions:
1. If we are striving for even par, then using PGA tour data as a gold standard upon which "perfect golf" should be measured is reasonable.
2. Putting itself is an adequate measure of total short game (both putting and chipping/pitch shots/bunker play) since the closer your short game shots get you to the hole, the fewer putts you should have.

The PGA Tour uses "strokes gained-putting" as their #1 putting efficiency stat.  The basis for this is the work of Mark Broadie, a researcher at Columbia University, who determined the average number of putts for a PGA Tour pro from any given 1st-putt distance (see his paper here).  For example, the average PGA pro takes 1.5 putts to get in from 8 feet; 1.87 putts from 20 feet; and 2.06 putts from 40 feet.  Strokes gained-putting simply measures an individual player against the expected average for each of their putts; so if Phil Mickelson drains a 20 footer, he "gains" 0.87 putts against the average for that hole.  The total gains (and losses) for each hole are added up to provide a score for the round, and a player's average per-round score is their strokes gained-putting number for the year.  Last year Brandt Snedeker led the tour with 0.860 strokes gained-putting per round.

Now utilizing that statistic requires a precise measurement of the first putt distance for each hole; something that is not practical for the amateur golfer playing without the benefit of ShotLink technology.  So what we need to determine is a way to estimate the average 1st putt distance for a given round; and that brings us to the complicated math.

Mark Broadie has done some other research that comes in handy here, including the average distance from the hole for PGA pros on shots from 20-60 yards and 100-150 yards.  Using that, I determined a best-fit equation to describe the theoretical average 1st putt length:

P = (A/1.9259)^(1/1.2159)

where P = 1st putt length, and A = approach distance

Next, though, I needed to come up with an average approach shot distance (outside 20 yards) for a given round to plug in as "A" in the equation above.  This required several steps:
1. First I calculated the average distance per shot for the round -- this is essentially the same as the shot efficiency, except I eliminated penalty shots since those ultimately do not impact the short game play.  So avg distance per shot = course yardage / (score - putts - penalties).
2. Next I calculate the average rating per hole for the course; simply course rating / 18.
3. Then I calculate the percentage of the total distance that should be attributable to tee shots.  Based on the USGA standard to determine course rating, that factor is 2.39 (in other words, the tee shot is worth 2.39 course rating points).  So if the average rating per hole is 4.0 (i.e. a course with a rating of 72), then the percentage of the rating attributed to tee shots is 2.39/4 = 60%.
4. The inverse of that number (in the example, then, we are talking 40%) is the percentage of total distance that *should* be accounted for in approach shots to the green.  I multiply that number by the average shot distance calculated in step 1 to get a theoretical average approach shot distance.

In sum:

A = (1-T)*(PISE)

where A = avg approach shot distance, T = avg tee shot distance, and PISE = penalty-independent shot efficiency

So now we have our dependent variable to plug into the first equation above, thus determining the average 1st putt length for a given round.  One last step, though -- we need to compare that to the expected putts from that distance based on the PGA averages; rather than looking at a chart for each putting distance, I determined the equation for putts to hole from any distance (2-90 feet) as:

PP = 0.3759ln(P) + 0.6933

where PP = predicted putts, and P = avg 1st putt length

Confused yet?  Let's look at an example.  Last August, playing in the TOUR of Greater Boston Club Championship at Red Tail Golf Club, I shot 83 with 30 putts.  The course rating is 71.9, played over 6698 yards.  I had 1 penalty shot.  So:

A = (1-(2.39/[71.9/18]))*(6698/[83-30-1])

A = (1-.598)*(128.8)

A = (0.402)*(167.45) = 51.78 yards per average approach shot

and

P = (51.78/1.9259)^(1/1.2159)

P = 14.96 feet average 1st putt distance

Based on the probable putts equation, the average tour pro will take about 1.704 putts to get in from that distance; over 18 holes that comes out to 30.672 putts/round.  I took 30 putts, so my calculated strokes gained-putting for the round is +0.672.

Lastly, I wanted to put this on a similar scale to the shot efficiency data.  So I arbitrarily set the expected putts value at 75% (since that's the "average"), and 5 putts saved as 100% and 5 putts lost as 50% -- essentially assigned letter grades of "C" "A" and "F" to those scores respectively.  Using that scale, a score of +0.672 yields a short game score of 0.784.

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Extremely complicated, I know; but once you have the formulas plugged into an Excel file, all you need is 5 data points from the round -- yardage, course rating, score, putts, and penalty shots.  And here's the thing: it works.  The numbers match up well with my subjective impressions of how well I chipped and putted for most of the rounds that I've measured.  My best short game round last year was in mid-August at Butter Brook, where I shot 85 but had just 27 putts -- 3.213 strokes gained-putting, for a short game score of 0.911.  One of my worst was during the first round of the Asher Invitational at Fox Hopyard, a round in which I hit 69% of fairways and 50% of greens, but shot only 89 after 37 putts (including four 3-putts) for an abysmal 6.145 strokes lost-putting; short game score 0.443.  Sometimes you just know when something is right, and this one feels that way.