William L. Coney Blog: Shot Scope Case Study #4 – Helping Tom Make Better Club Choices

In our 4th case study, the team at Shot Scope provides an analysis of Tom, a steady playing mid-handicap golfer who needed some help leveraging his Shot Scope data to identify weaknesses in his game. As with our previous Case Study, a deeper look at the data yields some interesting insights, and ultimately, a simple recommendation.

Tom’ Story

Tom is a 13 handicap golfer who has a well-rounded game. His 2018 overall statistics show that he is a steady player. Tom approached Shot Scope and asked us to dig deeper into his stats as he was struggling to pinpoint his areas of weaknesses.

Looking at Tom’s statistics, we can see that he has good distance gapping with his clubs. Shot Scope’s Performance Average removes all outlier shots (good and bad) to give the golfer a true representation of the distance a well-struck golf shot travels. Digger deeper, we discovered a 30-yard gap between Tom’s true average of 234 yards and his Performance Average of 264 yards. This suggests that he struggles with swing consistency with his Driver.

Approach Shots

Tom has a Green Success rate of 39% and leaves 72.5% of approach shots short of the pin. 50.6% of those shots fall short of the green as well. A complicated fix may not be required. The data suggests that Tom simply needs to choose his club more wisely.

Perhaps this means Tom should take one more club than he normally would, to increase the probability of reaching the flag distance and hitting the green. Focussing on distance to the back of the green distance would ensure that Tom selects the appropriate club and leaves fewer shots short of the green. In the example below, if Tom were to hit a 9 iron, i.e., to the middle of the green yardage, his average and performance average show that he would end up in the danger zone at the front of the green. This is why Tom should choose a longer club, his 8 iron.

Shot Scope data reveals that 72% of danger is at the front of the green whereas only 28% at the back. Therefore, missing long is significantly less of a problem than missing short. Tom, gets ‘Up & Down’ 43% of the time, which is very steady for a 13 handicapper. By comparison, the best PGA Tour players get ‘Up & Down’ 70% of the time.

Chipping is one of Tom’s strengths, his average proximity from his short game is 14 ft, however; Tom heavily relies on his short game to keep his score down. If Tom were to start hitting the correct club for his distance to the back of the green, he would likely hit more greens and wouldn’t need to rely on his short game to get ‘Up & Down’ as often.

Conclusion

Tom needs to hit more greens from the fairway, so he is not reliant on his short game. Tom has committed to playing to the back of green distance to try and increase the number of greens hit per round.

Tom has informed us he has a new Driver (Taylormade M3 with Twist Face Technology, 10.5° Fujikura ATMOS shaft) to try and sort out his distance inconsistency. After playing eight rounds, his Average Driving Distance is now 251yards, and Performance Average is 268 yards.

For more information on Shot Scope V2, visit ShotScope.com.