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Does a Fade Really Take Away the Left Side?

"Hit a fade and you take the left side out of play."

You've heard some version of this. Maybe from a buddy, maybe from a TV broadcast. Pick one shape, and you eliminate one side of the golf course. Faders never miss left. Drawers never miss right.

It sounds great. Let’s look at some data and see what’s happening.

This topic and the data for it was inspired by a really cool/clever website from Vince Pipitone called LosingStrokesGained.com. Go check it out, and give Vince a follow on X at @VincePipitone.

Time for a deep dive!

A Well Known Fader of the Ball

Let's start with Dustin Johnson. For years, DJ was known for his fade. I‘ve heard many people say he “completely eliminated" the left side of the course.

I wrote about DJ’s data several years ago. I looked at every fairway he missed on the PGA Tour over 15 seasons (2007 to 2021). He had 4,441 missed fairways during that time. Overall:

• 49.6% missed left

• 50.4% missed right

That doesn’t exactly look like eliminating one side of the golf course.

And it wasn't just the little misses. His big misses (tee shots that lost 0.25 strokes or more) were also a coin flip with about half the misses on either side. His misses also finished about the same distance from the edge of the fairway on both sides.

A guy that was known for “always” hitting a fade missed left just as often as he missed right.

The Rest of the PGA Tour

Maybe DJ is an outlier? So I looked at PGA Tour players from 2024 to 2026.

I grouped players by how often they hit one shape with driver:

• “Fade players”: fade spin on 60% or more of their drives

• “Draw players”: draw spin on 60% or more of their drives

Then I looked at every fairway they missed. If a fade takes away the left side, fade players should rarely miss left.

As a group, when fade players miss the fairway, 47.5% of those missed fairways are on the left side.

• 9 in 10 players missed on the left side at least 40% of the time

• 1 in 3 actually missed left MORE often than they missed right

The drawers look the same. Draw players miss to the right side 49.2% of the time. Almost half of them missed right more often than left!

Quick rule of thumb… at tour speeds, every degree of spin axis tilt is worth about 2.2 yards of curve, all things being equal. So 2 degrees spin axis is about 4.4 yards of curve. 5 degrees is about 11 yards of curve.

One more fun nugget. Fade players with driver outnumber draw players on Tour almost 4 to 1.

My Thoughts

Playing a stock shape is still a good idea. I covered this in a past issue on stock vs non-stock shapes, and many players tend to be more consistent with their stock shape (although some can effectively shape it both ways!).

But don't count on a “single” shot shape to take eliminate one side of the golf course. Even the best players in the world miss on both sides. If you are picking good targets, you should too!

Know how big your shot pattern is. Center it so you are taking trouble out of play.

See you next week!

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