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Weekly Quiz!

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First Tee Jitters

I was chatting with a friend recently and he was telling me about how poor he has been hitting his tee shot on the first hole at his home course. This is not a tough driving hole by any stretch, but he has been in a serious rut. He was asking me if “first tee jitters” are a thing.

Off to the Arccos Golf database we go (Use code DATALOU15 to save 15%).

I was surprised by what I found.

I looked at players with a 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 index. I calculated the average and median strokes gained per tee shot by hole number. I also calculated the standard deviation (for the non-math folks, standard deviation just measures how spread out the numbers are around the average).

Across all skill levels, players performed the best on the first hole! This actually surprised me a lot. The first hole had the best average, the best median, and also the smallest standard deviation.

I am not sure why? A couple thoughts is that many players hit several drivers on the range just prior to teeing off and they are comfortable and in a groove with driver as they just hit a bunch. Another theory is the old “breakfast ball” off the first tee. I am sure there are plenty of breakfast balls that are impacting the numbers.

I wanted to take this a bit further, so I looked at ONLY tournament rounds. How players performed on the first hole changed significantly! Here is how the first hole ranked for median strokes gained per shot for only tournament rounds:

• 0 index: 8th best driving hole

• 5 index: 9th best

• 10 index: 9th best

• 15 index: 10th best

• 20 index: 10th best

Once we start looking at only tournament rounds, the performance on the first tee gets a lot worse across all skill levels.

My Thoughts

When you stand on that first tee, pick a good target, commit to that target, hit the ball, and then go find it. Try your best to not place any extra emphasis or pressure on that opening tee shot.

I hope you enjoyed this little nugget. No more thoughts on this as it’s the final major of the year. Enjoy the rest of The Open Championship! Last chance at major golf for another 9 months!

Before we wrap, my podcast co-host dropped an awesome review video earlier this week on YouTube. He reviewed eight “affordable” launch monitors that range in price from $139 to $2995.

I wanted to share this because if you don’t have a launch monitor, I highly recommend you consider one if you have the space and the budget. They are such a valuable practice tool.

Check out his review video below:

See you next week!

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  Have a great week!