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Weekly Quiz!

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Good luck! 😀 

How Being Short-sided Impacts Scoring

When you need to flop shot to a hole that is barely past the edge of the green, that’s called being short-sided. For this analysis I defined short-sided as being when you have less than the 30% of the distance between your ball and the hole is green (e.g., a 20-yard shot with six yards or less of green to work with).

By contrast, you’re long-sided when you’ve got 75 % or more of the green to work with (e.g., a 20-yard pitch with at least 15 yards of green to work with).

The tables below are shots for different skill levels from different distances.

The pattern is ruthlessly consistent

More green to work with equals better scoring. For example, a ~2 index player that is long-sided from 10 to 14 yards in the rough will average ~2.40 shots. If they are short-sided? That jumps to an average of ~2.62 shots. That short-sided shot is nearly a quarter shot more difficult. That’s HUGE given how many greens us amateurs miss.

Three takeaways

1. Miss to the “big” side on approach. Minimizing how often you short-side it will help you score better without changing anything with your swing.

2. Get paid on the “easy” chips. Long-sided isn’t party time… you still need to execute. Groove bump-and-runs that land early and release predictably.

3. Short-side triage. When the inevitable happens, be reasonable. When you are short-sided, don’t chase heroics that turn bogey into double bogey.

Enjoy the rest of The Open Championship!

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