Round Profiles

Today we are going to look at "round profiles" for 5 index players. What is a round profile? It's simply the percent of great, average, and bad shots a player hits in a round.

A question I often hear is "how many good shots do I need to hit to score well?". The charts below will answer that question. Please note these are for 5 index players.

The percentages look nearly identical for every skill level of amateur players.

There are three charts below:

• Off-the-tee

• Approach shots (50+ yards)

• Around-the-green (inside 50 yards)

I did not include a chart on putting in this newsletter. I will be covering that in a future issue.

How to Read the Data

This data is from the Arccos database where we now have over 660 million shots! Down the left side is the total number of strokes shot in the round.The first row are rounds where a player shot 72 or better. These are the "once a year" type of round... usually during the member/guest :) The bottom row are rounds where the score was 90 or higher. These are very bad rounds for a 5 index. Across the top are percentiles. The far left is the worst 10% of shots. The far right is the best 10% of shots. For all other columns, the percentile is shown in the column header. For example, the column labeled "60-70" represents shots that are in the 60th to 70th percentile. These are above average shots ("good shots"). In first chart (off-the-tee), when players shoot 72 or better, 11% of their tee shots are in the 60th to 70th percentile. Also notice:

• When a player shoots 72 or better, 15% of their tee shots are in the top 10% of tee shots ("great shots")

• When a player shoots 90 or worse, 21% of their tee shots are in the bottom 10% of tee shots ('horrible shots")

What Does This Mean For You?

Takeaways:

• Horrible shots:

  • In rounds where you play terrible, ~20% of shots are "horrible"

  • In rounds where you play awesome, ~5% of shots are "horrible"

• Great shots:

  • In rounds where you play terrible, ~7% of shots are "great"

  • In rounds where you play awesome, ~15% of shots are "great"

Good rounds are driven not by a huge uptick of "great" shots, but by a reduction of "horrible" shots.

• Keep the ball in play

• Limit penalty strokes

• Make relatively solid contact

You do not need to hit the ball perfect to shoot a good number. The key is to eliminate as many "horrible" shots as possible.

Thank you for reading and supporting the newsletter!

If you are enjoying this newsletter, you might also enjoy the podcast I co-host with well known YouTube coach Mark Crossfield, and PGA Tour winner Greg Chalmers. It's called "Hack it Out Golf" podcast.

We just started a new weekly series called "The Saturday Morning Stat". It's a 12-15 minute episode where we do a deep dive on an amateur stat.

We review the stat and provide tips on what you can learn from it to help your game. It's awesome to get the perspective of an elite coach and a PGA Tour player. I learn a lot from both of them each week.

I know you will too!

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Thanks so much and have a great week!

— Lou