NEW GolfWRX Column: How to Play long Par-4 & Par-5's Better

[Richie3Jack]

This past week, Brian Harman won the John Deere Classic. Harman has been one of my favorite players to follow from a statistical approach because he is one of the most aggressive tee shot players on Tour. Meaning, his numbers show that he is less likely to lay-up off the tee and continue to hit his driver. Here are the top-10 most aggressive drivers on Tour from the 2013 season:

1. Ian Poulter
2. Ben Curtis
3. Brandt Snedeker
4. Phil Mickelson
5. Brian Harman
6. Graeme McDowell
7. Tim Clark
8. Robert Castro
9. Steve Sticker
10. Matt Kuchar

The statistical research in the game has repeatedly shown that golfers are better off utilizing an offensive strategy versus a defensive strategy. It will not work every time, but the golfer that utilizes an offensive strategy is usually putting the odds in their favor. The question then becomes when is the point of being too aggressive?


Read More: www.golfwrx.com/215795/how-to-play-long-par-4s-and-par-5s-effectively/

[Golf Nerd]

Interesting ideas Richie. I notice a number of these guys are "shorter" hitters, (Phil is the outlier). Is the "aggressive" stat simply the percent of times someone hits driver on par 5s? Generally speaking though - have been noticing this big time lately. With the wet bermuda rough this summer in Florida, shots even one step off the fairway almost immediately become layups over 200 yards. It's a little bit of a paradox - more aggressive, but ensuring the fairway hit...don't kill a 3-wood, smooth a driver?

[Richie3Jack]

The metric is a based on an algorithm that looks at the difference in driving distance for measured drives vs. driving distance for all drives for every course they play for the year.

The measured driving distance metric is the old metric...where they take 2 holes on the course where driver is likely to be used and measure the distance. The driving distance for all drives is simply that; all drives measured with a laser using ShotLink. Some will say 'well, Tour players don't always hit driver on the traditional driving distance metric.' But, I've discussed this with my ShotLink contacts and they have told me that is almost never the case. While it *could* happen, it almost never does happen. Every course has some super long hole where it is clearly best to hit driver. And I've gone to quite a few different events. Since I started doing this I've gone to the entire Florida swing including Sawgrass. And in the practice rounds, none of the players leave the driver in the bag on these holes.

I've also gotten feedback from many Tour players and they agree with my assessments of the ultra-aggressive and ultra-conservative players. In fact, a while ago on this forum I mentioned how I liked Brian Harman's game (I believe it was in the Golf Swing folder). And I talked about how ultra-aggressive he was off the tee. And a week later one of my clients played with Harman and came back to me and said 'you were right about how aggressive off the tee he is because he always hits driver.'

Here's a look at last year's top-20 in 'Driving Aggressiveneess' with their ranking in Driving Distance (out of 180 players) and their club head speed.

Click to Enlarge



8 of the 20 finished in the top-half in Driving Distance Ranking. Another 2 of them....Stricker and Snedeker finished in the top-100 in driving distance.

I consider anything below 111 mph club head speed, by Tour standards, to be a bit on the slow side. Again, 8 out of the 20 had 111+ mph club head speed. And really, you don't see players get very slow until they are less than 110 mph. There we had another 5 players that were between 110 and 111 mph (Snedeker, McDowell, Kuchar, Harman, Moore and Duke). So a lot of the distance thing is based off of their attack angle. Kenny Perry was considered a 'long hitter' and he was generating about 110-111 mph in the last 4 years of his career on Tour. I was given a Trackman report on his swing long ago and he was hitting up about +4 to +5 degrees on average.

Certainly, there's a tendency for the shorter hitters to be more aggressive. Although the two long hitters in this group that are aggressive off the tee...Mickelson and Bubba, have 7 majors between them and Bubba still has another 10 years of good golf ahead of him.

If you look at Adjusted Par-4 Scoring Average, there is a noticeable correlation between tee shot aggressiveness and performance on the par-4's. It's not mathematically enough to consider a 'strong correlation', but it is significant enough to take notice since so many other things go into playing the par-4's well. But those that are conservative off the tee put themselves behind the 8-ball. A 140 yard approach shot becomes a 175 yard approach shot. And even if you're swinging well, you're raising the difficulty significantly.







3JACK

[Golf Nerd]

Ah! Very cool thanks for the details...makes a lot more sense now - the measured vs all


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