How important is the Full Swing in Scoring Low?

[Fred Brattain]

Statistically speaking, the ONLY factor that determines your place on the money list is how well you scramble. BUT, as others have said "long and wrong" don't ring the gong. I think accuracy off the tee is probably more important than raw distance. But, if you are a shorter hitter, you had better have a very accurate fairway game with the longer clubs. Paul Runyon (Little Poison) springs to mind.

Merry xmas,
Fred

[SpaldingFutureTGMJedi]

Statistically speaking, the ONLY factor that determines your place on the money list is how well you scramble. BUT, as others have said "long and wrong" don't ring the gong. I think accuracy off the tee is probably more important than raw distance. But, if you are a shorter hitter, you had better have a very accurate fairway game with the longer clubs. Paul Runyon (Little Poison) springs to mind.

Merry xmas,
Fred

That is true for Tour Professionals. For the average guy, short game is a way to easily improve. BUT, short game is useless for any competitive golf if you are hitting 3 from the tee a lot.

Even Pelz admitted there are ball striking minimums. He said that the tour guys average 7% error on full shots. The best players were lower and there were players that were higher. IIRC 10% error on full shots was the minimum for "tour" performance. If you couldn't manage 10% error on full shots, you weren't going to be on tour to have your scrambling measured.

The scrambling correalation isn't exactly true for the current top 5 money winners.
1. Tiger 1st in GIR, 10th scrambling
2.Furyk 5th in GIR, 4th scrambling
3. Mickelson 14th in GIR, 128th in scrambling
4. Ogilvie 144th in GIR, 50th in scrambling
5.Vijay 26th in GIR, 45th in scrambling

Looking at Tiger and Furyk, I think the GIR and Scrambling are linked. They aren't missing many greens, and I would bet that when they do, it isn't by much, leaving easier shortgame shots.

My $0.02


Spalding