We've launched the new forums! Read more here

How do Unusual Circumstances Affect your Stats?

Space Bandito

Space Bandito

Baguette
Albatross 2024 Club
Joined
Sep 26, 2013
Messages
14,140
Reaction score
11,863
Location
Usually on an airplane
Handicap
2 Children
Lately in the Southland it has been exceedingly dry (humidity around 10%) and quite windy. As you can imagine, this has turned our golf courses into barren wastelands, and our greens into slabs of what can best be described as fuzzy, concrete with hints of chartreuse and olive. Putting today was an absolute nightmare. I have never seen rolls move so quickly. Guys were 3 and 4 putting inside 5 feet all day long.

I like to keep track of putts, but I am not sure I want to count today's uncharacteristically high number against my average. While I fully adopt the "rub of the green" mentality, something about strangely unusual conditions has me second guessing that approach. I didn't play poorly. To be honest, today was the best ball striking day I've had in quite some time, and I was regularly putting for birdie (sadly only two of them went in the hole.)

So, other than the insane putting, the round was normal.

Should I just keep this one off of the old spreadsheet? What do you think about unusual conditions vs. your averages?

*Keep in mind, I'm strictly talking about the stats you keep, not a handicap or anything that would be used for competition.
 
I really try not to start picking and choosing which stats to count or not, and when. There are definitely stat trends that change based on circumstances, but if you exclude them you alter the overall. So I try to compare recent stats with the overall often, and if there's a noticeable change, try to evaluate the context. Am I actually (total) putting worse lately, or have I been playing the course with the massive and challenging greens more? Has my iron play gone to crap (GIR) or have most of our recent rounds been at the course with tiny ones that don't hold anything.?

The only things I don't track when my app isn't effing up are rescue shots. The result still counts towards GIR and stuff automatically based on score and putts and whatnot, but I don't need a 80yd punch 8i throwing off my 8i yardage or specific GIR with an 8i. Cause it's not an actual 8i shot. It's an 80 yd punch shot that just happened to need an 8i to do it.

The FIR, GIR, Putts, etc always evens out over the long haul. Unless you had to borrow an opposite handed putter and needed 50 with it to finish, I wouldn't worry too much about it and just leave it in. That's me though.
 
Honestly, they’re your stats do with what you want.... do you keep your stats if course is wet, soft and slow? Do you choose the days you play based on weather conditions? I’d also say you chose to play so your stats are your stats.... in the end things will average out over time
 
Stemmy66 said:
Honestly, they’re your stats do with what you want.... do you keep your stats if course is wet, soft and slow? Do you choose the days you play based on weather conditions? I’d also say you chose to play so your stats are your stats.... in the end things will average out over time
Click to expand...
Yes, but wet, soft, and slow is not unusually uncharacteristic.
 
This is a battle I fight in my mind often. It's useless to factor club distances into my averages on windy days because they're going to be aberrations - same with FIR and GIR, when the wind is blowing your ball all over the place. When I'm hitting a 6 iron on what is normally a 9i/PW approach shot, what good is it doing me to track that I hit a 6 iron 125 yards?

Similarly, my putting stats have gone to hell lately because our course overseeded the back before the front, and now the greens are two completely different speeds. They haven't cut the greens on the front all the way down yet so they're fuzzy, bumpy and slow (and some worse than others just to make it more interesting), but then once you've calibrated to those you get to the back and they're running like ice on top of glass and you're blowing everything six feet past the hole. I've had more 3 putts in the last few weeks than I'd had in the last few months prior to that. I'm usually fairly confident with a putter in my hand, but lately I stand over the ball and feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. I have no confidence in my reads and speed just feels like a guessing game.

I know it'll all even out over the long term, but some days I just want to burn the scorecard and forget it ever happened.
 
green speed usually doesn't bother me much as long as I can spend a bit of time on the putting green beforehand. What gets me is after aeration. Oooooooooof.

Also, wind. I am getting better with it, but I check out pretty quickly when the wind really picks up.
 
Canadan said:
green speed usually doesn't bother me much as long as I can spend a bit of time on the putting green beforehand. What gets me is after aeration. Oooooooooof.

Also, wind. I am getting better with it, but I check out pretty quickly when the wind really picks up.
Click to expand...
I don't complain about fast greens. Prefer them to slow. This was bonkers. 1° of uphill slope at 5 feet would go 5 feet by the hole and then back down to below where you started. We couldn't help buy laugh.
 
Space Bandito said:
I don't complain about fast greens. Prefer them to slow. This was bonkers. 1° of uphill slope at 5 feet would go 5 feet by the hole and then back down to below where you started. We couldn't help buy laugh.
Click to expand...
that's brutal.
 
For putts I mark my stat with made/line/speed. I use it to determine what to practice and sometimes where. I'll go practice at a location that has slow greens or fast if that seems to be an issue. I did track windy days until I had a number to use - ie if wind from west at 15-20, add 15 yards to yardage into wind.
 
Space Bandito said:
I don't complain about fast greens. Prefer them to slow. This was bonkers. 1° of uphill slope at 5 feet would go 5 feet by the hole and then back down to below where you started. We couldn't help buy laugh.
Click to expand...
Okay after seeing this.... don’t include the stats.... geez!
but why you missing a 5’er? :p
 
Space Bandito said:
Lately in the Southland it has been exceedingly dry (humidity around 10%) and quite windy. As you can imagine, this has turned our golf courses into barren wastelands, and our greens into slabs of what can best be described as fuzzy, concrete with hints of chartreuse and olive. Putting today was an absolute nightmare. I have never seen rolls move so quickly. Guys were 3 and 4 putting inside 5 feet all day long.

I like to keep track of putts, but I am not sure I want to count today's uncharacteristically high number against my average. While I fully adopt the "rub of the green" mentality, something about strangely unusual conditions has me second guessing that approach. I didn't play poorly. To be honest, today was the best ball striking day I've had in quite some time, and I was regularly putting for birdie (sadly only two of them went in the hole.)

So, other than the insane putting, the round was normal.

Should I just keep this one off of the old spreadsheet? What do you think about unusual conditions vs. your averages?

*Keep in mind, I'm strictly talking about the stats you keep, not a handicap or anything that would be used for competition.
Click to expand...
I think if you want to track stats, you have to keep all of the rounds. There are also outliers where the conditions are perfect. It all averages out.
 
Last edited:
If it were me keeping the stats, I would include all rounds, regardless of how unfair/tricked up an element (ie. the greens) could be during a particular round. IMO, if you start to pick and choose which day(s) you choose to include, you are not going to wind up with a true reflection of your average performance. Sure, you know in your heart that your performance was impacted by factors outside of your control but accuracy in any formula requires accurate input (garbage in, garbage out)

Now, on the flip side of the coin most proper formulae for averaging a value will automatically eliminate the highest and lowest values before completing the calculation. You could also apply this logic and still be justified in your decision. The handicap system does something similar - by only including a portion of your scores in the calculation, it gives you an indication of potential, not performance.

At the end of the day, you have to decide what value you are expecting from keeping the stat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top