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What Matters More: Tee to Green (Driver+Approach) or Short Game

Gavin - Shot Scope said:
It depends who you are?

@Canadan do you want me to get some data and work it out? If we say hey want happens to your scores if your tee shots/approaches improve by 10% and short game/putting stays the same then do it in reverse. Can do for a variety of handicaps too.
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Would love to see this.
 
I can see both sides of the discussion. I am however leaning strongly toward the short game chipping and putting.

Most if not all of my best scores are rounds that the wedges around the green are dialed and putter is good.

Recently had a stretch where the cap started climbing at a rate that was alarming. That ride was strictly due to wedges and putter. Weather was bad and I didn’t spend any time around the short game practice area and putting stroke was horrible. 3 and 4 footers were nowhere near confident. Way more apt to gag and miss than make.

Fast forward a few weeks with some practice time with wedges and dome really good tempo work with putting stroke and cap has dropped just as quickly as it had skyrocketed. Driving during this time has stayed the same or slightly worse.

Everyone is different. Would love to see Shot Scope evidence to see what kind of picture it paints.
 
blugold said:
170 posts on this really quickly. The most important shot is the next one.

For the biggest improvements, tee to green. To get from a 10 to a 4, short game.
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I agree with this fully.
 
Gavin - Shot Scope said:
It depends who you are?

@Canadan do you want me to get some data and work it out? If we say hey want happens to your scores if your tee shots/approaches improve by 10% and short game/putting stays the same then do it in reverse. Can do for a variety of handicaps too.
Click to expand...
I’ll even volunteer as tribute if you need a specific person.
 
Short game. Doesn’t matter if you can get to the green or around it if you fall apart when there.
 
These type of threads always result in answers that devolve to “matters the most to my game”.

Of course, both matter A LOT. But “the most” always depends on a particular individual’s game.

If you are a high handicap player with some length who sucks at all aspects of your game, you likely are going to say tee to green, because you know that occasionally this blind squirrel will find a nut and hit a decent tee shot on a par 3 or more rarely a decent tee shot and approach on a par 4. When that happens is when you likely have your best scores to par on a hole.

If you are a low handicapper with a wizard of a short game, but erratic tee to green game, you likely will say tee to green matters most because that variable accounts for whether you are going to have a good or poor scoring day.

You get the idea.

So the answer you get is almost always related to what variable makes the most difference given that particular golfer’s starting skill set.
 
Until you can get to the green when chipping and putter become important, it's tee to green.

If I'm in the woods or OB and it costs me strokes, I better get better off the tee and fairway. Once that's squared away, then I can concentrate on chipping and putting more.
 
My scorecard lives and dies by GIR, and my GIR count lives and dies by being in or around the fairway consistently. I know that if my short game was better I’d score better consistently, but my best rounds are always fairways >60% and greens the same. Hard for me to argue with those statistics.
 
Honestly,

I feel like it’s 3 parts not 2.

Tee, approach, short game (pitch, chips, putts).

Any can get you in trouble. I feel as if you’re playing the right tees, approach game can have greatest impact.
 
Will be interesting to see the data that Gavin pulls together to see what it points to.
 
TxAggie2018 said:
They both matter, but driving and approach shots matter more. To spitball it, it's probably weighted 70:30.
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This is the first post I've read where someone gave a percentage or ratio. "How much more important" has always been my question but I didn't know how to approach it on a forum without sounding like a nay-sayer or a dummy when it comes to statistics (which I clearly am, ha-ha). And to be clear, drive for show and putt for dough has never been something I believed in.

Does that ratio apply to nearly everyone? Or does it mean that 70% of the population needs to work harder to improve tee to green while the other 30% of the population need to work more on their short game to bring it up to the level of their full swing? Not meant as an argument, I genuinely would like to understand a bit more. (Guess I could buy Broadie's book. Lol.)

If the importance applies to nearly everyone, would you agree that there are still a lot of golfers whose full swing skills are not holding them back as much as putting and chipping?
 
The math and analytics have proved over and over again that Drive + Approach is by far the most important for scoring at all levels of skill. If you can't hit it relatively far and relatively straight off the tee, everything else is impacted after. If you can't then get reasonably close to your approach target it impacts your short game. If you can't hit a decent chip it affects your putting. Just because someone 3 putts from 40 ft (common and will even happen to Pros sometimes) it doesn't mean that Putting is the most important. No, you 3 putted because you were 40 ft away. You were 40 ft away because you flubbed a pitch shot from 30 yards short. You were 30 yards short because you hit your approach shot fat and off the toe, or because you hit your driver behind a tree and tried to hit something crazy instead of punching out.
 
I hate to sit on the fence but I am probably going to do it. It depends on how bad your game is in either area. If you are taking penalty shots off the tee or need to hit recovery shots then tee to green is definitely the answer. If you can keep it in play off the tee even if you are not that long then short game.

If I had to pick one I would say tee to green. Of course that assumes you have an average short game aren’t blading/chunking chips everywhere and three putting every green.
 
Gavin - Shot Scope said:
It depends who you are?

@Canadan do you want me to get some data and work it out? If we say hey want happens to your scores if your tee shots/approaches improve by 10% and short game/putting stays the same then do it in reverse. Can do for a variety of handicaps too.
Click to expand...
You better believe I am all for this kind of insight!!!
 
The obvious answer is individual dependent based on individual’s shortcomings. Those better/more consistent tee to green will find short game key to lower scores. Likewise, those with better short games need better tee to green to send them low.
Playing for more than 50 years I was always in the camp of short game mattering more. Look at the pros. They can average 11 or 12 greens and shoot under par. Hitting 50-60% fairways not unusual. Therefore; short game appears to be the more important factor. But that’s pros and not average Joes.
My personal experiences however is getting on or close to green in regulation gives me opportunity to go low, whereas not getting close gives me virtually no chance of going low. So in our case, I’d say tee to green.
 
MonroeBob1955 said:
The obvious answer is individual dependent based on individual’s shortcomings. Those better/more consistent tee to green will find short game key to lower scores. Likewise, those with better short games need better tee to green to send them low.
Playing for more than 50 years I was always in the camp of short game mattering more. Look at the pros. They can average 11 or 12 greens and shoot under par. Hitting 50-60% fairways not unusual. Therefore; short game appears to be the more important factor. But that’s pros and not average Joes.
My personal experiences however is getting on or close to green in regulation gives me opportunity to go low, whereas not getting close gives me virtually no chance of going low. So in our case, I’d say tee to green.
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What's interesting, I don't believe that's true. Comparatively speaking, off the tee and approach to the green is more indicative that around and on the green.

Those guys are all really good. Every one, so comparing them to other pros is important. That's where strokes gained really brings somethings to light. If you look at the top of the "Stokes Gained Off the Tee" and "Strokes Gained Approach to Green" versus the top of the "Strokes Gained Around the Green" and "Strokes Gained Putting", it's obvious to see where the best players best maximize their scores.

I picked the top five of those four areas. I chose 2022-2023 because 2025 is too new of a season and 2024 is basically all Scheffler. So the 2023 season is a better sample size.

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Just look at this year, whose season/game would you rather have?
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Short game is my weakness about 60 yards and in. But when you can’t hit the fairway off the tee it makes it tough for a up and down. When I first started I liked playing open courses as I could find my ball and still play it even if it’s a fairway over. Now I have a little more control over my driver (GT 4) and a great fitting. So I’m starting to play courses that are more narrow to add to the skill level and confidence. In my opinion if you don’t have confidence if any aspect of your game it’s not going to matter. This game is 80% mental and 20 skill.
 
We are on page 9 and I missed the good stuff here, I am pretty sure everything's been said already. Tee to green and unless you are a unicorn it's probably not even close. I'd like to the see the player who isn't better off putting for net birdie 12 times per round vs the guy who has to scramble for net par 12 times per round.

Edit: yes those scenarios are a bit skewed but you get my drift. Make it 12 vs 6.
 
MonroeBob1955 said:
The obvious answer is individual dependent based on individual’s shortcomings. Those better/more consistent tee to green will find short game key to lower scores. Likewise, those with better short games need better tee to green to send them low.
Playing for more than 50 years I was always in the camp of short game mattering more. Look at the pros. They can average 11 or 12 greens and shoot under par. Hitting 50-60% fairways not unusual. Therefore; short game appears to be the more important factor. But that’s pros and not average Joes.
My personal experiences however is getting on or close to green in regulation gives me opportunity to go low, whereas not getting close gives me virtually no chance of going low. So in our case, I’d say tee to green.
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I agree with a lot of this. It's foolish to apply the goals of those who have the abundance of talent with my ability. The same is even more true with distance. For some of us, applying the statistics of a single-digit as goals would be foolish. What I need to do is figure out what goals are a possibility and then base my practice on that... not what the SG statistics say about others in my skill level. Sure, A, B, and C are why that person is a single-digit play. But I have to factor in my capabilities.

Personally, my full swing is terrible and, more than anything else, holding me back both with poor accuracy and distance (despite what SG is telling me is putting, btw). But for me to devote 80% of my practice time to the full swing in hopes I will someday get to the point of hitting 12 of 18 GIR and maximize my distance is probably not the best practice strategy for me.

Should I devote more time to speed training to gain or at least maintain what little distance I currently have? Sure. Should I work to improve ball striking in order to reduce dispersion and duffs with my full swing and partial wedges? Absolutely. But it would be 100% foolish for me to neglect the short game - an area that is relative strength and within my wheelhouse to improve upon and one that can diminish damage the inevitable 12-14 missed greens per rounds - something that all the full swing practice time in the world cannot undo.
 
I don’t think there is any clear answer to this argument. I guess if making me choose I’d say short game and putting matters for me personally since I’ve been stuck at my hdcp and my clear weakness is putting according to the data.

The flip side of that is if I drive the ball poorly I don’t score well either haha
 
I feel like they are equally important. Who cares if you drive it a mile and hit the green but 3 putt all the time. Or miss the green and blade your chip back and forth across twice? In the same sense you can make every single putt and never miss all day but if you have to take penalties because you blast it OB or it takes you 2 extra swings to get on the green because you are having to punch out from a under or chip out from behind trees the putting is only going to help so much. 🤷
 
JonMA1 said:
This is the first post I've read where someone gave a percentage or ratio. "How much more important" has always been my question but I didn't know how to approach it on a forum without sounding like a nay-sayer or a dummy when it comes to statistics (which I clearly am, ha-ha). And to be clear, drive for show and putt for dough has never been something I believed in.

Does that ratio apply to nearly everyone? Or does it mean that 70% of the population needs to work harder to improve tee to green while the other 30% of the population need to work more on their short game to bring it up to the level of their full swing? Not meant as an argument, I genuinely would like to understand a bit more. (Guess I could buy Broadie's book. Lol.)

If the importance applies to nearly everyone, would you agree that there are still a lot of golfers whose full swing skills are not holding them back as much as putting and chipping?
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I'm sure @Gavin - Shot Scope will have some enlightening data from his analysis which will help quantify it. He has a much broader and deeper statistical base to pull from than just about anybody else in the world, and I really look forward to hearing what he has to say about it.

IMO, and I may be proven very wrong, it's difficult to assign a percentage across the board because how important any particular aspect of the game is depends on how good or bad you are at it in the first place. I think if you look at the stats for ten different golfers at any given handicap level (more particularly so at higher handicaps), their handicap is what it is for different reasons.

Speaking in absolutes is difficult when you're dealing with broad generalities. I think it's a lot easier and more relevant to address it on an individual basis - if you look at one person's statistics (As Gavin and Jen do in their analyses from participants in the Data Experiences using Shot Scope), you now have hard numbers generated by that person's game, which apply directly to them. What's most relevant is where you are gaining or losing the most strokes - not where are most golfers, on average, gaining/losing them.
 
I think tee to green is much more important for amateurs than short game. The difference between an 18 hcp and scratch golfer usually isn’t a few putts per round.

At the professional level, you must be good at everything and talking about cutting fractions of strokes.

When I play well tee to green I am much more likely to shoot below my cap than on a round where I am just putting well. Career days are when both happen.
 
They are equivalent IMO.

On a par 72 course half the strokes are slotted for getting to the hole and half for getting it into the hole. I would guess on average every single handicap sees the same thing. Half their shots are long game and half their shots are short game. I think any attempt to place more importance on one or the other is just going to be down to personal bias or experience.
 
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