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Approach Shots Coming Up Short

Rusty Casino said:
So what's the best way to deal with this? Front pin, take middle yardage? Middle pin, take back yardage? Back pin, take back yardage (unless long is death)? That's what I'm taking away from this thread and seems to make the most sense to me.


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I don't think one should take much away from this. Its just a statistic. Or a guess at one for most people. You can take whatever you basically want to take from stats anyway. But its never as simple as what your coming up with anyway. If I have a front pin I'm not automatically looking middle at all. If slopping moderately to heavily upwards from the front on back I'll then look for the front with a front pin and if I come up short (on the apron) I'd rather chip up from there than putt moderately or heavily down hill from the middle. So its also about greens sloping and also many other factors like where are the bunkers or any other dangers at? or how firm are the greens today? how fast are they today? how well am I striking my irons today? whats the safe play on this given green? wind, temps, etc, etc.
 
JB said:
What do you think your percentage is for approach shots coming up short? Talked with someone today that said the number was alarmingly high, so was curious to get THPers take on the subject.
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Lately, not as many as last year, however I usually play conservative golf. If there's more room in front of the hole I'll play a club that maxes around flag distance. If it's a tight pin, I won't mind going long.

All that in mind, I don't play any shot to miss. If it's my 7 iron length to a mid pin, I'll hit my 7 and if I miss I miss.
 
Historically I feel like I miss more long than short as a result of having too much focus on the pin itself and that exact yardage, but from today's round here are the stats.

Short of Pin: 8
Pin-High: 6
Beyond Pin: 4
 
My Game Golf stats show that I come up short 25% of the time. If I'm between 125 and 150 I'll hit it 35%. The rest of the time I'll miss right or left or 15% long. Between 100 and 125 it's still 25% short, but the percentage hit goes up to 56%, and the balance misses right or left. The 25% includes the times I've chunked the shots the ball in addition to misjudging those other times when I tried to "run it up" onto the green and came up short.

Under 100 yds. the sample is too small to make a judgement, although my short misses here are definitely from chunking the shots not from poor club selection.

From 150? If the ground was hard I'd hit an 8 iron. If it was soft I'd hit a 7 iron. If it was medium, I'd hit a 7 iron.
 
#Cookie said:
Not often.....I will take an extra club the vast majority of the time.

Example: my 120 club is my PW. If I have 121 I know I have to hit it perfect to get it there. I'll take the 9i and choke down a hair and swing easy. I HATE being short.
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#Cookie said:
I need to track this, other responses are making me question myself.

Although I "club up" without hesitation, doesn't mean I'm not coming up short a decent bit. Will start tracking relation to pin.
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For the first time ever I tracked this today. My original prediction is above. Based on 1 round, I had the following:

8 long
6 short
4 pin high

So longer more often than short. Shorts were due to chunks or not taking enough club into wind. Not too far off what I expected. But based on what I saw today playing with 3 other THP'ers, I definitely go long more than most do. I club up a bunch...maybe even too much at times.
 
Rusty Casino said:
So what's the best way to deal with this? Front pin, take middle yardage? Middle pin, take back yardage? Back pin, take back yardage (unless long is death)? That's what I'm taking away from this thread and seems to make the most sense to me.


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You are correct. Take the deeper yardage unless long is death.
 
Tracked this as well, used 30 feet as the distance number to be good instead of 45 on game golf
under 100 yards - 3/5 good, 1 long, 1 short
100-200 yards - 4/10 good, 2 long, 4 short
200+ yards- 1/3 good, 1 long, 1 short


I was so rusty so these results don't mean much compared to the middle of summer.
 
Almost all of them are my third shot, so I'm at a solid 98.55% of my GIR tries are short.
 
I'd say that generally, I don't like to play to miss and I'll take the club that is going to give me the best chance to put it around pin high. Of course, there are exceptions and if I'm really in between clubs, I'll take whichever one I think is most likely to miss away from trouble. In my head, that usually means missing short instead of long, but not always.

That said, I didn't really have any idea whether my perception is accurate, so I using my last round as an example, this is what I figured out: I hit 11/18 greens. When I hit the green, 9 of the 11 were pin high or past the hole; only two were on the green, but short of the hole. One one of my missed greens, the miss was due to a tee shot in the water on a par 4, followed by a drop and an approach that hit the green. I was on the green, but short of the hole with that one. When I missed the green entirely, I only missed short 3 times. So even if we count being on the green but short of the hole as coming up short, I was only short on 1/3 of the holes. Given that, I guess my thinking that I'd prefer to miss short is not all that accurate (or at least it wasn't last time out).
 
Found this picture from the data of average players from Trackman from 160 yards. Thought of this thread.

AMA-dispersion-at-160-yard-target.png
 
I don’t think I miss short more often than long. Kind of depends on how the green is protected; if there is trouble in front of it I’d rather club up, choke down a bit and miss long, and if long is a problem I take the club I need to hit 100% to reach the pin, giving a higher chance of missing short.

Generally my misses tend to be more left and right than long or short.
 
I would say last season the majority of my approach shots came up short. This year so far I am hitting more greens.
 
Received Arccos golf for my birthday last October, only got to play two rounds with it before winter, and haven't made it out yet this year except some time on the range but for those two rounds 83.3% of my approach shots were short of the green, so for me this is a big factor it appears. Hopefully having access to some of my stats can help me in my journey to improve.
 
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