[JPsuff]

Originally Posted by Wazmankg

I read the article... scanned it really. I think it was more or less an intellectual exercize, an attention getter that counters conventional wisdom. If one were to delve into the raw data, criteria and models he used to form his assumptions, my guess is there are significant logical gaps. Unless one is has a very low handicap(in which case you already have a darn good short game) or a very high handicap... say > 35(in which case you're having trouble making decent contact on your full shots)... which is to say 90% of all golfers, your biggest gains will come from concentrating on 100 yards in and the closer the better.

Or let's look at it another way:

On every golf course, we all have either one, two or three chances to arrive at a green in "regulation" (a par 3, par 4 and par 5 hole respectively), but once there, we always have two shots with which to make par. So from a logic point of view, it makes more sense to focus on the skills required to arrive at the green in a regulation number of strokes than it does to focus on the short game (which of course includes putting) since that portion of the game gives us two opportunities to successfully complete the hole - both from a very short distance.


-JP