Long Game vs. Short Game - What Matters More?

[Diane]

I've been told over and over to focus on my short game - probably because the people saying it realized I'm never going to get that much distance, but I digress. This was in today's NY Times. Do you agree with his findings?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/sp...r=1&ref=sports

[JPsuff]

Originally Posted by Diane

I've been told over and over to focus on my short game - probably because the people saying it realized I'm never going to get that much distance, but I digress. This was in today's NY Times. Do you agree with his findings?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/sp...r=1&ref=sports

I agree with the article.

I've always thought that the "Short Game" theory really applies to those golfers who have an otherwise solid all-around game. Week in and week out I see (sometimes in my own game as well) instances when a poor tee shot causes far more problems than any short game prowess could ever rectify.

After all, what difference does it really make if one is able to stop a wedge shot two-feet from the pin from 85 yards out if it's already taken six or seven shots (or more) to get to 85 yards in the first place?

Golf is all about balance. I'm a better than average putter, but if I'm constantly trying to "one-putt" pars because my tee shots are leaving me with pitch-outs and then long-ish approach shots, the best putting in the world can't compensate for that for very long. A balanced game, where all aspects are working at least adequately, is going to be more useful than simply being "really good" at any single aspect.
Once a balanced game is achieved, THEN focusing on the short game can pay dividends.


-JP

[straightshooter]

Nice article. I agree with the author that accuracy and distance tend to go hand in hand. A good swing typically seems to produce both.

[Golfaddict]

It depends. If you compare two golfers and they have a relatively even short game, the one with the better long game will usually win. Why? He will have a lot more short irons into greens, and we all know that the short irons are a lot easier to hit than the longer clubs in the bag.

Now, it the longer player doesn’t have the short game to go with the drive, the shorter player who has a good short game can win.

I was like this guy for a long time. I always heard the way to get better at golf was to practice the short game. For years and years I would spend countless hours developing my chipping and pitching. My chipping ability is by far the best part of my game. It really has not become any better over the last 5-6 years. My scores didn’t start dropping until a few years ago. What happened? I gained distance off the tee and all other clubs. I was struggling to get 220 off the tee.

The usual group of golfers I had been playing with were all good players. I asked one of them for some advice about distance, he immediately told me my problem. I corrected and immediately got 15 yards off the tee. I probably average 240 off the tee. I know that’s not a big number of the tee box, but if I hit a good tee shot on a 380-390 yard par 4, I’m looking at a 7 or 8 iron into the green. Before hand I would be hitting a 5 or 6 iron or more.

Nowadays though, more people focus on the long game when they start the game. I was never drawn into that phase. I wanted good scores, and the short game was an area I could practice without having to go to a teacher. People now want to go straight to the driver and hit it 300 yards. (Maybe they’ve always been like that.)

With my present game if I could consistently get 20 more yards off the tee my handicap would probably go to the low singles.

[Bigvivec]

They both matter...nothing worse than seeing a guy reach the greenside bunker of a par 5 in two only to take a double bogey (been that guy), or the beautiful 65yd pitch over water to a tucked pin hit stiff on the seventh shot of the hole...you gotta have some of both...but I would think that a person who's long game was decent would have a better oppurtunity to develop a good short game...they've already completed part 1 of 2...I also think that the difference between a 95 shooter and a 80 shooter is in part due to the short game, but the 80 shooter will get the ball in play alot more often and avoid penalities...again, this is assuming a minimum competency on both parts, and it is possible for Mr. Wild and Crazy off the tee to be great around the greens, consistently turning 3 into 2, but the rungs of the golf ability ladder are marked by GIR more than any stat, and that means long game...

[Shelby]

If I had to pick one be the most consistent part of my game, I'll take short. My long game is fine, but I get beat by shorter hitters because I average about 33-34 putts. I would much rather make a 15 footer than hit a 300 yd drive.

[C-Tech]

I have been sitting here thinking about what I read in the article and have a few ideas.

First, I think keeping the ball in the fairway, or at least out of real trouble, which means straight enough that you can actually see the green from where it lands is really important. This becomes more important if your course has a lot of OB or lateral hazards that cost a lot in penalties.

Secondly, length is good, but if you are playing the correct set of tees for your ability, it becomes less important. Scratch from the tips and scratch from the Sr tees may make a lot of difference in the importance of length.

I believe accuracy is more important than length off the tee. I had much rather hit a 4 iron from the fairway than a 7 iron from 4" fescue rough. My odds of hitting the green go up substantially from a better lie, even if the distance is greater.

The short game is important to amateurs primarily because they miss too many fairways and then have to create a shot to get close to the green. That means they have to get up and down in two shots for par and if you are trying to power the ball out of rough or bend a miracle around a tree, you are putting a lot more pressure on your short game than you would if you hit the fairway, a 3 or 4 iron approach and had to chip up from a decent fairway lie. Keeping it in play in the short grass means a lot to amateurs.

Lastly, if as the writer suggests, the majority of mid-handicap golfers make their putts from 4 ft, then you need to get the chip within that 8ft circle to have a chance at par. That is a lot easier from a good lie in front of the green than from wherever you left it after your attempted miracle from a bad place after your long, inaccurate tee shot...

So what is more important. I believe I will take accuracy off the tee and a good short game before extra length any day. And to be honest, I have to believe that because it is unlikely that God is going to transform me into someone with Tiger-like length in this lifetime.

[Wazmankg]

It depends on the golfer, your definition of short game, long game and the length of the courses you play. Is short game 100 yards in ? Unless one is a very high handicapper they're going to get much more bang for their buck by working on their short game. I believe that anyone can have a reasonably proficient short game with regular practice. I could practice day and night and I'm not going to turn my 230 yard drives into 300 yarders, nor start hitting 2/3rds of my greens(except with my wedges).

[petermo]

Anoyone who watches Tiger Woods knows the answer - unquestionably the short game. He is in the rough more often than most players but has the ability to up and down it from anywhere which is why he scores as well as he does.

[Fourputt]

There are a lot of variables that have to be factored into the equation and each tne you change one of those variables, it changes the answer.

How long is the long game? Or conversely, how short is the long game? And how accurate? It he just a little off target, or does he spend his entire round stomping around the outback? How imaginative is he at getting out of a jam?

Then the other way... how good is the short game? Or how bad?

Then factor in the type of course hie plays. And oh yeah.... is this player playing the tees that he should be playing to match his game???

Being in a Men's club with up to 250 players, I've seen every type, and I'll take the average long game with solid short game every time. Of course, I don't really know what "average" means to this guy either. I'm talking 200-220 yard drives that are usually in play, although half may be in the rough. If that player is playing from the correct tees, and has a good hand around the green, he should be a solid 10-12 handicap, if not better.

On the other side, I've also seen the bombers, and most of them, while they out drive me by 20 to 50 yards (and a few of them by a lot more than that), more than half of them also score worse than I do. In the tournament last weekend, I had a bomber in the group in front of me and another one behind me. Both spent much of the day playing provisional balls off the tee, searching for their balls in or hacking them out of the native rough, and pitching out from under and behind trees. It's going to take a miracle of a short game to recover from that. Neither was even remotely in contention in the tournament.

I'm an average driver... I hit my driver about 240 or so on average, and most of the time I keep it in play somewhere. My approach game is sometimes frightening, but I keep my handicap in the 11-12 with my short game. And if my short game could be better, I'd take that over more length, unless the added length came paired with increased accuracy, and in my experience that is a rare commodity.

Let's face it, good golfers have the whole package, and the higher the handicap, the more that your game lacks in some (or all) of those areas. The best thing that you can do if you seriously want to improve is to track your game, find out where your shortcomings really lie, then do what is necessary to improve in those areas.

[Bigvivec]

Originally Posted by Fourputt

There are a lot of variables that have to be factored into the equation and each tne you change one of those variables, it changes the answer.

How long is the long game? Or conversely, how short is the long game? And how accurate? It he just a little off target, or does he spend his entire round stomping around the outback? How imaginative is he at getting out of a jam?

Then the other way... how good is the short game? Or how bad?

Then factor in the type of course hie plays. And oh yeah.... is this player playing the tees that he should be playing to match his game???

Being in a Men's club with up to 250 players, I've seen every type, and I'll take the average long game with solid short game every time. Of course, I don't really know what "average" means to this guy either. I'm talking 200-220 yard drives that are usually in play, although half may be in the rough. If that player is playing from the correct tees, and has a good hand around the green, he should be a solid 10-12 handicap, if not better.

On the other side, I've also seen the bombers, and most of them, while they out drive me by 20 to 50 yards (and a few of them by a lot more than that), more than half of them also score worse than I do. In the tournament last weekend, I had a bomber in the group in front of me and another one behind me. Both spent much of the day playing provisional balls off the tee, searching for their balls in or hacking them out of the native rough, and pitching out from under and behind trees. It's going to take a miracle of a short game to recover from that. Neither was even remotely in contention in the tournament.

I'm an average driver... I hit my driver about 240 or so on average, and most of the time I keep it in play somewhere. My approach game is sometimes frightening, but I keep my handicap in the 11-12 with my short game. And if my short game could be better, I'd take that over more length, unless the added length came paired with increased accuracy, and in my experience that is a rare commodity.

Let's face it, good golfers have the whole package, and the higher the handicap, the more that your game lacks in some (or all) of those areas. The best thing that you can do if you seriously want to improve is to track your game, find out where your shortcomings really lie, then do what is necessary to improve in those areas.

Nice post Rick

[JungleJ]

I haven't read the article yet, but from my experience:

I play regularly with the same 3 or 4 guys. Averaged over time I will score between 3 and 10 shots better than them (my handicap is 19 BTW). They all are as long or longer than me off the tee. They are all longer with their irons than me. Driving accuracy is much of a muchness between us (with the exception of one who is ridiculously wild). But I am MUCH more consistent inside 100 yards - more consistent pitching and chipping, much better sand play, and competitive putting.

So I vote short game.

On the other hand, if I was 50 yards longer off the tee and as accurate as now, I'd score better too.

[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.

[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

[Ty_Webb]

Interesting article. I'd say that the issue is there are two ways (really a whole spectrum I know, but bear with me) to be a "decent" player. You can either have a good long game and a mediocre short game or a poor long game and a good short game. Depending on the relative strengths of these, that will determine how good you are. For the person who's got a good long game and a bad short game, practising their short game will help their scores more than practising their long game. And vice versa.

I think the big problem that people have is that they practise their strengths, not their weaknesses. They do this in general because it's more fun to do something you're good at. It just won't make you a whole lot better.

I think one other flaw with his investigation is he's looking at averages, so the two people I talked about above end up being treated the same.

I did find the average first putt length thing to be very interesting. And thinking about it, not that surprising. If you're just catching greens or missing them, then sometimes you're 40 feet away and sometimes you're chipping when hopefully you might be around 6' or less away (after the chip), while the guy who hits every green might generally be around 20' away on average.

[Wazmankg]

Originally Posted by JPsuff

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

I think by far the most difficult skill to master in golf, I'm referring to basic skills... not trouble shots, sand play, etc., is hitting accurate full shots off the deck. This is what separates those who could be scratch golfers or better from those who never will. There is an innate coordination, hand-eye coordination and athleticism that's required to do it consistently, regardless of how much one practices. And those are the ones that get you the GIRs. Anyone can be taught to hit a ball off a peg or putt reasonably well with a bit of coaching and practice. Even the mechanics of pitching & chipping are can be learned fairly simply and with regular practice anyone can become fairly adept(I'm going to test this particular theory one of these days). But there's a law of diminishing returns that kicks in a lot quicker when trying to master the club-meets-ball-meets-ground full shot.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by Wazmankg

I think by far the most difficult skill to master in golf, I'm referring to basic skills... not trouble shots, sand play, etc., is hitting accurate full shots off the deck. This is what separates those who could be scratch golfers or better from those who never will. There is an innate coordination, hand-eye coordination and athleticism that's required to do it consistently, regardless of how much one practices. And those are the ones that get you the GIRs. Anyone can be taught to hit a ball off a peg or putt reasonably well with a bit of coaching and practice. Even the mechanics of pitching & chipping are can be learned fairly simply and with regular practice anyone can become fairly adept(I'm going to test this particular theory one of these days). But there's a law of diminishing returns that kicks in a lot quicker when trying to master the club-meets-ball-meets-ground full shot.

My game today might refute that... I was solid off the deck, but I couldn't get off the tee to save my soul. I hit 3 drivers that were 100 yards or less . Two of those holes I still managed to par, and the third was a bogey. Why, you ask? Because I hit good second shots, either from fairway or light rough, then got up and down (or in the case of the bogey, gave myself a chance and misread the 12 foot putt for par).

The point being that even though my tee game was horrid today, I still shot a nice 81, (9 over par) with my 13 course handicap, for a net -4. If my short game had failed me, I'd have struggled to break 100.

[coralpro]

I think it is relevent to the individual. I've got a pretty good short game so when I can drive long and in play I generally par or birdie. Bad drive or short and a par is generally a stretch. I would say driving for me is the most critical and my scores almost always reflect that. There have been great drivers and iron players but couldn't putt so short game would have been their downfall. Great shortgamers that couldn't hit a fairway. Mickelson comes to mind at Wingfoot. So I don't think there is any set formula a person can list to address anyone and everyone the same.

[Darth Fader]

We all probablt hit more shots from 100 yards and in so i would prefer to have a really solid short game,if you are confident of getting up and down when you miss a green you hit more greens (oddly enough)