Is strokes gained broken?

Recently I got in a short back and forth with Scott Fawcett about the value (or lack thereof) of strokes gained. Scott took a bit of a heel turn making the comment that Strokes Gained was almost useless for amateurs (see the comments section).

At first I was shocked, that a guy that has made his living on data would suggest collecting less data, but as we muddled through the conversation, I understand his gripe… but there are better ways to solve it.

Strokes Gained is not a perfect system (what is strokes gained). It simply provides a reference for how good a shot is versus a library of reference shots by skill level. The difference between Strokes Gained on the PGA Tour and Strokes Gained in an app like TANGENT Golf is that they can normalize the data to the golf course being played that week on the PGA Tour. Thats more difficult (not impossible) to do in an app as the players you use as a reference are playing all different courses all the time. We don’t have 150 players of every skill level playing every course every day to do regular normalization. But that doesn’t really matter….

Most of us play the same course regularly. Strokes gained will show our trends and how we compare on a day to day basis. We’re looking for progress and a way to check where we are, not absolutes. But how do we take into account the difference from course to course…

Introducing Course Difficulty in TANGENT

Golf courses are not created equal and the golf courses we play can have a significant impact on our handicap… and our stats!

If you are a 5 handicap that struggles to hit greens and has awful approach play… You might also be playing a course that has really small greens. You could have great accuracy for your skill level, but the course you play regularly is tougher than most for approach play.

Say you travel to a new course and you just can’t find a fairway. Strokes Gained Driving is the worst you’ve ever had…. Maybe the course has smaller fairways than what your used to. Or more hazards that you so effortlessly found off the tee.

I’ve long argued that there is more to course difficulty than simply course rating and slope and now we can measure it with TANGENT. In your Round Report, you’ll see a new section called Course Difficulty that breaks down the course you just played relative to other courses YOU HAVE PLAYED. This isn’t some generic course difficulty. You can quickly see how it compares to your other data in TANGENT. At a glance, you’ll know if you should expect to play better or worse than normal at this course and what part of your game might be impacted.

The current categories we measure are:

• Course Rating: This is the rating for the tees you select from the USGA. They have their own proprietary way of rating courses (that I don’t always agree with). You can think of Course Rating as the ‘plays like’ par. So for the course above, this par 72 plays like a par 75.2.

• Slope Rating: This is a rating by the USGA to indicate how the difficulty of the course scales from a scratch handicap to a 15 handicap. The higher the number, the more difficult the course is for a 15 handicap relative to a scratch.

• Course Length: Longer courses are harder. This depends on the tees you select, but the slider shows if this course is longer or shorter than other courses you’ve played.

• Size of Greens: Smaller greens are harder to hit. This compares the size of the greens of this course to other courses you’ve played. If your approach play struggles… it might just be that the target was smaller.

• Size of Fairways: Smaller fairways are harder to hit. For this we normalize the size of the fairway relative to the length of the hole, but if the fairways are smaller, your tee shots will need to be more accurate to achieve the same strokes gained.

• Number of Hazards: This is the number of potential hazards (including water, bunkers, and OB) versus the number of holes. More hazards, means more potential trouble.

Red bars indicate a TOUGHER course than you are used to.
Yellow bars indicate an average course for you.
Green bars indicate an easier course for you.

You can change how many courses are used for the comparison by using the filters at the bottom.

How can you use this data?

Course difficulty is a qualifier… As you digest your Round Report and your performance, Course Difficulty gives you a filter with which to digest the data.

For example, let’s say you had the best Strokes Gained Driving day of your life at Sheep Ranch. You hit every fairway! First of all… thats great! But the fairways are probably significantly larger than what you’re used to… That might explain the outlier day and you shouldn’t quit working on that driving accuracy.

Similarly, you could not hit a single green at Pebble Beach. You were so excited to play the course and you just played terrible… Well, Pebble has some of the smallest greens around. They are hard to hit for the best players, so quit beating yourself up and enjoy the fact that you got to play a bucket list course.

Where do we go from here?

This is just the start of how we can use this data. At TANGENT we plan to build this into course previews and build some better course comparison features to better quantify your performance relative to course difficulty.

We believe more data is always better, but only if you know how to use it to properly tell the stories that lead to results.

Sometimes it isn’t you… Sometimes it’s the course. How hard is your golf course?

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Golf season is here. It’s going to get hot and you’re going to need a good glove. Red Rooster is my go to glove of choice. High quality gloves, delivered to your door.

Use promo code TANGENT20 for 20% off your next order or BOGO50TG for buy one get one 50% off.

TANGENT and Red Rooster… a great combination.

Knowledge Base Updates

We’re still hard at work updating our knowledge base so that you can find the information you need to get the most out of TANGENT. Recently updated articles:

• Watch not connecting?

• Swing Detection Tips

• Managing your Bag

• Course Difficulty in TANGENT

Some part of TANGENT particularly confusing to you or tripped you up as you got started? Send us a note and will prioritize materials to clear it up.

TANGENT not your favorite golf app?

Tell us why at [email protected]. We want to improve together.

Has TANGENT helped you improve?

If you love TANGENT and want to help us grow, the two best ways are:

• Tell all your friends 

• Leave a short review on the Apple App Store.