Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins
FWIW, he is 127th in strokes gained off the tee, losing an average of 0.055 shots per round to the field.
Ken Duke is first on tour in driving accuracy, hitting almost 78 percent of his fairways. He is 164th in strokes gained off the tee, losing -0.239 strokes per round to the field. His driving average is 271 yards.
So, if Tiger can hit his stinger 270 yards on average (he can't) and hit 80 percent of the fairways doing so, he'll actually end up losing strokes to the field.
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I'm for really large fairways, but with really gnarly rough. Punish if you miss, but give you the opportunity to bomb it if you can.
Crazy to think you ARE NOT better off if you hit 271 yards, yet hit 80% of fairways, compared to 35 yards further and 50% of the fairways. I know that plays better at muni courses without punishing rough or alot of OB, but on these difficult courses that surprises me. I would think that driving accuracy would be most helpful unless you are just a Corey Pavin hitter. When I think back to my best rounds, those are the ones I'm always in the fairway, not making big numbers and capitalizing when I can.
Wouldn't it be dependent on the course? I know "strokes gained" is a relatively new stat, but all golf courses and their set up are different (LDO), so wonder how accurate that currently is. Kind of like how in MLB they have park adjusted stats, does it account for that?