Learn from Golf's Best…Insist on Lessons from Putnam National's PGA-Certified Pros Whether just starting out or hoping to become a scratch golfer, the only true way to improve is with the help of a trained PGA-certified instructor. And Putnam National is fortunate to have a nationally renowned teacher to help you reach your goals. Ciaran Carr is Putnam National's Director of Golf Operations. Ciaran was elected to Class-A PGA Membership in February 2001, golf's highest teaching designation. A native of Drogheda County Louth, Ireland, Ciaran (pronounced Keeran) served as Interim Head Golf Professional at the Island Country Club in Marco Island, Florida prior to joining our professional team. Ciaran's impressive background includes teaching at The Legends Golf School, frequently showcased on The Golf Channel. He is one of a handful of instructors who is certified in The Bentley Golf System, which teaches how to build power from the ground up. This method incorporates anatomy, human motor learning skills and modern kinetics and allows the golfer to play without all of the unnecessary swing thoughts. "Practice doesn't make perfect…perfect practice makes perfect. With the help of a PGA-certified instructor you will be able to make the adjustments necessary to shave strokes off your score." -Ciaran Carr, Putnam National's Director of Golf Operations The Long and Short of Which Shots Need Help by BILL PENNINGTON For all your golfing life, you have heard the same advice, usually delivered as gospel: the key to low golf scores is a good short game. Mark Broadie, a professor at Columbia, performed a study that suggests that the long game matters more than most golfers think. How many times have you heard this platitutde? THe vast majority of shots in a round of golf are struck from 100 yards and in. In an office in Upper Manhattan, his fingers tethered to a computer containing data from more than 43,000 good, bad and indifferent golf shots individually recorded by amateur golfers, a Columbia University porfessor dares to dispute the accepted belief that the short game is king. The avid golfer Mark Broadie, who teaches graduate courses like computational finance and is a member of the United States Golf Association's handicap-research team, has spent the last four years painstakingly collecting, storing and analyzing shot data of amateurs and PGA Tour professionals in a computer program called Golfmetrics. His findings? It is the long game that proves to be the biggest factor when examining the difference in scores between pros and amateurs and even between low-and high-handicap amateurs. If, for example, a PGA Tour player were available to hit shots for an amateur from 100 yards and in, or available to hit all the shots leading to the 100-yard mark, Broadie says the amateur would benefit the most from having the PGA player hit the long shots, not the short ones. Despite the belief that shorter hitters are more accurate off the tee than longer hitters, Broadie discovered the opposite: longer hitters also tend to be straighter hitters. "Better players are more skilled over all," Broadie said. "They hit it farther and they have more consistent swings, so they're more accurate, too." It is often said that 60 to 65 percent of all shots are struck within 100 yards of the hole. Broadie agreed but noted that if you take out "gimme" putts of two and a half feet, the statistic has less meaning. Remove very short putts that are rarely missed, and shots from 100 yards or less account for only 45 to 50 percent of all shots. Eliminate putts from three and a half feet or less, and the figure drops to 41 to 47 percent. Broadie, who is a four handicap, knows the heresy his research suggests. He is not recommending that everyone abandon short-game clinics. He said, in fact, that his findings are not inconsistent with the accepted instruction doctrine that practicing the short game may be the easiest way to score lower. "The date provide objective answers to where strokes are being lost, but the fact is if you've got two hours to practice, you probably won't start hitting the ball longer or straighter in that time period," Broadie said. "But you could probably get better at your putting or chipping in two hours of practice." Broadie's research is the result of hundreds of hours of work by several associates, a professional computer programmer and graduate students who assisted in technical aspects of the project. He wanted to assess the difference between a PGA Tour player's game and that of an amateur who shoots 75 or 85 or 100. The PGA Tour charts every shot by every player in every tounament, and Broadie obtained that research dating to 2003. He then had average golfers of all handicaps, from 11 years old to 70 years old, start charting all their shots at various New York metropolitan area golf courses, although most of this was done at his home course, the Pelham Country Club. Using Google Earth renderings of golf courses in the area and topographical booklets he made up, average golfers making notes during rounds of the golf course could record exactly where every shot went- in the fairway, in the rough or out of bounds, and how far from the hole. Using the Golfmetrics program, Broadie and a few others entered the rounds in a computer, documenting every putt, bunker shot or other kind of shot - and the result. It took a few years, but there were more than 43,000 shots recorded. Then Broadie worked backward from there. Because he had all the golfers' average scores, he could determine how far the average low-, middle-or high-handicap golder hits a tee shot (see accompanying graphic above). He could determine at what distance various golders sink half their putts (8 feet for the PGA Tour pro, 6 feet for the player with a handicap from 20 to 36). Perhaps most valuable, he could analyze the value of each shot of a golfer's score. The sample used for Broadie's research is limited geographically, and women make up less than 10 percent of the group studied, a figure Broadie says he wishes were higher. But over all, he defends the sample as representative. "I'm confident there is nothing atypical about Pelham Country Club golfers and others in the area I sampled," he said. Maybe, although this being golf, there are no doubt many who will quarrel with Broadie's methods or results, which he presented to the World Scientific COngress of Golf in March 2008. (For the record, I'm not taking sides. My short game is killing me. It happens right after my long game gets me in trouble.) Broadie is not selling the Golfmetrics program, nor anything else for that matter, but he does say his research has the potential to help average golfers asses their weaknesses and strengths. He has, for example, proposed that golfers calculate what he calls the median Fractional Remaining Length, a statistic Broadie says is revealing and predictive of a golfer's score. "Average golfers could compute their median F.R.L. by recording a few additional numbers on their scorecard during a round and completing the calculation after the round," Broadie said. Comparing those results to the table would indicate whether more strokes are being lost to long-game or short-game performance. Another factor Broadie has measured is the impact of what he calls "awful shots" on a round. We all know what he means by awful shots - a poorly struck 5-iron that sends the ball all of 20 yards, tee shots in ponds or skulled chip shots. But Broadie's data reveal that a golfer with an average score of 105 has nearly four times as many awful shots (8.1 a round) as someone shooting 80 (2.1). And Broadie said there were more awful shots linked to the long game than the short game with the attendant scoring inflation, so to speak. "I think what this proves is that consistency improves a golf round more than people may think," Broadie said. "People also might look at their awful shots per round and wonder if maybe they're taking too many risks." Some of the run of Broadie's reaserach is in the odd, counterintuitive details. For instance, almost all golfers - PGA pros to 25 handicappers - have a first-putt distance on average of about 17 feet. The pro might be hitting his third shot while we are hitting our sixth, but we still average almost exactly 17 feet for that first putt. Broadie also said that a putting statistic golfers often keep (the number of putts per round) was not as valuable at predicting one's score as another stat, the percentage of greens hit in regulation, which will more likely tell you how well a golfer is scoring. What does it all mean? "Well, it's a great cocktail-party conversation," Broadie said with a laugh. But he has other aspirations. "I did this beacuse I wanted to better understand the game, and as an academic you find ways to do that," he said. "And now, I certainly have a better understanding of golf and my golf game in particular. Maybe this will lead to something like that for many golfers." Broadie, a devoted golfer with his fingertips on a wealth of golf information, smiled. "If other people learn a little more about the game from this," he said, "I'd really be happy." The New York Times | 
