What separates your BEST rounds from your WORST?

Some of our ShotByShot.com users have had a difficult time finding our Filter Options located next to Pick Specific Rounds on our Analyze tab.  Sorry, we are correcting this.  The nine filtering options are robust and can be used individually or together to produce surprising insight. I promised one of our Group Leader/instructors that I would share exactly how I run a BEST vs. WORST analysis. I thought that this was something that all of our ShotByShot.com users should see.  I have been doing these studies for years for the Tour players with whom I work, but every player can benefit from seeing exactly what changes the most from when they are at their best, playing to their handicap level, versus the OTHER rounds.

Use the Filter Rounds: 

1.  Run an analysis on the Most Recent 20 rounds.  It can be more or less rounds and can also be further filtered by type and format (e.g., Tournament, Stroke play… and even by Course). 

2.  From the Rounds/Scoring page of the analysis, record: 

• Average Score – In the example below the average score was 70.
• Date of the oldest round analyzed (this will be the anchor for the BEST and WORST analysis).

3.  BEST – Select:  Score Less then or Equal to the average score (again, here it was 70).  Also, anchor the analysis on the Start Date of the oldest round recorded in #2 above.  This will produce the BEST analysis.  If it is not exactly 10 or half, you may have to adjust the Score selected up or down by 1.

4.  Review the BEST analysis and record the average score and strokes gained numbers listed in the example below.

5.  WORST – select:  Score Greater than or Equal to:  One stroke above the score used in the BEST analysis above and again anchor the start date of the analysis.  Record the appropriate numbers listed in the example below and compute the differences.

The greatest negative difference will be the part of the game that changes the most and is costing the player the most strokes on average when NOT at their BEST.  The case above is an actual study that I did for a mini Tour player.  It was somewhat of a surprise that Putting was the main culprit as it has long been one of his strengths.  When we looked deeper, it was clear as to why.  First, his % 1-Putts, in the always critical range of 6-10 ft., dropped from 56% (50% is the PGA Tour Avg.) down to 37%.  This is a significant drop off.  Second, his 3-Putts jumped from a tidy 2% (PGA Tour Avg. is 3%) to 5%.  This information gave him something very specific to focus on improving. Clearly, good to know!