| If you want to improve your golf scores quickly, | | | | the percentage of the total score. Suppose the |
| what is the first part of the game you should work | | | | breakdown is as follows |
| on? | | | | Driver, 10 shots. (11%) |
| Well before you can answer this question you need | | | | Long Irons/woods, 10 shots. (11%) |
| to analyse a round of golf in a specific way. An | | | | Mid Irons, 10 shots. (11%) |
| interesting and very effective method to use is "The | | | | Short Irons, 20 shots. (22%) |
| Pareto Principle". | | | | Putter, 40 shots. (45%) |
| The Pareto Principle, otherwise known as the 80-20 | | | | Now the figures can be represented as percentage |
| law, states that 80% of the effects come from | | | | of total score by percentage group of clubs as |
| 20% of the causes. Or more specifically, a large | | | | follows |
| percentage of the output result in generated by a | | | | Driver: 11/7 |
| small percentage of the input parameters. This could | | | | Long Irons/woods 11/28 |
| be 80/20 or 90/10 or 70/5 (it doesn't add necessarily | | | | Mid Irons: 11/28 |
| add up to 100 as it is a relationship between two | | | | Short Irons: 22/28 |
| different measurements). | | | | Putter: 45/7 |
| Applying this to golf we would need to see which | | | | From this we can see clearly see that in this scenario |
| clubs were used in a round and how many shots | | | | the putting comprises the largest part of the score |
| were played with each club. We could then relate | | | | i.e. 45% of score taken by 7% of clubs. Incidentally, |
| each club to the total score by a percentage of the | | | | putting is always the biggest part of the score, but if |
| score taken by that club | | | | your total score is high then it is likely you are taking |
| Here is an example: Suppose you went round in a | | | | a lot of putts, or another part of your game is in |
| score of 90 on a Par 72 course. Assume your set of | | | | very bad shape! |
| clubs is made up of 1 Driver, fairway woods 3 and 5, | | | | If you were to improve just the putting part of your |
| Irons 3-9, Pitching Wedge, Sand Wedge, Gap Wedge, | | | | game to "regulation" i.e. 2 putts per green, you would |
| and Putter. That is 14 clubs (the legal limit). | | | | save 4 shots per round i.e. break 90 and drop your |
| For the purposes of this analysis let us group the | | | | handicap from 18 to 14. Not bad! |
| clubs as follows | | | | There are many other ways to analyse your score in |
| 1 Driver | | | | this way. For example, instead of which club was hit |
| 4 Long Irons/woods 3W, 5W, 3, 4 | | | | on each shot, how about which type of shot? Tee |
| 4 Mid Irons 5,6,7,8 | | | | shot, approach shot, chip shot, putt, sand shot etc. |
| 4 Short Irons 9, Pitching Wedge, Sand Wedge, Gap | | | | You may find you are spend far too much time in |
| Wedge | | | | bunkers for instance. |
| 1 Putter | | | | Keep a log of your scores for a while and you can |
| We can now convert those groupings of clubs into | | | | break down the data and easily see which part of |
| percentages of the total number in the bag, and we | | | | your game is causing a problem, and therefore which |
| get 11%, 28%, 28%, 28% and 11% respectively. | | | | part of the game you need to improve to have the |
| Using the groupings above lets calculate the number | | | | greatest impact on your score. |
| of shots scored in each group and along with each | | | | |