Welcome to this weeks newsletter. With the fine winter weather we've been having it's great to see so many of you out playing and practicing. We are all looking at ways to improve our golf and recently I have had many conversations about what your golfing goals will be for 2017. My advice has always been to make sure that they are realistic and achievable, after all Golf is not a game of perfect!


 

I read an interesting article this week about the statistics of the players on the European Tour from 2016 which I thought that I would share with you. 

It's interesting that the assumption is that all Professional golfers all hit the ball 300 yards, hit almost every green in regulation and get up and down from every green side bunker.

Like all golfers, Professional golfers also have their strengths and weaknesses so here are some of the statistics from the European Tour which I think we can take comfort from and hopefully will help you to set your own goals.

2016 Scoring Average 71.85. Henrick Stenson averaged 69.14 shots per round with only Francesco Molinari, Rory McIlroy and Tyrell Hatton as the only players to average less than 70 in the 2016 season. In total 128 players averaged less than 72. 

2016 Average driving distance 288.0 yards. The longest player on Tour with and average distance of 315.6 yards was South Africa's Dean Burmester. Only 14 players averaged over 300 yards compared to 27 in 2015. Clearly it's not all about distance anymore! 

2016 Average Driving accuracy 58.2%. The average cost of missing a fairway on Tour is 0.3 shots . If you add that up over 72 holes you can understand why it is so important to hit the fairways. Only Henrick Stenson and Francesco Molinari hit more than 3 out of 4 fairways on average and they finished first and second on the scoring average. 

2016 Average Greens in Regulation 66.9%. This equates to 12 from 18 greens in any given round. South Africa's Thomas Aiken had the best statistic with 79.2% of greens hit in regulation. 

2016 Average Scrambling Percentage 53.0%. Scrambling is defined as the rate at which a player makes par or better on holes where they missed the green in regulation. In 2016 players saved Par a little more than half of the time. Short hitting Siddikur Rahman had the best Scrambling percentage of 70.9%, saving 117 times from 165 missed greens. Only 22 players averaged better than 60%. 

2016 Average Sand Save Percentage 53.6%. Spains Alejandro Canizares had an incredible 82.9% sand save percentage, getting up and down 58 times from 70 opportunities. 

2016 Average Putts per Round 29.7. Francesco Molinari led the putting stats averaging 1.686 putts per hole. He was the only player to have less than 1.7 putts per hole.


What we can learn from some of the best players in the world is that when you are setting your practice goals for 2017 or indeed playing your next round of golf you should not expect to hit every fairway, and every green in regulation. 

You shouldn't even expect to chip and one putt each time you miss a green. Be realistic, because if you are setting your standards too high it will only lead to frustration.

It's interesting to see that the Tour players see real value in hitting fairways and not trying to knock the ball out of sight! The manufacturers also seem to be focusing on improving accuracy now and not distance.

So the next time you are out there with your regular four ball and and someone is having a bad day perhaps you can offer them some comfort in knowing your Tour stats.

If you would like some help setting your practice goals, or help hitting more fairways and greens then please come and ask Jack and I and we will be more than happy to help.

You can get in contact with us by clicking here.