Personal trainer and fitness columnist Shawn O’Neil discusses what amateur golfers can gain from a marginal boost in driving distance
There are two reasons to train physically for golf – performance and injury prevention – and this month I want to focus on performance.
So much of what we hear and read about professional golf at the moment is focused on driving distance, but why is it so important?
Strokes Gained – the statistics-based system developed by Mark Broadie which tells us if any given shot has gained or lost strokes compared to the established field average – has become an important measure of performance on elite tours. Amateur golfers also use the system to compare their rounds and track where they are losing shots, which allows us to draw general conclusions from the millions of data points collected over the years.
For example, the success rate for 8ft putts on the PGA Tour is 50%. This means players average 1.5 strokes to hole out from this position. This performance is measured for every shot in a round and split into four sections – tee shots, approaches, short game and putting. This is then added up to give a measure of performance which we can analyse in far more detail than an 18-hole score.
Diving into these numbers across multiple seasons and hundreds of players, we learn some interesting things. For example, we know that driving distance and better Strokes Gained tee-to-green increases the amount of money players win. In 2021-22, the top-10 players tee-to-green earned 2.5 times more than the top-10 putters.
When we compare the statistics for tour players and players with handicaps from scratch to 25 split into five-shot increments, we find the biggest drop off in performance is tee-to-green. This is because amateurs drive it shorter, require longer clubs into greens, and have a bigger variance in where their approaches finish.
The statistics also show, the closer you hit the ball to the hole over the course of a round, the fewer putts you’ll take. We can also prove than shorter approach shots lead to improved proximity to the hole.
Through Titleist Performance Institute research, we know across all levels of amateur golfers there is a direct correlation between handicap index and clubhead speed, which explains the loss of Strokes Gained off the tee and approach as handicap indexes increase.
Strokes Gained modelling has shown that gaining 20 yards from the tee is worth an average of four shots per round. That’s a huge gain for a small amount of time and effort off the golf course!
So, when you’re looking at your goals for next season, as well as working on technique and holing those short putts, think about adding in a little physical training to boost your clubhead speed – the statistics show that’s where you can make the biggest gains.
