Is the Long Game More Important?

There is a NY Times piece on some research conducted by Mark Broadie - a Columbia University professor on the USGA's handicap research team - that leads to the conclusion that the long game is more important than the short game.

Here are some of 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.

It's quite a contrarian point of view given that we have been claiming that putting has been winning the major championships. The Masters is all about putting, supposedly. The US Open is about putting in more recent years. The PGA Championship and Open Championships have it as a crucial factor. In fact, Greg Norman took more heat for his strategy off of the tee than for lipping out more putts than I have ever seen in a major.

The USGA claims that there is almost no correlation between winning on the PGA Tour and driving accuracy. I have produced articles that reach the same conclusion. The implication behind that truth is that we should regulate how the ball plays from the rough because distance and accuracy really do not matter all that much - therefore, we need to regulate the approach shot.

But, what if this is a rock solid finding? It would imply, then, that distance and accuracy do matter, right? If distance and accuracy do matter, but the data suggest that accuracy doesn't matter, then does ONLY distance matter? (That's a stretch, I know.)

Still, at the end of this, I am left wondering whether we should be regulating the golf ball for distance because it seems then that it has serious implication on success in the game.

ADD ON 10:20am 7/23:

On The 19th Hole yesterday, we had a guy by the name of Vin Lee on the show. He invented something called the Caesar Featherie - a golf ball with no dimples. The idea behind the ball is that you sacrifice some distance (a club or two) in exchange for a lower, boring flight straight through the air. In effect, the idea is that golf is more fun when you don't spray the ball. It reminds me of the older men I used to play with as a youth golfer that would hit the ball maybe 180 yards off of the tee, but dead straight. I could outdrive them all I wanted, but if I wasn't in the fairway, they could tie or beat me on a hole.

My interpretation of this piece and my interview with Vin leads me to believe that there is a scale of focus for players at all levels. For the high handicappers, they should focus on the long game and learning to make solid contact with the ball to get it in the fairway. At the mid-level stage, they should learn ball striking and working the ball with irons to get more GIRs, assuming they can two putt. But to get to scratch or better, a player has to learn how to get the ball in the hole from further away - meaning become a better putter. Certainly there are ways around this structure, but this would make the most sense to me.