Golf Magazine USA – September 2019

Lessons Lessons THTHININK / PLAY / LIVEK / PLAY / LIVE

116 GOLF.COM / S e p t ember 2019

Dy

la

n^ B

ue

ll/

Ge

tt

y^ I

m

ag

es

burning question in mind: Do shot-shap-

ers find the short grass more often than

straight-hitters? Planning to hit your drive

straight every time is difficult,

so conventional wisdom would

suggest that players with a con-

sistent shot shape would hit the

most fairways. The answer sur-

prised me and some coaches with

whom I shared the results.

For a player’s driver curvature,

I computed the curve of each drive

in feet, where a bigger number

OU’VE PROBABLY SEEN

the tracer path of shots

on golf telecasts. Often,

you’ll also see additional

information about the

launch (ball speed, club-

head speed or smash factor) and trajectory

(apex and curve of the drive). The PGA Tour

collects radar launch and trajectory data

on two holes per round. I used this infor-

mation to dig into the connection between

a player’s curve on their drives and their

overall accuracy numbers with an obvious,

Sorry, J.B. (and Phil)—data proves that the fast track to finding a lot more

fairways is to minimize curve and plan for straight shots

By: Mark Broadie, GOLF Analytics Editor

EVERY SHOT COUNTS

indicates more curve, independent of

whether the ball moves left-to-right

or right-to-left. This is the same curve

calculation that you see on TV.

A player’s driver curvature is

the median (or middle) value

of these curve numbers for the

season. For a player’s accuracy,

I looked at fairways hit relative

to the field adjusted for course

conditions (e.g., so players are

not rewarded for playing on

courses with wide fairways). We

Y

DON’T FALL IN LOVE WITH THE CURVEBALL

FOLLOW MARK

BROADIE ON

TWITTER @

MARKBROADIE