Every Shot Counts: Using the Revolutionary Strokes Gained Approach to Improve Your Golf Performance and Strategy

I saw strokes gained being used on sky and wondered if it could help me as an amateur.As an engineer I like statistics but this book is so full of them, even I was flicking past them before too long. Masses of them about the PGA tour but not so many about us hackersIt also ends quite abruptly and considering most readers will be amateurs wanting some help, it doesn't really give any real direction we should go in or help how to get there. You are left to your own conclusions.Also very little discount on RRP which shows how in demand the book is, even though it was written in 2015 and not yet revisedI am glad it has satisfied my curiosity but is it worth £25? No

The author, Mark Broadie, as well as being a keen golfer playing off a handicap of 4 is also Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. He developed the 'Shots Gained' system as utilised by the PGA Tour and television.Broadie has taken the raw data of 4 million golf shots, recorded by the Shotlink system, on the PGA Tour between 2003 and 2012. Shotlink, if you're not familiar with it, records every shot played on the PGA Tour to an accuracy of 1 yard on the fairway and 1 inch on the green. In addition Broadie employed an army of over 200 amateur golfers, of all abilities and ages, and had them record over 100K shots from their own games over a couple of years using the Golfmetrics system that he devised.This data, when analysed has produced some truly surprising results. Broadie, with mathematical modelling, can essentially predict with accuracy (to 2 decimal places) how many shots a golfer of any stated ability will likely take on average to hole out from any given distance, from the fairway, the rough or a hazard.There is a lot of detail in this book and also a lot of statistics, tables and graphics too. However the book is well written and would not overwhelm a reasonably numerate golfer. The book won't necessarily appeal to all golfers but if like me you are a keen scholar of the game and like to really understand which parts of the the game make the difference to your score then this is most definitely the book for you.Some of the findings are truly astounding, particularly with reference to the standard 'received wisdom'. For example it turns out that putting, although an essential skill to score, explains relatively little of the difference between a touring pro golfer and a golfer who say usually takes about 90 shots in a round of golf. The difference is only about 4 shots. A pro golfer takes an average of 29 putts per round and a 90-golfer takes an average of 33.4 putts per round. However this difference is slightly overstated because the amateur golfer will on average be taking his first putt from slightly further from the hole. The truth is that golfers of all standards tend to make most of their short putts (3ft or less) and all golfers miss most of their long putts (say 9ft and longer). If an '80-golfer' were to play a round in the company of Tiger Woods and have Tiger take all his putts for him, he would on average save about 2.2 shots per round. However, if the same 80-golfer had Tiger take all his shots of more than 100 yards from the pin, he would likely save an average of 9.3 shots per round. If you want to know what you should be practicing to lower your score then this book will help ... a lot.I believe this book (and the shots-gained system it describes) is a breakthrough in understanding the game of golf and which skills actually make the most difference to scoring. For the point of analysis the skills of golf are broken into 4 areas, namely driving, approach, short and putting. Shots gained or lost, compared to the field, are analysed for each of these skills. During the period covered by the data Tiger Woods was the best golfer in the world (no surprise) and on average gained almost one shot against-the-field per round played. As you might expect, he was well above average on all 4 skills, however he was exceptionally talented in one particular type of shot. The shots gained in that skill alone contributed 46% to his total shots gained __ almost as much as the other 3 skills put together. If you asked golfers which skill made the greatest difference to Tiger's scoring against the field then I'm sure that most would guess incorrectly. You'll need to read the book to find out.At the time of writing this book is not available on Kindle (although I believe it is on Amazon.com). Personally I'm glad I bought the hard copy of the book as it is very much the sort of book that you'll be flicking back and forth between chapters. With all the colour tables and graphics I'm not sure that it would work quite as well in Kindle format, unless viewed on an iPad or similar.This book will literally change the way you think about golf, how you will practice and, hopefully, how you will play. Highly recommended.

An absolute must if you are trying to play golf at the highest levels. (However I did find the original work the author did as a PDF online and for those who want to get the basics down, Marks dissertation might be a good option.) I bought this when it first came out so had to pick up some corrections online and write them into the book - some tables were misplaced or the numbers were wrong. But the book covers all sorts of interesting aspects of scoring - whether to go long and risk hitting from the rough or fringe - or go accurate and lose length. If you are 6 h/c or less go long because you can get out of the rough or bunkers and you will be nearer. If you are a higher h/c player probably go accurate and stay out of the rough and sand.Absolutely chock full of stats and proofs for what happens with different playing strategies. And all the stats you want to help you to stop beating yourself up because you didn't make that last putt - - which the book will tell you only had a 4% chance anyway - and unlike The Masters on USA TV where it seems every 50 footer goes in. The book is a great reality check list of playing strategies and a great tool to measure yourself against what the pros do - pros make 50% of 5 footers - do you? And 98% of 3 footers - yike! - I must work on that one.

I will start by saying I love maths. So for me this book was great. My golf app that I use during a round provides ‘shots gained’ feedback. Now finally I understand where they get the figures from. It has certainly altered the way I play a course. For example yesterday using his analysis rather than aiming for the centre of the green I aimed over the bunkers. My colleague told me that I should have aimed for the centre to avoid bunkers. For me statistically the out of bounds to the left was a greater risk than a bunker shot. I saved a shot on this hole (and missed the bunkers !)

This book was recommended by my coach and it is brilliant.The stats and explanations blow you mind (with real-world tour examples).Great section near the end on strategy. My 2 sons are waiting to read this when I next visit.Highly recommended.

I liked the author's new(ish) insight into scoring analysis. He invented this system some years ago and it is now used as the de facto system on the USPGA Tour. If you like numerical analysis then you will love it. I did.

Slightly too much padding for me - they key stats are all there in the tables and the 'strokes gained' approach is clearly a good way to go, if you have access to all the detail.Quite hard to see how I can apply it to my own scoring, without collecting lots of info during the round. From my perspective, this would rather spoil my enjoyment of the game, even if there was an App doing most of the heavy lifting.

Arrived damaged, but got replacedHaving started reading it yet.The cover colour is not attractive.