Track The Best Numbers On The Golf Course For Faster Improvement
Golf is the ultimate game of finesse and decision making—the perfect challenge of needing the formulaic structure of chess while maintaining the discipline in technique of ballet. A rare opportunity to demonstrate the utmost composure against the golf course and even yourself. The real fun of it is while you may win a few battles along the way, with pars and birdies, the golf course has a massive front of offenses: a borage of rain or wind, sweltering heat, and that just happens before we hit our first tee shot.
While it is a formidable opponent, golf does have a major weakness for many players: numbers.
Knowledge is power in the game of golf; how easy would it be to know what club to hit and when to hit it or just exactly how many inches a putt is breaking.
Arccos Members already know that they have data and numbers at their disposal. With Arccos and the array of player insights available, the only thing left to do is use them to your advantage. Here are some of the basic ways to start getting the most out of the data in your Arccos App.
GIR & Proximity to Pin
Greens in Regulation stat is one of the first stats people start tracking when they are looking to be more data driven with their game. All it says is whether you hit the green or you didn’t. But how does this dictate what club we need to put in the bag or if we need a stiff shaft or a regular shaft in our irons?
Not to discredit GIR, but diving a little deeper can be more helpful, starting with where you miss greens. Left or right misses could be the result of something small and simple like alignment or your club path just getting a little too far inside or outside. Long or short misses could be the result of a contact problem or simply not taking enough club to account for the wind. Book a lesson with your swing instructor and give them the rundown of your stats on your Player Dashboard.
RELATED: Learn more about your Smart Club Distances
But the more accurate way of measuring your greenside performance is Proximity to Pin. After all, it's not always helpful to be on the green when you are the furthest distance away from the pin. This could be more indicative that your approach needs help and not your putting. If you’re constantly three putting from absurdly long distances, it’s not your putting that should be bashed–your approach onto the greens should be.
Now it’s time for the more complicated part of missing greens: curvature. How are you missing greens? Curving shots may be the result of your equipment not being just right for your swing. If you notice that you see your ball in a hooking pattern, your shafts may be too soft for you. If you notice your shots in a slicing pattern, they may be too stiff for you. Regardless of the shot shape, talk to your local golf professional or club fitter and they can tighten up your clubs.
In order to get the most accurate data in the Arccos App, it is important for players to mark the pin location during play. This helps ensure that proximity to pin is accurately documented on a day to day basis based on placements. There are two easy ways to mark the pin:
- If you are playing with an Arccos Caddie Link, players can simply push the center button briefly when they are standing at the pin to mark the pin using the Link's GPS
- Players wishing to mark the pin on their phones can open the app during play can select the green circular button on the bottom right of the screen with the pin icon. Dragging the pin to the location on the green will mark the pin's placement.
Equipment
New Arccos Members can see instant benefits to seeing their on-course performance with Smart Club Distances. It is one of the easiest ways for players to start making more informed club choices during play. But when evaluating equipment, it's also helpful to know if you’ve got the right tools in your bag beyond distance. With the launch of Strokes Gained by Club, Arccos Members can now see which clubs are costing them or helping them against their target handicap.
With the launch of this feature, Members will be able to get an even deeper insight into each club's performance. Whether working with a coach or fitter, bag composition can now be optimized to an even more precise level for each player. By working with a pro, players will be able to see what clubs might need lie angles adjusted, if clubs should be swapped out for replacements, or how misses might be indicative of a new lesson plan (...to finally figure out how to properly use those long irons).
The rollout of this feature is still in progress with it being finalized in mid-April. iOS users can manually update their Arccos Caddie App in the App store to get access to this feature. Android users are continually gaining access with the progressive rollout happening according to schedule. Here is how you can access and use our newest feature within our award-winning app.
Putting Performance
Putters are hard to get rid of no matter how much they break your heart. There are also so many different putter styles to choose from- how do you know where to start? First step is to evaluate how you putt and that can be found under your putting stats on the Player Dashboard.
What distance are you making the majority of your putts from? If you keep noticing that your shots gained on 1st putts is low from under 10 feet, talk to your instructor about how you are missing those putts and they can provide some drills to get you finding the bottom of the cup.
While we don’t want to dwell in missed putts, it is important to know which style of head may suit your game the best. An easy way to start your putter journey is to determine what type of stroke you have: arching or a more linear, straight back/straight through style of stroke. A good rule of thumb is more arching putting strokes are supported by blades, while straighter strokes are helped by a mallet style of putter head.
Recording detailed putting stats in Arccos was made easier last year when we launched the feature of capturing the distances of additional putts (beyond the first putt). When you are playing your rounds with the app, make sure that you are noting the distances of your putts if you manually add any putts. This is the best way to ensure that you are getting the most out of your putting stats.
