The PDGA & Statistics

[Halcón]

But what constitutes a putt?

I think I see where you're going with this, but the 10m circle is well defined. Anything outside of it can leave room for interpretation.

What is an accurate drive vs. an inaccurate drive?

This is far trickier, I agree. Percent of drives that land in the circle is easy, and quickly recordable. But not all courses have defined fairways, or even "rough." OB % can be a measure of driving accuracy. Perhaps a new term could be defined that conveys our "fairways." Correct me if I'm wrong, but most holes have a safe landing zone off the tee. In other words, there's an optimal area(s) that you should land in that could be considered outside the "rough."

Percentage of "safe throws" off the tee could be a new stat...or whatever you want to call it. (With wide open courses, a safe throw could be almost anywhere...so I can see where this stat could be skewed)

Stat buffs I think need to realize that for every person that cares about this sort of thing, there are probably twenty who don't care about the stats that do get collected.

Can't really argue with that one.

 

[ChrisWoj]

A lot of reasons have been given that all follow with why I used examples relating to the putting green. Start at the greens, and eventually work our way out. "18 amateur statisticians?" At an NT you can pull off a person on each *green* area, making tallies. That's all you really need are tally marks. With time, over the course of an entire NT season, you CAN get meaningful numbers from this. "All greens are different." Yes - and to succeed you need to be able to take advantage of all of them. As sample size grows, you start to see the emergence of trends regardless of the type of green.

Start small, start near the basket. How many guys put it in the circle? Are guys hitting putts from outside or inside? At what rate? How many putts per round are these guys taking? This is the National Tour level of a sport that sees itself as growing. I find it sad that people look at this and say "Well for every one guy that cares, twenty don't." - instead of focusing on the fact that that is still a) a significant number of people and b) this is a sport that wants to add legitimacy. If you want talking heads to be able to get into any serious discussion about a sport, statistics are a part of it. Pundits need numbers to be able to begin to justify opinions. Many pundits use them poorly, which starts counter-arguments.

Statistics ARE a part of the growth of a sport, and the fact that the NT level of disc golf lacks any serious statistical accumulation is kinda sad.

 

[ChrisWoj]

As for "try it at a C Tier" - right. 18 of the people that care the most are going to care more about entering the tournament and playing in the event. An NT is a better venue because you're more likely to have a strong contingent of locals curious about these numbers that can not qualify to play and want to be a part of things.

 

[JC17393]

As for "try it at a C Tier" - right. 18 of the people that care the most are going to care more about entering the tournament and playing in the event. An NT is a better venue because you're more likely to have a strong contingent of locals curious about these numbers that can not qualify to play and want to be a part of things.

As the guy who suggested guinea pigging the idea at a C-tier...why does the test run have to involve 18 people? Why does it have to be stats for every hole? Take one or two stat-keepers and monitor one or two holes at a C-tier. At least that gives you an idea of what it will take to monitor and record the stats on a larger scale (like all 18 holes at an NT course). Whatever effort one hole takes multiplied by 18 holes multiplied by X number of rounds.

You're talking about starting "small" with just stats around the green. All I'm suggesting is that even that might be overly ambitious for a first effort, and maybe one needs to start even smaller.

 

[ChrisWoj]

As the guy who suggested guinea pigging the idea at a C-tier...why does the test run have to involve 18 people? Why does it have to be stats for every hole? Take one or two stat-keepers and monitor one or two holes at a C-tier. At least that gives you an idea of what it will take to monitor and record the stats on a larger scale (like all 18 holes at an NT course). Whatever effort one hole takes multiplied by 18 holes multiplied by X number of rounds.

You're talking about starting "small" with just stats around the green. All I'm suggesting is that even that might be overly ambitious for a first effort, and maybe one needs to start even smaller.

Really? Tally marks on a sheet is overambitious? Oh what a group we have... I disagree with you completely.

 

[JC17393]

Really? Tally marks on a sheet is overambitious? Oh what a group we have... I disagree with you completely.

No, expecting to gather 18 volunteers to spend their weekend tallying is overambitious.

 

[ChrisWoj]

No, expecting to gather 18 volunteers to spend their weekend tallying is overambitious.

The ability to gather two people to watch two greens as a field test tells me absolutely nothing about how easily you could gather 18 volunteers for a National Tour event.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

"Distance OF Drive" isn't really all that meaningful but "Distance FROM basket after drive" would be a great stat, broken down to "Distance from basket on 200-300' holes", "Distance from basket on 300-400' holes", etc.

I have to agree with this.

 

[iacas]

It would be nice if we could borrow golf's methods. They know exactly where every ball is in real time. But, that costs too much, and I don't know if they could do that with a lot of trees in the way.

They train volunteers to do it each week and it's not too bad. You zoom in on the ball, "click" it on the screen, and since it's basically surveying equipment, it knows precisely where the ball is.

For those situations where they can't see the ball they enter the location in on a smallish grid (often after first getting close to the area with the surveying equipment, then specifying a square or two to the left or right). And in instances where the ball goes in the water, for example, it's somewhat irrelevant where it went in to within a yard or so, so they'll just click a spot approximately where it went in.

Far, far more trees in DG though, on average.

I like the idea of stats for disc golf, but it strikes me as a sort of chicken-egg thing.

 

[Halcón]

I like stats, but only the simplistic ones. Football and baseball have some ridiculous stats that only the hardcore nerds care about. Give me homers, strikeouts, and touchdowns. I don't care how many times the batter struck out against a certain pitcher, in the rain, at night, with 2 outs, and 2 runners on base, with the score tied.

In DG, we need to start small. Putts made within the circle has to be one of the easiest to record and most tangible stats we have. We can at least get that from NT events, if there are enough volunteers.

 

[ChrisWoj]

I like stats, but only the simplistic ones. Football and baseball have some ridiculous stats that only the hardcore nerds care about. Give me homers, strikeouts, and touchdowns. I don't care how many times the batter struck out against a certain pitcher, in the rain, at night, with 2 outs, and 2 runners on base, with the score tied.

In DG, we need to start small. Putts made within the circle has to be one of the easiest to record and most tangible stats we have. We can at least get that from NT events, if there are enough volunteers.

Exactly. I agree with you completely. No need to go crazy, start small and around the green.

 

[iacas]

In DG, we need to start small. Putts made within the circle has to be one of the easiest to record and most tangible stats we have. We can at least get that from NT events, if there are enough volunteers.

- Putts made within the circle.
- OB/Penalty strokes
- Scoring (not just totals but birdie %, eagle %, etc.)*

* Two players can shoot -7 but get there very differently.

All relatively easy stats. The latter two don't even have to be done "live."

 

[Halcón]

How does the PDGA currently record the live scoring for the biggest events? Do they have volunteers at every hole feeding them the live scores?

 

[DavidSauls]

I'll backtrack to say, some statistics for an individual event might be interesting and useful. It would give a clue as to where certain players won, or lost, the event.

But over the course of a season or longer? Take the most universal one: putting percentage. Which I assume to mean, percentage of putts made inside the 10-meter circle. Player A is 90%, player B is 80%.

Is that because player A is a better putter? Or because player A puts more drives or upshots within 5' of the basket, while player B is often barely getting inside the circle. If you putt from 50' and make it, it doesn't affect your percentage; but if you putt from 50' and lay up, making your drop-in, your putting percentage goes up. How can you tell from the statistics that Player A plays a lot of events on courses with easy greens (level, treeless, light wind), while Player B plays a lot of events on courses with tough greens (drop-offs, raised baskets, trees on greens, wind-prone locations)?

And that's the easy stat. Hitting the green off the tee? Some courses, pros do it almost every hole; some, almost never. What does an average over a lot of varied courses tell you?

 

[iacas]

But over the course of a season or longer? Take the most universal one: putting percentage. Which I assume to mean, percentage of putts made inside the 10-meter circle. Player A is 90%, player B is 80%.

You're risking coming off as if the lack of any statistics at all is better than some statistics.

Can statistics be misleading? Yes. If they're collected consistently, does that generally provide more value than the amount by which they can be misleading?

I'd say yes.

You'd probably be surprised at how the stats would tend to even out to make the examples you provided pretty insignificant. Especially when people KNOW how the stats are calculated, and how you can combine them - perhaps combining a lower birdie percentage with a higher putting percentage to show that a player is cautious with his longer putts from outside the circle.

 

[DavidSauls]

You're risking coming off as if the lack of any statistics at all is better than some statistics.

Can statistics be misleading? Yes. If they're collected consistently, does that generally provide more value than the amount by which they can be misleading?

I'd say yes.

You'd probably be surprised at how the stats would tend to even out to make the examples you provided pretty insignificant. Especially when people KNOW how the stats are calculated, and how you can combine them - perhaps combining a lower birdie percentage with a higher putting percentage to show that a player is cautious with his longer putts from outside the circle.

I'd hate to come off that way. I'm a baseball fan. I LOVE stats.

I love meaningful stats, in all sports. I don't care for some of the inane ones I hear, though.

It seems to me that, due to the great variation in our courses, and the individual holes on our courses, that the simple stats are meaningless. And the complex stats would be a logistical problem.

Putting percentage is pretty meaningless, if it includes all putts in the circle. But putting percentage from 20 feet, or 30 feet, or 40 feet, is interesting. But much harder to compile.

There are probably stats not mentioned here, that would be of interest. Perhaps "Average number of putts per round made from outside the 10-meter circle." Perhaps percentage of holes birdied, parred, or bogeyed, distinguishing consistent players from hot-and-cold players.

The larger question is whether the stats, even if interesting or useful, would be worth the effort. Part of that question is, how many people would really care? (I have no idea).

 

[Halcón]

Putting percentage is pretty meaningless

Definitely a matter of opinion.

But I like your idea of % of putts made outside the circle.

 

[DavidSauls]

Definitely a matter of opinion.

But I like your idea of % of putts made outside the circle.

Note that it's "average number per round", not percentage.

For percentage, you need to make a somewhat subjective determination as to what's a putt, and what's an upshot or layup.

For average number, it's both easy to determine (if you've got the line marked, or can measure it after putts), and, to me, interesting. If Player A averages 2.1 long putts per round, and Player B averages 4.4, I think that says something about them.

 

[DavidSauls]

Definitely a matter of opinion.

.

True. But I'm curious as to the value of a formula that rates a 2' putt and a 32' putt the same. Or considers someone who always lays up from 35' to be a better putter than someone who occasionally makes putts from 35'.

 

[Halcón]

The 10m line would have to be marked off clearly. There's no time to be wasting on measurements.