Approach Shot Accuracy as a Performance Indicator for US PGA Tour Golf Professionals

Composite measures of golf performance, such as ‘greens in regulation,’ need to be improved upon as they cannot distinguish whether a player was good, bad or indifferent on each individual aspect of the performance, in this instance, driving and approach shots. Consequently, approach shot accuracy was assessed in terms of the distance that shots into the green finished in relation to the pin. Approach shot data (starting position, finishing position and lie) were collected from the PGA TourCast web site for 14 PGA Tour players, playing in randomly selected tournaments during 2006. Median approach shot errors (finishing distance as a percentage of starting distance) of 4.6% to 5.3% were found for fairway shots between 100 and 200 yards, rising to 6.2% to 9.6% for distances over 200 yards, suggesting some increased difficulty at longer distances. Errors tended to increase (5.2% to 6.5%) for fairway shots between 50 and 100 yards, thought to be due to the increased use of less-than-full swing shots at these distances. Shots from the rough increased the error by an average of 4.3%. It is suggested that approach shot accuracy is a viable performance indicator as it correlated strongly with World Ranking and clear individual differences allowed specific strengths and weaknesses to be ascertained. Future research should consider analysing shots from closer to the green.