In our forums, our members have been having an interesting discussion concerning a feel vs data driven approach to the game.
WRXer ‘NikeGolfer93’ cited a GolfWRX article detailing the feud and contrasting approaches of Brad Faxon and Decade Golf owner Scott Fawcett. You can read the article in full here.
To kick off the post, ‘NikeGolfer93’ quoted from the above article, posting:
“The feud dates back to a video from “a couple of years ago” where Faxon says that a tap-in putt didn’t necessarily mean the first putt had “good speed” and he took exception with broadcasters consistently implying that notion.
Faxon said when he hit a good putt that didn’t go in, it would end up “past the hole enough where I had to mark it”. Fawcett was shown the video and said that he disagreed with Faxon’s opinion on what “good speed” meant.
Faxon has often said that golfers shouldn’t focus on their statistics, and he has continuously dismissed the notion that players should record stats if they want to improve.”
And our members have been sharing which approach they feel works best in our forum.
Here are a few posts from the thread, but make sure to check the entire discussion and have your say at the link below.
- BlueDragonKorea: “I feel like it’s hard to argue against Fawcett since if you guarantee that every putt is long of the hole, you’re skewing your dispersion of putts way past the hole. You aren’t magically going to become better at speed just because you guarantee the putt is past the hole, so you may make something that would have been a 3 footer into a 6 footer. If you get “lucky” while putting like this, you may make way more putts in a given round, but on the whole, you would fall behind in your putting statistics because you have 6 footers instead of 3 footers.”
- Ironman_32: “I’d say feel is individual, data is the average. It’s like comparing Bubba Watson’s swing vs Adam Scott. Adam’s would be considered more “classical” and maybe a better model for someone to copy if they are just starting out, but Bubba has double the green jackets.”
- Ppperturbo: “I agree with Faxon… a good putt is past the hole by a foot, maybe. Short of the hole means short, NOT enough to reach, so not necessarily a good putt. Call it what you will, if it makes you feel better, still there is NO WAY a short putt can find the cup.”
Entire Thread: “Brad Faxon vs Scott Fawcett: Feel vs Data driven approach? – GolfWRXers discuss”