Keeping stats is not just a great way to track performance but it is also a fun way to challenge yourself. Whether you are a recreational golfer that plays once a month or a skilled competitive golfer stats can benefit you.
Stats can be fun and used as a game every time you play. Forget about the par of the course or your score. You can shoot for more greens in regulation or more fairways than your previous round. Maybe you want to have fewer putts. Whatever your goal may be stats give you something to shoot for besides just a score.
The true benefit of stats however is for game improvement. You will learn where your game is strong and where it is weak. This can be extremely helpful if you have a lesson or see a coach regularly. Stats help pinpoint specifics in your golf game that may not be related to your swing. You may strike the ball well with your irons but miss a lot of greens in regulation. With stats, you can look beyond the greens and see perhaps you are missing fairways which can lead to missing greens. There are so many examples of how stats will show you things in your game beyond the physical swing.
There are many apps out there that are decent for tracking stats. My favorite for classic stats is myRoundPro by TaylorMade Golf. However, there are some things that get too involved with this app like strokes gained that I think should be left to tournament golf but you get to tell the app where you hit each shot so it counts everything the way you would. Another good app is from 18Birdies and does a good job for basic stats but there is a fee to get a comprehensive amount of stats that myRoundPro does for free. Some apps have great features but do not count stats properly. For example, you tell the app if you hit the green or not and it then determines your scrambling or Up&Down percentage. A true Up & Down percentage is calculated by getting it in the hole vs how many attempts. You may have 3 attempts to get it on the green and 1-putt. That would be a 1 of 3 just for that hole. That is also beneficial to know how many putts.
One of the best ways is to just keep simple stats yourself in a spreadsheet. Fairways, Greens, Up/Down, Bunkers, and Putts per round as well as putts per hole. This is how I decided to keep my own stats this year. I did this for two reasons. One, as much as I like the apps I use they either are too much to input, or I do not want to pay for the extras. The second reason is I play better and have a better rhythm when I just play golf and use a range finder. Sometimes the app may take a min to put in the info and move on to the next hole. Plus as I use my phone for the app text messages and calls come through and get in the way. I would prefer to just keep my phone on silent and in my golf bag while I play.
I went ahead and made a copy of the spreadsheet I created and am giving it to everyone for free. You will either have to make a copy for yourself if you use Google Drive or Download it into excel format to be able to edit. Get Your Copy Here. The below screenshots will show what it looks like. I only added three rounds as I am just starting with this myself and need to transfer past rounds to it.
The reason for inputting how many Fairway and Green attempts is for golf courses like The Golf Club at Audubon park that only has four fairways and for formula reasons with the putts per hole. The spreassheet is designed for 18-hole rounds. You could input 9-hole rounds but this will change your scoring average. When I play a 9-hole round I combine it with another 9-hole round when I input it to keep my 18-hole scoring average. I will work on the formulas to track a 9-hole and 18-hole scoring average this year.
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