Full Swing Thoughts
First and foremost, listen to Full Swing Thoughts (Apple, Spotify), a podcast recapping the new Netflix series Full Swing. The show profiles players on the PGA Tour featuring the kind of behind-the-scenes footage we’ve never had a window into before.
Brendan Porath & Andy Johnson of The Fried Egg and I recapped each episode of the show. All episodes of the Netflix show and our podcast are available now.
The two things I was most excited about when preparing to record the pods with Andy and Brendan:
Both are incredibly knowledgable about golf
I never had a doubt that the top priority in recapping these episodes was telling the truth. Nobody was worried about flattering anyone or offending anyone.
I think that shines through in Full Swing Thoughts.
I hope the Netflix show and our pod provide an entry point into golf for those who don’t watch the sport. So use this as an opportunity to get your friends/family/Significant Other engaged in the game.
Enjoy the pod :)
Strokes Gained: Around the Green
The invention of Strokes Gained statistics has significantly impacted the way we contextualize golf performance. I’ve written about Strokes Gained before (with an explanation here), but basically the algorithm takes a few factors like the category of your lie (Fairway, Rough, etc.) and your distance to the hole (i.e. 25 yards) to attach an Expected Number of Strokes to Hole Out to each of your shots. If a hole has a scoring average of 4.2 and a player hits his tee shot to a location where his new Expected Number of Strokes to Hole Out is 3.1, he gained 0.1 strokes on his tee shot (4.2 - 3.1 - the 1 stroke it took him to get there). Every shot a player hits on the PGA Tour is assigned a Strokes Gained value.
Strokes Gained: Around the Green is a unique stat on the PGA Tour. Of the four Strokes Gained categories (Off the Tee, Approach, Around the Green, Putting), Around the Green is the most dependent upon opportunity. If a player hits zero shots from around the green during a round, his Strokes Gained: Around the Green will be zero* for the day.
*Sometimes people make small adjustments to these values, but those impacts are negligible within the context of this newsletter.
When calculating Strokes Gained: Around the Green per Round, the PGA Tour sums up all of a player’s Strokes Gained values from shots around the green and divides this total by the number of rounds the player has played on Tour over the specified time period. Therefore, missing greens amplifies your Strokes Gained numbers; the more greens you miss, the more numbers get summed in your numerator, but your denominator will not change.
Accordingly, many of the players ranked near the top of the Strokes Gained: Around the Green category hit the ball short off the tee. Why? There are two relevant reasons:
Distance is a skill. If you hit the ball short off the tee, you are likely strong in another area. Otherwise you would not survive on the PGA Tour.
With longer distances on your approach shots, you will hit fewer greens, leading to more chip shots. If you are an above average chipper, more chips will increase your overall Strokes Gained: Around the Green.
Take Kevin Na, for example. In 2021, Kevin Na led the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Around the Green gaining an average of +0.7 strokes (+54.767 strokes in 78 rounds) per round in the category. He also ranked 152nd out of 196 players in Greens in Regulation. Kevin Na has impressive short game; he also gets opportunities to use it. In 2022, Matt Kuchar led the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Around the Green. He ranked #164 out of 193 players in Greens in Regulation. Matt Kuchar has impressive short game; he also gets opportunities to use it.
Fun to Stay at the DMCA
Yesterday on Twitter dot com, media account Awful Announcing tweeted that there was a reason behind their inactivity on Twitter for much of the morning. They’d been DMCAd by the PGA Tour.
In case you are unaware, the PGA Tour requires users to take down media from PGA Tour broadcasts. They do it to me. And they do it to people with much more influence.
Exhibit Z:
Faced with the threat of LIV Golf, the PGA Tour has shown some willingness to evolve. But more has to be done if the Tour wants to thrive as a modern entertainment product. The PGA Tour DMCAs because they’ve bundled the Tour’s media rights and sold them to partners of the Tour for millions of dollars. DMCAing is just enforcement of contractual obligations. Nonetheless, a policy change around media rights would be beneficial to both the PGA Tour and its partners.
Important, engaging conversation happens on social media. You want your product to be a part of the conversation. Other leagues (like the NBA and F1) lean into this.
Part of why I watch golf every week is because other people watch golf every week. When something funny or insightful happens, we convene on social media to experience the moment together. It’s a powerful experience and it’s how millions of fans consume sports, especially if they are young.
Without the ability to post video, I must depend on those with media rights to publish a video of a golf shot or an entertaining moment. This restricts the amount of the PGA Tour product that floats around on the internet and gatekeeps many fans from engaging with the game.
This video I posted has 170k views:
I was making a point about Kapalua Plantation Course here:
These clips must have slipped through the DMCA detection department at PGA Tour HQ. For those interested in watching these videos, I recommend doing so now. If the Tour has its partners’ best interests in mind, these videos will be taken down shortly.
Contact/Feedback
Email: Joseph.LaMagnaGolf@gmail.com
Twitter: @JosephLaMagna
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