Look Back To Look Forward

A couple of posts I made last week got me interested in how I am playing compared with previous years, and the difference in play between the start of a year, and the peak of the season, which is normally the June – August period.

I have played 23 rounds on my home course this year, so I have taken those 414 holes and split them into how I played them in relation to par. I then took the first 23 rounds in each of the previous calendar years I have data for, and completed the same exercise. Finally, I looked at the 23 rounds in the peak of the season for each year.

The first graph shows the comparison between the start and the peak of the season.

Unsurprisingly, it confirms the theory that there is a peak in each season. The number of pars or better is 13% higher in the peak of the season than in the start of the year. Interestingly, over the 3 years, the rate hasn’t been a consistent 13%, it has been 8% in 2007, then 12% in 2008, then 19% in 2009. This is a good trend for me at the moment as it shows that, regardless of the difference in standard at the start of each year, the better I get the more of a difference it makes in the peak.

So where am I this year? 

Looking at the next graph, this compares the first 23 rounds of golf in each of the last 4 calendar years. From 2007 to 2008 the main improvement came from turning disaster holes (red) into bogey holes (orange). From 2008 to 2009 the main improvement came from turning bogey holes into pars. From 2009 to 2010 there hasn’t been a significant difference, the only thing that shows up is that there is more inconsistency; the number of birdies (green) and disaster holes (red) have both gone up; although the birdies have gone up by more, giving me a slightly lower score average.

The peak of each season gives a much clearer picture of how I have progressed. The number of birdies and pars are both up year on year, and the number of disaster holes is reduced year on year. As my 2010 start is similar to my 2009 start, I can expect the graph for the 2010 peak to look similar to the 2009 peak, but with a slight improvement.

The last thing I looked at was a comparison of the average and median gross scores from the first 23 rounds of each year, and the number of those 23 rounds that contained a disaster hole.

This shows a very clear indicator. In previous years, there has been a direct correlation between the average gross score and the number of rounds containing a double bogey or worse. This year, the number of rounds with a double bogey or worse is vastly higher than the trend in previous years suggests it should be (trend would suggest 10/23 rounds so far in 2010 would contain a double bogey or worse, actual figure is 17/23). My overall average scores are reducing year on year, but the number of disasters are increasing. What does this mean? 

Well, previously, I would have either a good day, or a bad day that might contain several disasters. Now, I’m less likely to have multiple disasters in one round, but in each round there will be the odd one. I don’t know what is causing this, but if I had to guess I would suggest it is to do with putting excess pressure on myself. At the start of previous years I have been playing off a higher handicap, so I was expected to drop more shots. Now, playing off of 3 or 4, if I get into trouble I am taking more risks to try and salvage a par, as every dropped shot counts massively. However, when the risk doesn’t pay off I am dropping at least 2 shots. I need to get back to the stage of only taking calculated risks, and being prepared to drop shots, knowing that I have the ability to make a birdie to get it back later on.