This past week, Brian Harman won the John Deere Classic. Harman has been one of my favorite players to follow from a statistical approach because he is one of the most aggressive tee shot players on Tour, meaning his numbers show that he is less likely to lay-up off the tee and continue to hit his driver. Here are the top-10 most aggressive drivers on Tour from the 2013 season:

1. Ian Poulter
2. Ben Curtis
3. Brandt Snedeker
4. Phil Mickelson
5. Brian Harman
6. Graeme McDowell
7. Tim Clark
8. Robert Castro
9. Steve Sticker
10. Matt Kuchar

The statistical research in the game has repeatedly shown that golfers are better off utilizing an offensive strategy versus a defensive strategy. It will not work every time, but golfers who utilizes an offensive strategy usually putting the odds in their favor. The question then becomes, “When is the point of being too aggressive?”

The general rule of thumb in golf statistics is that the closer the ball is to the hole, the more likely the golfer will hit the next shot closer to the hole. The type of lie a player has, however, plays a large factor in this as well.

The chart below shows the 2013 PGA Tour averages in proximity to the club. It illustrates how getting the ball closer to the hole is generally better, but it clearly helps to get the ball in the short grass as well:

Something that is often overlooked by golfers is that this is just measuring the Proximity to the Cup. While important, it does not assume that each shot lands on the green. In fact, the ShotLink data will measure any shot that is within 30 yards of the edge of the green. And we know that the farther the distance the ball is away from the cup, the more likely the ball will not be on the green.

I have found the threshold on modern Tour courses is about 50 feet. Once the shot gets to roughly 50 feet from the hole, golfers are more likely to be off the green than be on the green. Obviously, today’s greens can hold plenty of shots that are more than 50 feet away from the hole. But, the majority of the time Tour players are trying to hit their approach shot as close to the hole as they can instead of aiming for the middle of the green. If they start missing by more than 50 feet that is more or less with the intent of trying to get that ball as close as they can to the cup.

So, when we look at that chart of Proximity to the Cup from different distances, we see that 50-foot threshold starts with shots from the rough from 175-to-200 yards. It gets to 63.5 feet on rough shots from 200-to-225 yards. It’s not until 225-to-250 yards that the average shot from the fairway has a proximity to the cup greater than 50-feet. Last year, however PGA Tour players only averaged 0.77 shot attempts from 225-to-250 yards per round, regardless if they were from the fairway or the rough. Not many shots come from 225-to-250 yards on Tour, so therefore it is largely a non-factor in most PGA Tour events.

One of the goals I strongly urge my Tour clients to look to achieve is to get 85 percent or more of their Red Zone shots (shots from 175-225 yards) to come from the fairway/tee box. This way, the golfer can perform much better from the Red Zone without actually having to improve their skill and/or change their technique.

For example, last year Sang-Moon Bae finished 126th on Tour from the Red Zone. His adjusted proximity to the cup from 175-to-225 yards was 43.5 feet. However, he only hit 76.8 percent of those shots from the fairway/tee box.

If his performance from the fairway and the rough from those distances did not change and all he did differently was have 85 percent of those shots coming from the fairway/tee box, his adjusted proximity to the cup would have dropped to 41.8 feet. That would have moved him from 126th from the Red Zone to 87th and would be roughly worth 0.2 to 0.25 strokes per round. While that may not seem like much, that is worth roughly 25 spots on the Money List and likely prevented him from qualifying for the Tour Championship at East Lake.

My Own Folly

When I first started doing statistical research I came across the undeniable fact that the “Go For It Percentage” on Par-5’s has a very strong statistical correlation to Par-5 Scoring Average. Furthermore, I saw that the PGA Tour determined a “Go For It” to be anytime golfers got the ball within 30 yards of the edge of the green. Therefore, golfers with a 300-yard shot who can only hit their 3-wood 250 yards could theoretically achieve a “Go For It” as long as they got the ball within 30 yards of the edge of the green.

This initially led me to believe that golfers should generally try to hit it as long as they can on the par-5’s. I was also led to believe this because my logic was that if they didn’t hit a good tee shot, they still had four more shots to save par.

What I discovered was that this theory was severely flawed. And that is because it wrongly places too much value on the tee shot and not enough value on the second shot. Another thing I didn’t consider is that even Tour players do not like hitting 3-woods out of the rough and for good reason; they are not very good at it.

For instance, if a par-5 requires golfers to hit their first two shots 540 yards in order to “Go For It” and they hit their drive 280 yards off the tee, that will leave them with 260 yards to the “Go For It” range. Given that they only hit their driver 280 yards, hitting their 3-wood off the deck 260 yards is going to be a tall order. And they will need as easy of a shot as possible to hit the 3-wood 260 yards. However, if they only hit it 250 yards, they should still be in pretty good position.

What we often see from Tour players is that if they are in the rough on the par-5’s, they will usually lay up and only hit their lay-up shot about 180-to-210 yards. So, trying to swing for the fences on par-5’s may give golfers 20 more yards if they make good contact. But the odds of finding the rough are greater and that means the possible 20 more yards off the tee is negated by them preferring to lay-up because they are in the rough.

Here is a table of one of my own Tour clients. In 2012, we discussed going for par-5’s in two shots and not being afraid to try and bomb the ball off the tee. He was not going for par-5’s in two shots as much as he should, but he actually felt that was ultra-aggressive in going for them whenever it was feasible. I soon discovered the issue with trying to bomb it off the tee so we then focused on him taking his stock swing with the driver and focusing on making good contact and finding the fairway in 2013.

The client is actually able to go for more Par-5’s in two shots despite not trying to bomb the ball off the tee. In fact, he has lost a sizeable amount of distance off the tee this year and is going for more Par-5’s in two shots than ever. His distance loss is not due to laying-up off the tee as he rarely lays-up off the tee. Yet, he FEELS that he is no more aggressive than he was in 2012. The difference is that he now finds the fairway and gives himself more feasible opportunities to go for the green in two shots.

This is why I’m not a fan of the “bomb-n-gouge” mentality. Finding the fairway provides a sizeable advantage to the golfer. But I’m also not a fan of defensive golf either, because losing distance can have an adverse effect on your expected scores. The best of both worlds is to be unafraid of hitting your driver off the tee, even if it is into a narrow fairway. However, take your stock swing and focus on making good contact and finding the fairway; even if the hole is long and the fairway is wide.

A rule I stress to all golfers

If you are very likely to have a 5-iron or longer on your next shot, whether it is on a par-4 or a par-5, focus on taking your stock swing, making good contact and finding the fairway. Do not try to hit it as hard as you possibly can in hopes of gaining extra yards off the tee. The ability to hit the following shot long enough and accurately enough has a greater influence on your score on the hole.

This is not meant to be a giant revelation, but golfers can swing too hard for their own good. There appears to be a growing sentiment that a golfer has to swing out of their shoes in order to have an “athletic looking swing,” but I grew up playing golf where the common instruction was to have effortless power, not powerful effort.

The idea should be to improve your stock swing so you can hit it long and straight time after time. The data indicates that trying to hit it as hard as you can with little or no regard to accuracy is just not a better path to shooting lower scores. And like Brian Harman, one can make up for a lack of club head speed by adopting a more aggressive strategy rather than trying to make a more aggressive golf swing.