In this instructional video Connor Stirling Peterson presents a data‑driven method for improving golf approach shots and overall iron play. He begins by establishing a "North Star" framework of five interlocking "puzzle pieces" that together drive low scores: off‑the‑tee, approach, short game, and two putting metrics. For each piece he identifies the most relevant performance statistics – penalty rate for tee shots, greens‑in‑regulation for approach, scrambling for short game, compound error rate for miscellaneous mistakes, and 3‑putt rate/second‑putt distance for putting. The core of the video then drills into the approach piece, showing how to break down greens‑in‑regulation by hole type (par‑3, par‑4, par‑5) and by distance bands (75‑100 yd, 100‑125 yd, 125‑150 yd, 150‑175 yd, 175‑200 yd). Using his own stats as an example, he highlights which distance ranges need the most attention. He proposes a targeted practice system: set measurable practice targets (e.g., aim for 80 % greens hit in practice when you hit 70 % on the course), limit the number of balls, focus on specific shot types (off‑speed, knock‑down, shape, ball position), and evaluate progress against the data. The video also recommends the "Draw More Circles" tool for visualizing and tracking these metrics. Throughout, the emphasis is on moving from mindless ball‑striking to purposeful, data‑informed practice that translates into better on‑course performance.
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All right, what's going on everyone? So in today's video, I'm going to be covering how to practice your approach shots more effectively and get more out of your practice when you're working on your iron play. Not just going out there and mindlessly beating balls, but actually accomplishing something. And if you apply the process I'm going to walk you through, you'll find you don't hit nearly as many balls, but you also find a much higher translation to actually playing on the golf course and actually shooting better scores. You'll be able to see this in your statistics. Now, if you enjoy videos like this, you want to learn more about junior golf, how to play golf at a high level, how to use your stats to practice better and become a better golfer, go ahead and subscribe to the channel if you're new here and like this video if you enjoy this type of stuff. Pushes out the algorithm and also tells me that you enjoy videos like this. So anyway, let's go ahead and jump right into this. So there's a few principles that we need to start off with when we are looking at our game and saying, how do I improve as fast as possible? We need to have kind of a North Star. We need to have something that's kind of our primary way that we evaluate our game. And that's one of the reasons that golf is so difficult, because there's so many different skills. It's difficult for us to kind of narrow that down. And even if you're using a stats tool, there's so much data here, it's really difficult to kind of navigate down and say, okay, cool, what do I need to focus on specifically in order to improve? You know, what do I need to do exactly if I want to get better? And so I've found it very, very helpful to view the game as made up of kind of puzzle pieces, if you will. There are certain things you need to be able to do well every single round in order to shoot low scores. And if you can do that, then you should be able to shoot reasonably low scores pretty consistently. So let me go ahead and walk you through kind of like those 5 puzzle pieces that I come back to over and over again, and then we're going to drill down specifically into one of those puzzle pieces. So first things first, also before I go into this, the tool that I'm using here is called Draw More Circles. I use it as a coach, I really enjoy it, I really recommend it if you guys are going to try and follow some of the stuff that I'm going to do. It's just the best tool out there in my experience. So that is, that is that. So the first puzzle pieces here, so you guys have reference here, we're gonna have something that essentially accounts for off the tee, approach, short game, and there's going to be two pieces of this that actually go into putting. So off the tee, a lot of you guys might be thinking, oh well, we care about how often we hit the fairway. Um, that's kind of irrelevant because your shot pattern is going to be so large with the driver, it doesn't really matter, um, whether or not you're going to hit the fairway every single time. That's not realistic. But what we do want to keep an eye on is penalty rate. And so that's going to cost you a shot if you hit it in hazard, hit it out of bounds. So that's something you just want to be aware of. If your penalty rate is like 10, that's not going to work. You know, a tour player, it's gonna be pretty dang close to zero. So that is the first number we want to keep an eye on. And so the way that you're gonna, you know, you would work on that specifically is making sure that you hit one shot shape exclusively off the tee. And I'll do other videos going more in depth there, but that is the stat and that is the, the main skill there. Approach play, it's pretty straightforward. Greens in regulation— if we're hitting a lot of greens, we're gonna be in a good spot. Most of why we're gonna have high greens in regulation is because our approach play is solid. If you're not hitting a lot of greens, it means your approach play could be improved. Next one is short game. Want to know what our scrambling rate is, and that's just because, you know, we want to know what happens when we miss the green. How often are we making par? How often are we getting up and down? And so a lot of that's going to have to do ultimately with your putting. But another number that I like to look at is what I would call compound error rate, which is just things that aren't represented by these other skills. And so to round this out here, compound errors would be like if you miss the green and then you two-chipped. All right, so let's, let's see, we want to look at 3-putt rate. Overall. And 3-putt rate is going to be comprised of— as far as skills go, it's going to be comprised of our ability to make these short ones and our ability to lag putt reasonably well. And you can see that by this kind of second putt distance here. So anything that's inside 10% is honestly, you know, pretty dang good. Um, so that's— those are kind of the main skills we want to look at. Now let's go ahead and dig into approach play, because that's what this video is about. Now, we want to evaluate your approach play based on greens regulation. For the most part, if you are hitting 75% of your greens, you probably are not struggling with your ball striking. Could be, but really doubt it. And so in order to understand that, there's 3 things we need to understand. First, we need to understand greens regulation on par 3s, par 4s, par 5s, because those are all fundamentally different shots. Those are different holes, those different ways to play those particular scenarios. And so you might have to be in a situation where it's like, hey, I hit a ton of my par 4s, but I really don't play par 5s very well, or I play par 4s and par 5s really well, but I really struggle with par 3s. And that's going to inform how you're going to want to practice your approach play. And so that's the first thing you want to have awareness of, is just like, where, where are those numbers for you and how do they relate to your overall number? And so now I'll use myself as a kind of a Guinea pig here. Greens regulation, 69%. Well, if I display par 3s, I'd actually be doing pretty well here. Um, you know, 77%, not a problem at all. Par 5s, 92%, not a problem at all. Par 4 is only 60%. So even though it's like, yeah, it's better than the pro number, yeah, it's not the most important thing in my game, but if I was just looking at my ball striking, I could say, okay, cool, specifically par 4s are an area that I need to improve. And so we're going to want to break these into 3 different buckets of approach play. So you can really kind of model out where do I really need to put my effort into. So I will go over par 3s and par 4s— par 5s first, and then I'll go into the par 4s. So par 5s, typically for most of you, you should be able to have a shot inside of 100 yards. I know there's gonna be some of you guys watching this that, you know, are still pretty young, that you're not quite there, but for the most part you can still apply these concepts and you can you can still apply this stuff. So red flag for me right here, 75 to 100 yards, we can't only hit that 55% of the time. That's unacceptable. So if I'm modeling out my practice, that's definitely an area that I'm going to want to get to. Clearly it's not biting me too badly on par 5s right now, but it's still concerning. This is going to be your typical layup number if you're on a par 5, and so this is a number that you want to have be really, really solid. So in my case, yeah, because if I was playing 600-yard par 5s, I would have a problem. All right, now let's go ahead and look at our approach play. Now your approach play, you should be able to know what your average par 3 approach is, and then we also want to look at what's your average par 4 approach, right? So you can figure that out by average par 4 length and then take the distance you hit it off the tee and then subtract that from the total distance. That's your normal approach there. Or you just, you know, intuitively say, okay, like normally I have these clubs in, and so these are the clubs that, you know, I need to focus on here. So typically, you know, if you're a more mature player, then your par 3s are probably in this range, 150 to 200 yards, and your par 4s are somewhere, you know, 100 to 150 yards. All right, so we're going to go ahead and dig into these numbers here. So 125 to 150 yards, or 100 to 125 yards, hit at 69%. All right, cool. So that could be improved. For me relative to everything else. So 75 to 100 and 100 to 125, already kind of sketchy here. Now let's go ahead and continue, you know, 125 to 150, pretty solid. And then let's go ahead and look at the longer stuff. 150, 175, 65%, pretty solid. And 175 to 200, 70%. So again, we can kind of see here that if I were to say, how do— how should I practice my, my ball striking? What I'm going to want to do is say, okay, cool, it's probably spending a lot of time from 100 to 125 yards and 75 to 100 yards. And the reason for that is those are the shots that I'm struggling with the most, and it's also going to have the biggest impact on my scoring. So even though I might want to look at my golf swing and say, oh, you know, let's go out there and hit more 7-irons to really try and get that position or that feel, I can kind of know it's like, that's not my problem. That's not the thing I'm struggling with. And when I'm going around looking for feels, looking for ways to hit the ball better, I need to be considering like, how can I hit these off-speed shots a little bit better? How can I hit the knockdowns a little bit better? What are the feels that I need to go to? What's the shot shape that I need to go to? How do I set up for those? Where am I putting the ball in my stance? All that stuff. And then once I'm out there, I'm gonna have a limited number of balls and I want to be measuring myself against the standard. So if I'm hitting 70% of my greens from this distance, Well, in practice I should probably be hitting 80% or better, right? So I can say, okay, I'm going to hit 10 balls, I'm going to hit 8 of them on the green, I give myself permission to miss a couple, and that's going to be my practice. And it's going to be a lot more focused and it's going to be a lot more easy to measure. So if I'm having an issue, I go ahead and try something and this isn't getting better, I know that my practice isn't effective. So hopefully this is making sense for you guys, that if you're struggling with your ball strike, you want to get better, it's important that you're much more deliberate and specific about, okay, This is the part of my game that needs to improve, and here's what I need to do to do that. And so this is just with the approach play. I'll do other videos for the other parts of the puzzle here, but hopefully this video is helpful for you guys just to understand how you can start to use a little bit of data to actually practice more effectively and get more out of your practice sessions. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this, and I'll see you in the next one.
