Every Shot Counts is the title of a new book, about golf, by Mark Broadie.  It is the kind of book that will appeal to somebody who likes statistics, as I do, and if you don’t like golf and statistics is not your thing, then this book would be perfect hell!  If you are a golf fanatic and want to know that 50% of all professional players will hole a put from 8 feet, and that 42% of scratch players will do the same, but that Luke Donald is No 1 in the world from 8 feet, holing 57% of his puts, then this book will appeal to you.  

What the book really does though is it breaks down the belief that so many golfers have that you “drive for show and putt for dough”.  That, for non-golfers, means that driving the ball a long distance is not that important, but that it is all about how well you putt. This book illustrates absolutely comprehensively and beyond doubt, by using all the PGA Tour statistics that that is not true.  That in fact, if you cannot drive the ball a long way in the first place, you have no chance of making the Top 40 players in the world, and it is better to drive the ball a long way than to drive it straight, but short.  As luck would have it, most people who can drive the ball a long way also happen to be able to hit it straight.  It would explain, and whereas many people think Tiger Woods used to be a brilliant putter and he is not as good a putter now, that he statistically never won his tournaments on the basis of putting.  He has won his tournaments because not only does he hit the ball a long way, but his iron play, or the approach shots that he hits into the green, are generally better than any other players in the world and he generally hits approach shots far closer to the flag than anybody else.  As a result, he would continually be putting from closer to the hole than other players in the world and that, if anything, his putting contributes less to his winning tournaments, than it does others.  To put it another way, of course Tiger Woods is brilliant in every aspect of the game, but he is the best striker of a ball in the world and he can put that ball closer to a flag, more often, than anybody else.  The book shows that Rory McIlroy for example has sprung to fame in recent years because of his ability to hit the ball very far, and that Vijay Singh, for example, is one of the worst putters on tour to have ever won tournaments.  He does not putt well, but his iron play and approach shots are brilliant.   It is not the type of book though that would win you friends – because you are all sitting around the table having a discussion after golf and everybody wants to give their opinions, the person who has read this book will have chapter and verse on all of the statistics, and once you have the statistics, it is a little bit hard to tolerate other people talking absolute nonsense as to why or what they think is important.  So, it is an academic study, it is a scientific and statistical study analysing every single shot that has been recorded on the professional tour for about the last 10 or 15 years and what happened after that shot and there simply is not any room for doubt, once you have gone through it all.  It really boils down to advising you, if you love golf and are interested in golf, that the way to get better is to learn and to practice how to hit the ball further and once you have learnt how to hit the ball far, then you can worry about trying to hit it straighter.  Pure strength will dominate and that is why the old images of big fat men, strolling down fairways and smoking cigars have been replaced by the current athletes, who in many cases could have played basketball or American football, but have chosen to stay in the gym while perfecting the athleticism and stretching that golf would require and make their money playing golf.