A conversation between Boomer Golfer and the Stats Nerd who tried to save him
[Scene: The clubhouse patio at Pine Crust Golf Club. One man wears a bucket hat and 1974 Masters windbreaker that smells faintly of cough drops and varnish. The other is a 28-year-old wearing a Garmin watch, a WHOOP band, and has a TrackMan app open on his phone. Both are holding iced teas. It’s not going well.]
BOOMER:
Putting is the game. Always has been. Always will be. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling launch monitors.
NERD:
I mean, I get where that comes from, but Mark Broadie actually showed—
BOOMER:
Mark who?
Look, in ’79, I played Inverness with a guy named Marty “Two Hands” Renzulli. Didn’t have a backswing—just twitched the ball into the hole from everywhere. Guy couldn’t hit a green with a bazooka, but he putted like he was kissing angels. Shot a 71. Said it was all about feel.
NERD:
Right, but see, that’s anecdotal. If we look at strokes gained, we can actually quantify—
BOOMER:
Strokes gained? Sounds like some communist math to me. You ever read Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book?
NERD:
Yes, but—
BOOMER:
Harvey said putt to win. You wanna argue with Harvey? The man once stared down Byron Nelson and made him rethink his grip. My dad turned our backyard into a putting green in 1966 using AstroTurf and spite. Said, “No son of mine is gonna three-jack.”
My mom hated it. Called it “the divorce lawn.”
NERD:
That’s… genuinely a little tragic.
Anyway, statistically, the biggest scoring differences actually come from approach play, especially outside 150 yards—
BOOMER:
Son, the biggest scoring difference comes from between your ears. I once holed a 58-foot slider at Firestone using a bent Bullseye putter and sheer willpower. My caddie wept. Said it reminded him of the birth of his first child.
NERD:
That’s… that’s very moving.
But strokes gained data from the PGA Tour has consistently shown—
BOOMER:
You know what they didn’t have on the PGA Tour in 1974?
Strokes gained.
You know what they did have? Jack Nicklaus’s mustache and respect.
NERD:
Sir, Jack Nicklaus never had a mustache.
BOOMER:
Yeah well, metaphorically he did.
NERD:
Look, I’m not saying putting’s not important. I’m just saying that statistically, approach shots correlate more with scoring than putting does.
BOOMER:
You wanna talk stats? Fine. I once played in a Monday qualifier with a guy who tracked every shot in a spiral notebook. He shot an 83. I rolled in putts from Des Moines to Omaha and shot even par on a hangover and half a gas station egg salad sandwich.
NERD:
But if you had improved your iron play, maybe you’d have made it onto the—
BOOMER:
I did make it. To the top of the leaderboard at the 1982 Toledo Senior Invitational, Flight C. They gave me a plaque shaped like a putter. I sleep next to it. My wife calls it “the other woman.”
NERD:
I’m gonna go… recalibrate my launch monitor.
BOOMER:
You do that, Number Crunch. I’ll be over here on the practice green, winning wars with my wrists.
