Good players don't make mistakes in the short game! Or do they?

When I started my business (a long, long time ago), I had the great fortune of working with the Golf Digest Schools and the top instructors in the world that ran them.  I was struggling with exactly how to define the short game for my subscribers (what distances from the hole?) and how to handle ERRORS (shots that miss the green).  Several of these icons of the instruction world took an interest in the new approach that I was taking with golf statistics and were incredibly helpful.  In particular:  Chuck Cook, Jack Lumpkin and Hank Johnson.  

On the latter question (ERRORS) the comment was made:  "Good players don't make errors in the short game." To this day, if one works with PGA Tour players and relies solely on their Tour stats for information, this would seem to be true.  But I have been tracking Tour performance for years and know that even the winners on the PGA Tour make errors in the short game.  

Recently, Pat, my genius programmer dug into the ShotLink data to see exactly HOW GOOD THESE GUYS ARE around the greens (within 50 yards of the hole).  Pat uncovered the following percent ERRORS thru the first five PGA Tour events this season:

Chip/Pitch errors:   6%;  Avg. cost:  .68 strokes

Sand errors:            9%;  Avg. cost:  .66 strokes

One might ask:  Why is the Chip/Pitch cost slightly higher?  Isn't this counter-intuitive?  It is BUT, when players hit the green with their Chip/Pitch shots, their average score is lower than when they hit the green from the sand.  Thus a mistake has a higher cost.

The sand game is a challenge, especially for the club golfer.  Note that the 10 handicap golfer in the Greenside Sand Performance chart above is just as likely to make an error as they are to get it up and down.  My theory is that for these golfers, sand shots customarily only occur 1 or 2 times per round.  As such, the skill is seldom practiced and generally misunderstood.  Further, most public courses, and many private facilities, do not have practice bunkers.  I recommend that instructors/coaches check out their players' sand games.  If necessary, go out on the course for this purpose.  First, verify that they have the right club for the type of sand and shots required for their course.  Next, do they have the basic OUT shot that can reliably get them on the green.  Only after these basics are covered should the array of other sand shots be addressed.

Finally, I was surprised that the Tour error rate for sand shots was as high as 9%.  My theory as to why is that they really are that good and try to get it close from everywhere.  Or could it be that because the Tour stats don't include them, they forget that their errors ever happen?