jayw4862: I watched a few top player's random videos and counted, including and excluding putts, dings. The lowest was 66%. The highest was 90%. Even averaged out, that's 78%. The 40% ding rate is BS, even if it's based solely on approach shots.
Jay I looked at Mags recorded rounds. Initially the VUSO (R1-3) ones, and only drives and approaches.
R1 Drives: 7 drives out of 17 (41%) dinged Approaches 5 out of 13 dinged (38%) overall 40%. (A drive and an approach were missing). R2 came in at 55.9% and round 3 was also about 55%.
I then tried what I thought would be better ball striking rounds; 52's on BOF 3rd July and PB on 15th April.
PB: 10 drives dinged out of 17 (59%) 7 approaches out of 14 (50%) overall 55%. (again a drive and a approach missing, apparently the drive was a ding the approach not)
BoF: 3 drives out of 18 (17%) 12 approaches out of 16 (75%) overall 44%.
I was looking for the best striking rounds now and on Mags advice used some of the ones he played with Nike blacks.
17th April 2015 KI F9 (25) Edit: Approaches changed from a wrong 22%
Drives dinged 5 out of 9 (56%) approaches 2 out of 7 (29%) overall 44%.
With these three I counted putts too, 7 out of 9 (78%) overall with putts 56%
28th Dec 2015 CB F9 (26)
Drives dinged 3 out of 9 (33%), approaches 4 out of 7 (57%) overall 44%.
Putts 7 out of 10 (70%) overall with putts 54%.
28th Dec 2015 CB B9 (24)
Drives 8 out of 9 (89%) approaches 2 out of 5 (40%) overall 71%.
Putts 7 out of 9 (78%) overall with putts 74%.
I didn't like the last of these rounds as it's dominated by putts and drives, with only 5 approaches but couldn't discard the highest dinging one. I then started just clicking through rounds discarding them when he missed a few dings and I was looking at a congressional round (18 hole, maybe the 52 on the 17th April) that looked like being about 70% but stupidly clicked into an ad lost it and can't start again now.
I listed the rounds I used in detail in case I made a mistake anywhere.
It would be important to know whether wgt included putts in the mentioned percentages, not if there was any sense attached to it.
Remember too what I was looking at was rounds Mags had kept for people to watch, ones he scored best in, I doubt if the worst striking ones are there. I assume you were looking at similar, apologies if that's wrong.
I know the best score doesn't necessarily mean the best ding % but he does play to ding it and after much watching I know the dinged approaches are generally his best ones. The best way would probably be to watch someone like Mags live for a decent amount of time.
Of course it may be that Mags isn't very good at dinging and gets his scores other ways. Do I believe he could average "around 40%" dings? On the numbers I've seen and remembering these are some of his better rounds; no if putts are included, if drives and approaches i'd be a little bit surprised and it'd be close if only approaches.
I'm not keen on the "around 40%" from wgt which gives quite a bit of leeway, I'm not keen on not knowing precisely what shots they're talking about.
I have no idea whether anyone is cheating on this or not, as said I don't know what the numbers are based on. My starting point was the thought that surely wgt wouldn't outright lie (the around 40% and 79%). Another thing I'd like to know is on their figures are there any other players in the 70's or any in the 60's as an average.
I'm sorry for any opinions folk don't like, they are only that and I'm not saying I'm right. The numbers are what they are and could probably be used to show things in a different way.
The trial sounds brutal, I know I get nervous if I think I'm in contention on a 50 credit rg, aside from all the other problems.
If it was a friend of mine I'd certainly be trying to get more information, at least.