Short game guru Dave Pelz passes at 85

In late March the golf world lost one of the most revered and influential golf innovators and instructors of all time with the passing of Dave Pelz. He was 85. Pelz became famous for his groundbreaking research and analysis of the short game of golf, played from 100 yards from the green.

                Pelz began playing golf at an early age and showed promise. He earned a four-year golf scholarship to Indiana University. His only claim to fame in college was that he played 22 matches against a young Ohio State golfer named Jack Nicklaus, and lost 22 times. He graduated from Indiana as a physics major, after which he began career as a research scientist at NASA. He became a senior NASA scientist.

                Missing golf, Pelz applied his knowledge of physics and his passion for research and testing to the game, especially putting. He began measuring what happens when the putter head strikes the ball, and the mechanics of player and club swing through the putter. He found that the majority of missed putts were because the ball was not hit in the precise center of the putter face.

                In 1977 Pelz started a project that required an analysis of every shot in golf, using caddies, tour players and amateur golfers. He spent more than three years entering the data from thousands of golf rounds, including shot distance, proximity to the target and more. He came to the conclusion that 60% of golf shots are part of the “short game” – those attempts from within 100 yards of the hole. His data showed that pro players with the best short games won the most money. That tended to confirm the age-old adage “drive for show and putt for dough.” Another revelation he uncovered was that PGA Tour pros miss their shots from beyond 100 yards from the hole by an average of 7% of the total shot distance, whereas that percentage rises to 16-20% on shots from within 100 yards. It turns out that Pelz developed golf analytics before analytics became the rage.

                With his prodigious work on testing and development of golf training equipment, Pelz began to acquire a following of tour professionals as a specialist of short game teaching, including chipping, putting and bunker play. From 1978 through 2021 Pelz’s professional golf students won a total of 22 major championships. One of Pelz’s pro students is Phil Mickelson, who attributes his winning six majors from 2004 to 2021 to work he did with Pelz.

                Pelz approached the problems and complexities of the difficult game of golf from the standpoint of “thinking outside the box.” His inquisitiveness was contagious and compelling in that he saw things that seemingly didn’t make sense and then got to their root cause. For example, he discovered that on a golf course the effect of foot traffic around the hole late in the day caused an otherwise simple, straight putt to miss, which he called the “lumpy donut effect.” In the manner of today’s analytics, Pelz made professional as well as amateur golfers smarter about how a good “scoring game” leads to success.

Charlie Blanchard is a guest columnist for the Las Cruces Bulletin. He is a retired golf teacher and writer. He worked with NMSU’s head coach for men’s golf, Herb Wimberly, and is credentialed by the PGA for playing ability. He can be reached at docblanchard71@gmail.com.