50 Words or Less
The Shot Pattern golf app is an amazing tool for playing smarter golf and shooting lower scores. Preview your rounds or use it on the course to make better decisions. Input your data after playing to learn where you’re gaining or losing shots.
Introduction
The analytics revolution can be seen in all sports, and golf is no exception. Unfortunately for the recreational player, putting all these new insights into practice can be too time consuming. Shot Pattern aims to fix that by packing key visualizations and statistics into an easy-to-use app.
Set Up & Ease of Use
One of the things that most impressed me about Shot Pattern is the quality of the app. Any tech-inclined golfer knows that many golf apps have great ideas behind them but fall short on usability. Shot Pattern is not one of them.
When you open the Shot Pattern app, you’re offered tutorial videos, Course Preview, Play Golf, and Account & Stats. The tutorial videos, available on Shot Pattern’s YouTube channel, are very helpful in walking you step-by-step through the different methods of data entry.
You can upload batches of data from a launch monitor, which is the fastest way to get a lot of data into Shot Pattern. Additionally, you can enter your shots as you play. My favorite method is to use my Shot Scope data [I’m using the new V5, review HERE] and enter all the shots post-round. This takes about five minutes, and I found it took about two holes for me to get the hang of it.
The two primary modes, Course Preview and Play Golf, both work intuitively. They start with selecting a course – Play Golf uses your location to identify nearby courses. From there, you’re presented with an overhead image of the hole (below) where you can plot out the optimal strategy.
Benefits
In one sentence, the reason for using Shot Pattern is to improve your decision making on the golf course. It does this in two ways: by creating a visualization of you shot pattern on tee and approach shots and by giving you Strokes Gained stats before you hit your shot.
The two pictures above show a tee shot in Shot Pattern. On the left, I selected the 70 yard arc; on the right, I selected the 40 yard arc. This little white arc is the secret sauce of Shot Pattern as it shows you your entire range of likely outcomes. I can’t overstate the value of this visualization. If you’re looking at a hole and wondering, “Can I safely fit my drive between the trees and the water?” Shot Pattern will give you a definitive answer.
In addition to the white arcs, Shot Pattern can show the actual dispersion of all the drives you’ve entered into the system (above, left). In my case, this includes some poor strikes and some big foul balls, but it’s very useful to see this so you can pick a realistic target.
Beyond visualizing a good target, Shot Pattern lets you know what risks are worth taking by giving you real time Strokes Gained stats. If you look at the two examples above, you can see the value of hitting it an additional 25 yards is about 0.08 strokes. That may not sound like much, but if you multiply that advantage by fourteen drives, you’re at over 1.1 Strokes Gained for the round. The moral of the story: hit driver [but you already knew that if you read THIS]. You can get that same data for questions like, “How much will the rough hurt me?” or “What’s the value of hitting the green vs laying up?”
Shot Pattern gives you a different visualization for approach shots. Above left, you can see the 15 foot circle with the 50 foot circle on the right. This is extremely helpful for picking smart targets that will keep you out of stroke hazards [more on that HERE]
You can use Shot Pattern while you’re playing or to preview your round. As someone who prefers to be device-free on the course, I like preview more, but I would pull out Shot Pattern to confirm a particularly tricky decision if I were chasing a personal best or trying to win a big bet.
While the Course Preview/Play Golf modes will help you make good decisions, I also spend a lot of time in the post-round analysis. Above left, you see the report you get back after each round: a hole-by-hole score alongside your Strokes Gained in the four major categories. You can also see these stats for all your rounds to see how they vary (above, right).
Digging to the next level, you can see a stat summary or dive into each category. As you can see above, there are numerous conventional stats like up & downs, fairways, and total putts. I find more value in the non-traditional stats, especially those off the tee. As you can see, I only hit four fairways, but twelve of my drives gained strokes (relative to a 10 handicap) due to every drive being in play, no big misses, and above average length. Let the big dog eat!
Two other things I love are the breakdown of putting stats into different distances and the “Key Stats” category (above, right, top). If you’re a higher handicap player who wants to shave off strokes as fast as possible, focus on those Key Stats and you’ll see your scores plummet.
Finally, at the nerdiest level, Shot Pattern shows you the Strokes Gained for every shot you took during the round (below, left). This may seem like overkill, but it’s tremendously helpful for your strategy and mental game. As an example, I had a round where I felt like my putting was pretty mediocre. When I looked at my stats, I discovered I was wrong – I gained strokes on most of my putts. The only times I lost strokes was when I set up a three-putt with a poor lag. This reminded me to ease off the pressure on the fifteen footers and practice more fifty footers.
Value
The Shot Pattern app is free to download and use. In the free mode, you can use the Course Preview mode and see both the tee shot arcs and the approach shot circles.
Unlocking the premium features of Shot Pattern costs $11.99/month or $74.99/year – a 47% savings over paying monthly. The premium mode gives you the Strokes Gained Predictor tool, Strokes Gained stats on every shot after your round, and customized shot patterns. Shot Pattern offers a one week free trial of the premium features.
Downloading the free version of Shot Pattern is a no-brainer for anyone who cares about their score. This is a must-have strategy tool. Getting the most out of the premium features requires more effort as it relies on you inputting your data, but the value is tremendous for competitive players.
Conclusion
If you want to play smarter golf, Shot Pattern is one of the easiest ways to do so. The app is streamlined and intuitive, allowing you to shave strokes off you handicap without an advanced degree in math or hours of time spent over spreadsheets and satellite images.
Listen to our podcast with Shot Pattern’s creator, Eric Duffet, HERE
Download Shot Pattern HERE
He founded Plugged In Golf in 2013 with the goal of helping all golfers play better and enjoy the game more.
Matt lives in the northwest suburbs of Chicago with his wife and two daughters.
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14 Comments
Hi Matt,
One thing about which I am confused… For the driving example you gave, there is an arc for using driver and one for (presumably) using 3w. My question is why it uses the same shot dispersion for each (including what appears to be the same exact ball locations/dots). Wouldn’t the advantage of using a shorter club theoretically be that the dispersion would be narrower and therefore might be better. It looks like this is using your driver dispersion for both ranges, which would obviously net a better strokes gained number for the longer arc. Is there a reason it isn’t using a different set of shots for your shorter club?
Sorry if I’m missing something here…
Sean,
None of the screen shots show 3W, they’re all driver dispersion. You can place the target anywhere you want for any club – I could put the target at 300 yards for my PW if I wanted to. Hope that clears things up.
Best,
Matt
Thanks, Matt.
My issue is that if you hit your driver ~300yds and your dispersion is for that length, what is the point of setting your driver dispersion at the 260yd line? Why would that yardage not reflect the club dispersion for that yardage?
The entire argument against hitting driver is based on the idea that dispersion tightens up as you go down in club from driver to 3w to 3i, etc.
I’m just confused why you/the app would use driver dispersion at a distance that isn’t how long you hit the driver. Hope this makes sense and, as always, I appreciate the dialog and feedback.
Take care and have a great day.
Sean,
First, as we discussed here – https://pluggedingolf.com/should-you-always-hit-driver-golf-myths-unplugged/ – dispersion does not shrink meaningfully, if at all, with 3W vs driver. But let’s leave that aside.
Regarding the app, I think you may be looking too hard at the screenshots in the review and not hard enough at the text (or my text is unclear – a very real possibility). Let me start fresh: when you’re standing on a tee box or previewing a tee shot, you can pick any size arc you want – 40, 50, 60, or 70 yards. You can place the target anywhere you want – any distance, fairway, rough, water, etc. Finally, if you have data put into the app, you can overlay the dispersion from different clubs (driver, 3W, etc) from the actual shots you’ve put into the app. When those actual shots are placed down, you can move the target and say, “Ok, if I hit my best ever drive, I’ll gain 0.2 strokes. If I hit my worst ever, I’ll lose 0.4. Most of my drives end up around here, and those would give me 0.0.”
Does that clear things up?
Best,
Matt
Thanks for your patience and persistence, Matt. I genuinely appreciate the discussion. I get what you are saying is capable with the app and the way you can use it.
And it is more likely that I’m imposing my biases and inclinations on your article rather than your article not being clear.
I will have to give this app a look myself to see how it can improve my course planning (an ongoing process for me).
Thanks again for the great write-up and follow-up. Take care and have a great day.
You said you used a shotscope to transfer holes to shot pattern. I am a shotscope user as well, so how much of an additional benefit is this to have in addition to the shotscope hub that i currently use?
shotscope has the preview and strategy section they recently added.
Is it worth it to pay for shot pattern along side using shotscope?
Thanks
Glen
Glen,
I’m a big fan of Shot Scope’s MyStrategy. The main advantage I see to using Shot Pattern is that it’s an app, so it’s easily pulled up on my phone and on the course, whereas MyStrategy is best used on a computer. Beyond that, there are some small things I like in Shot Pattern, but you’re right to say that there’s a good bit of overlap. Much of Shot Pattern is free, so I’d suggest everyone give it a try whether they’re using Shot Scope or not.
Best,
Matt
Hi Matt great review.
If I’m understanding the availability correctly only available for Apple and Mac no Android option?
Simon,
At this time, I believe that’s accurate.
Best,
Matt
Matt,
As someone who’s loved ProVisualizer in the past (a similar website to the free portion of Shot Pattern), how many courses are in the Shot Pattern database? ProV had ~1,000, which was neat for say, planning strategy if I ever got invited to Augusta, but it was far from comprehensive. Hopefully, Shot Pattern will have most/all US courses.
Definitely will take a look at this app, thanks!
George,
The only course I’ve tried to find on Shot Pattern that wasn’t there wasn’t technically open yet, so it seems like Shot Pattern has a much larger database.
Best,
Matt
Matt, really interesting, I am a stat nerd for my game and have been using Arccos for about 6 years. How different is this to the Arccos Caddie feature where it recommends clubs to use on certain holes based on your actual data to achieve the lowest possible score and also gives you a strokes gained number using that strategy. It will also give you comparable strokes gained if you use 3W vs Driver vs 5i if you want. Arccos subscription is $100/year so comparable for sure and if you use the Arccos grips, which I do, the sensors are a non-issue similar to the tags for ShotScope.
Brad,
I’m not an Arccos user, so I can’t speak to the latest iterations, but the last time I reviewed Arccos, their system was not nearly as granular and didn’t allow the level of control and visualization that Shot Pattern does. Said another way, though I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, Arccos is like Shot Pattern with training wheels.
Best,
Matt
Would have been nice to have known in your beginning summary that this is for Apple only (revision?). Wasted time reading the article and looking for it in the app store for my Android phone. Otherwise, great article…wish it was available for both systems!