Remember Dave Pelz: The Scientist Who Teaches Our Scores

I woke up this morning and Dave Pelz died at the age of 85. For those of us who live and breathe golf, it’s not just a touring drama or gear head’s emotions towards the latest drivers, but an attitude toward the way we race – Pelz is one of the giants. He wasn’t just thinking outside the box. He threw the box away and built a new box using laser calibration, high-speed cameras and data, which was previously “data-driven” was cool.

Perz is not your average short game master. He is NASA’s guy. A rocket scientist left the space program to study why golfers missed the shooting. Most of us blame putters, lies, or mercury retrograde. Perz accused the numbers. He then changed the way professionals and amateurs think about games, especially within 100 yards.

He found that in short games, nearly 80% of shots happen in situations that occur, which is more than just a cute statistic. This is the cornerstone of the entire career. Players like Phil Mickelson and Tom Kite can help players improve their wedge and win profession. One provides us with books like The Short Game Bible and The Bible – on my golf shelves, dog ears and notes. One breeds a range of training aids and coaching methods that are still used in practice vegetables around the world.

To be honest: this man is a tinkerer hero. He owns a replica of Augusta’s 12th and Sawgrass Island Green at his backyard golf lab in Texas. Who is that? Dave Pelz did it. While most of us dream of breaking the 80s, Perz dreams about how to make science make science. He wanted to quantify the feeling. And he is closer than anyone else.

I think what I admire most about Perz is that he is not only serving the Tour elite. His scoring game school is open to the rest of us – the weekend Warriors, the mid-size recorder with three-shots, obsessed amateurs who want to stop getting stuck. He never saw golf as a crazy game for all of us, not just the people who cashed their checks on Sunday.

He never stopped learning, either. It will never stop building, measuring and refining. Even in the last few weeks of his life, Perz was still working in his lab, struggling to understand a game that resists the meaning of moments.

Dave Pelz doesn’t just teach us how to score. He teaches us why we score and how to do better. This legacy will not disappear. It rolls, putts, wedge-shaped wedges, and among every golfer who once asked, once asked, “Why did that gun go there?” it was actually very concerned about finding out.

Fairway and Green, Dave. And one shot at 18 years old.