Accuracy, Outcomes, and the “Good Miss” Paradox

IntroductionThis is part three of a discussion about variance in golf that I’ve been working on for months. That work is done, but I’m breaking it up into three parts so it will be a bit more easily digestible. I’ve been trying to build toward something throughout the three-part series and we’re finally here.Part one was about how hole design transforms uniform dispersion patterns into different probabilistic outputs.Part two was about visualizing variance: how we can show strategic tradeoffs by illustrating risk-adjusted strokes-to-hole.Part three is about what we mean by “good shots” and “bad shots,” and illustrates why the two different frameworks divide the golf community.A few concepts from the previous posts will be relevant here. We discussed how architectural features act as dispersion pattern transformations, creating outcome distributions that differ wildly from input distributions. This creates the potential for shots that miss their target to end up with good outcomes.…