[psheehan]

Full Swing? 20%? 40%? 60%?

Extremely important.... I don't think you can put a %age on it. But ultimately golf is a game of inches and feet....drive it in the rough and you don't control the approach as well, have trouble from 200 yds and you miss a couple of greens etc and people with major flaws hit it all over the place ...you don't get up and down from water...You just can't make many 15+ foot putts. And if you hit it too crooked you can't get yourself in positions to hit chips and pitches inside 6 or 7 ft. Clearly birdies come from good approaches or rare (at least for me rare)on the green in 2 par 5's ... you aren't on in 2 on a par 5 if you haven't hit it solid on your intended line.

Another related point... it is hard (not impossible, just hard)to have a good short game if your full swing isn't good. You can putt good with a poor full swing, but generally shots inside 100yds are mildly effected by the same issues that cause your full swing to suffer.

The first 6 months of this year I believed I had a real breakthrough... I'll spare you the details but I had a number of firsts and got my index down to .8.... but this is what I've found... I am hitting the ball straighter and more solidly than I've ever hit it... however, if I can't hit it further I'm not getting any better. I can't hit 175yd+ shots inside 15 ft. very often, so I may hit 14 gir... but if I'm not close enough it doesn't mean birdies.

I think high hc's can impact their score more quickly with short game... then, full swing is more important from say 12-13hc up to fairly high levels of amateurs... then pretty much everyone has a good full swing and short game becomes more and more important right thru to the pros, but you aren't going to chip in much and you don't make a lot of long putts so if you are going to win, you gotta control your golf ball.