[SL_Solow]

Two points.

  1.  I don't think Richard is arguing that the tournaments played at lesser courses are as good or that the golf is as interesting, he is simply suggesting that the cream will rise to the top at about the same rate regardless.  Difficult to judge when it comes to majors as there are few majors that have been held at substandard challenges especially since the PGA upgraded the site selection for its championship.

2.  Matt; are you suggesting that better architecture will identify the best players more often or that harder courses will achieve that result. You are not suggesting that the two concepts are the same?

[Richard Choi]

Matt, you must not be mathmatically nor logically inclined.

If this statment is true:

The odds that weaker players can win at the lesser quality layouts simply goes up because such courses do not have the high bar requirements that only serve to separate the elite players from the others.

Show me the odds! If you can show me that stronger players win at higher percentage on "quality architecture" courses, than I would be happy to shut up.

No amount of verbal gymnastics is going save you from the fact that you are just pulling this out of your ass with no data to back you up. And as much general course knowledge (and English language) as you have, it still does not mean that your BS is not BS.

Elite players may relish "strong" courses, that does not mean that they are winning at higher percentage on those courses.

[Matt_Ward]

SL:

The same rate doesn't happen.

The better courses have the wherewithal to separate out the lesser players -- just read any quote from Nicklaus or Watson or Woods on the subject.  Put Jack in his prime in the field at Quad Cities and put him in the field of a US Open at Merion and the odds are that he will succeed more so at the Pennsy layout over the one in Iowa. The same situation doesn't happen in reverse anywhere nearly as much. Upsets do happen in ALL OF SPORTS - but when top tier players play top tier venues their wherewithal to get to the winner's circle is enhanced and those of lesser talent is diminished.

SL -- check out the no names that won at those lesser PGA Championships from years gone by. The big name players were facing equal competition at many of them simply because the venues were a good notch or two lower than what they have done in more recent times.

 

[Rob Bice]

I know a risky move, but I'm jumping in on this one:

In theory it sounds great that better courses do a better job of identifying the best players.  I would be open to proof - I don't believe a casual review of winners at the better courses of majors proves anything.  Aside from the rare Tiger Woods-esque 15 shot US Open victory, majors (and most tournaments for that matter) are typically decided by one or two strokes over 72(+) holes.  The one stroke is clearly significant in the sense of determining the winner but is it statistically significant?

Seems to me to accurately determine whether or not the better courses do a better job of determining the best players you should look at the top 10-15 from the tournaments and apply some score based on the world rankings of those players.  We all would agree that there is always a chance that there will be a random Michael Campbell every once in a while who wins the tournament but, if the hypothesis is true, the better courses should consistently produce a better/higher quality leaderboard.

A few other observations:

1.  Doesn't course conditioning play a huge part in this discussion?  The Quad Cities course in August as a regular PGA event would be much different than a Quad Cities course in June as the venue for the US Open.

2.  Would Cypress Point do a better job than Baltusrol of identifying the best players in a field?

[Richard Choi]

I wonder if Jack Nicklaus jumps off a bridge, Matt will as well...

Rob, that would not be a good way to determine whether or not architecture influences good player's to win since not all tournaments have the same caliber of field.

The simplest way to figure it out would be to take the best players from last 2 or 3 decades or so and gather all of their starts and wins to figure out their winning percentage (win/start) on top 20 courses, top 50 courses, top 100 courses, and the rest. It would be rough, but if there is a strong trend, this should show it.

There are a lot of things that great golfers believe that are completely false. It would not surprise me if this was one of them.

[Rob Bice]

Rob, that would not be a good way to determine whether or not architecture influences good player's to win since not all tournaments have the same caliber of field.

The simplest way to figure it out would be to take the best players from last 2 or 3 decades or so and gather all of their starts and wins to figure out their winning percentage (win/start) on top 20 courses, top 50 courses, top 100 courses, and the rest. It would be rough, but if there is a strong trend, this should show it.

There are a lot of things that great golfers believe that are completely false. It would not surprise me if this was one of them.

I should have been more thorough in my description.  The "score" of the tournament would definitely need to be adjusted for the caliber of the field.  I think your idea of winning percentages misses the randomness factor as mentioned in my initial post.  Sounds like we both agree that there could be a way to create a statistical analysis to determine whether or not the idea has been proven over time.  There are lots of things that seem like they should be true but upon further analysis are not true.

I couldn't agree more with your last comment!!

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