GolfClubAtlas.com > Golf Course Architecture

Yardages vrs score - long hitters vrs short hitters.

(1/5) > >>

Thomas Dai:
When you play with someone you pretty much know through experience and instinct how good the other player is. Sometimes you’ll play with a smart thinking great ball striking long hitter, sometimes with a long hitter with not much game and not much of a golfing brain either.  Sometimes you’ll play with a lousy short hitter and sometimes with a short hitter who has every shot in the book and a great golfing brain to go with it. 

But even if they tee it up in the same spot and putt out into the same cup are long hitters and short hitters really playing the same course?

As it's raining, I decided to review this by doing some purely academic golfing analysis instead of hitting the course - "reckon you should have played" I can hear some clever-clogs saying in the background!

Anyway, the basic assumptions that I've used are that both the long and the short hitters have exactly the same very high level of skill and golfing brain, that the long hitter hits it 315 yds off the tee and 105 yds with his 60* wedge with all the other clubs graded in between whilst the short hitter hits it 220 yds off the tee and 50 yds with his 60* with all the other clubs graded in between.

As it’s being used at present, I used the cumulative yardages for each hole at ANGC at per this years Masters as taken from their website (7,435 yds) but without resorting to overly complicated factoring like carries and up/down-slopes, firmness/softness, ponds, etc let alone GIR’s, up-n-downs and all that kinda clever stuff. I then worked out what clubs the 315 hitter would be using to get to each green - I assumed all greens would be hit in regulation - you have to really make this assumption or else the calculations start to become way, way too complicated.

I then calculated what the equivalent course yardage would be for the 220 yard hitter if he were to play the exact same clubs as the 315 hitter on every hole - the answer………..5,285 yds!

I then thought what yardage would the 315 hitter have to be playing to feel the same as the 220 hitter does on a 7,435 course - the answer……….9,656 yds. Anyone fancy playing, let alone walking, a 9,656 yd course?

If you have the time, try this academic analysis for your home course or the course you play most often.

Comments welcome, nice ones please, and BTW, I don't read coloured ink.

All the best.

Jud_T:
Yup.  Play it forward.  Once you get over your macho fantasy of playing the full course you'll be shocked at 1)  How much more fun the game is 2)  How nice it is to actually have a chance of breaking 80  3) How much faster the game is  4) How much less expensive it could be if 98% of us played the proper tees and folks built golf courses solely for the specs and enjoyment of that 98%.

JESII:

--- Quote from: Thomas Dai on April 11, 2013, 07:54:12 AM ---
Anyway, the basic assumptions that I've used are that both the long and the short hitters have exactly the same very high level of skill and golfing brain, that the long hitter hits it 315 yds off the tee and 105 yds with his 60* wedge with all the other clubs graded in between whilst the short hitter hits it 220 yds off the tee and 50 yds with his 60* with all the other clubs graded in between.


--- End quote ---

Thomas,

When you say "exactly the same level of skill", are you referring to hadicap? Or some other measurement of skill?

Are we to assume that over time these two players attain equal scoring results?

Thomas Dai:
Jud T,

We're singing from the same hymn book I reckon.

Jim,

Thanks for your query, my apologies if what I described above isn't as clear as it should have been.

When I say "exactly the same level of skill" I'm not referring to handicap, I'm referring to a rather different measure, perhaps a somewhat vague one, but one which through experience is probably best to describe as the 'quality of ball striking', a very difficult thing to precisely define I appreciate – see later.

I don't believe that two players, one a long hitter, one a short hitter, but both with exactly equal ball striking skills, ie the ability to time after time after time hit the ball very close to the sweet spot of the clubhead with a consistent swingplane, swingpath and clubhead speed etc, etc, etc, will ever achieve the same handicap because of what I shall term 'the effect of length'.

To give one very general example of this 'effect of length' difference to illustrate matters, on say a 550 yd par-5, the longer hitter can get on the green with 2 full shots and then 2 putt for a birdie 4 whereas the shorter hitter will need 3 full shots and then 2 putts for a par 5. So their scores will likely differ by 1 shot. I won't attempt to elaborate with infinite descriptions and statistics of shots and distances and up-n-down and putting percentages etc etc as I'm sure you get my drift.
 
Obviously in this sort of academic analysis you have to make some assumptions, such as both players striking the ball equally well and avoiding errors, pretty unlikely one could easily say, but without such assumptions analysis becomes difficult if not impossible.

I hope this further explanation is helpful.

All the best.

Jason Thurman:
I don't get it. Isn't the ability to generate clubhead speed part of being a great ball striker?

There's a difference between playing the same shots and playing the same course. If two players tee it up in the same spot and hole out in the same spot, they're playing the same course. They're just not playing the same shots.

I'm all for teeing it forward like Jud suggests, but I don't think every short hitter with a consistent swing deserves to hit the same clubs into every hole as a long hitter. In the end, every player has strengths and weaknesses. We all just ultimately have to figure out how to get the ball into the hole with whatever tools we have.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page