Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Rick Sides on July 07, 2021, 06:03:53 PM
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So this summer I have been playing a lot more golf than usual. I noticed a very common occurrence in my rounds. The majority of men play the wrong tees. I can't begin to tell you the number of times I've seen men playing from 6700 or 7000 and they have trouble getting it over the women's tee box! It slows down play and must make for a miserable round for these guys who think its the "MENS" tee boxes. I'm about a 7 handicap and hit driver 250 at best and I play between 6000 and 6500. Have you ever been tempted to tell people in front of you that they are playing the wrong tees? Food for thought
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Have you ever been tempted to tell people in front of you that they are playing the wrong tees? Food for thought
We have regular weekend tee times. The fourball in front of us plays from the back tees and rarely reach a green in regulation . We wait for them on almost every hole. We once asked them to pick up the pace and suggested that they move up to a shorter tee. We have also asked to swap tee times with them. It only served to piss them off.
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Control the controllables. That’s my attempted motto although I fail terribly at it. You won’t make a difference. Might as well just sit back. I do recall a bit that I saw on how far people think they hit their clubs. Only the very good players had accurate numbers. Cannot tell you how many guys tell me they hit their 3 wood 280. I just say ok. No point in arguing. Same with being 175 out and a 60 year old guy telling me to hand him the 7. Ego and pride are a hard thing to change.
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It’s not the wrong tees if you are making money. The nuance of most betting games is outside the grasp of a casual observer.
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Control the controllables. That’s my attempted motto although I fail terribly at it. You won’t make a difference. Might as well just sit back. I do recall a bit that I saw on how far people think they hit their clubs. Only the very good players had accurate numbers. Cannot tell you how many guys tell me they hit their 3 wood 280. I just say ok. No point in arguing. Same with being 175 out and a 60 year old guy telling me to hand him the 7. Ego and pride are a hard thing to change.
And you can’t teach common sense.
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My group plays from tees further back than common sense dictates. They all have higher handicaps than me but hit it much further. Their only shot they have at winning is to play back far enough that I miss as many greens as they do. Not to mention the further you move up the more narrow the landing area.
Speaking of common sense can we all agree that reachable par 5’s slow down play? That is just the beginning.
If you really want to speed a player up you need to become his friend.
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My group plays from tees further back than common sense dictates. They all have higher handicaps than me but hit it much further. Their only shot they have at winning is to play back far enough that I miss as many greens as they do. Not to mention the further you move up the more narrow the landing area.
Speaking of common sense can we all agree that reachable par 5’s slow down play? That is just the beginning.
If you really want to speed a player up you need to become his friend.
There is no slow player on earth that thinks they’re slow. You’re not changing them. They be what they be.
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I see people saying this, and it just doesn't compute. I don't see this much at all at the course I play most frequently.
My course tips out at 6804. I often don't play the back tees (they're fine, and on some holes honestly the driving angle is better). I see fit and healthy 25- and 30-year olds playing the whites all the time. I play the whites when I play with my 61-year-old friend… or my daughter, who plays the white tees. They're 6052 yards. The blues are 6475 (but you hit hybrid off about four par fours).
I genuinely don't see this much at any of the clubs around me. And I'm going to Sand Valley shortly, and we're trying to drag people back to 6700 yards because they don't seem to understand how far their ball is going to roll - and these are 30-45-year-old guys who drive it 250 on the fly.
In the 90s it seemed en vogue to me to "punish" yourself on the course, but I just don't see it these days. I see people more often than not playing the tees that are pretty good for them.
Do I just live in an area where people are more down-to-earth? Or am I seeing things? Are y'all?
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I see people saying this, and it just doesn't compute. I don't see this much at all at the course I play most frequently.
My course tips out at 6804. I often don't play the back tees (they're fine, and on some holes honestly the driving angle is better). I see fit and healthy 25- and 30-year olds playing the whites all the time. I play the whites when I play with my 61-year-old friend… or my daughter, who plays the white tees. They're 6052 yards. The blues are 6475 (but you hit hybrid off about four par fours).
I genuinely don't see this much at any of the clubs around me. And I'm going to Sand Valley shortly, and we're trying to drag people back to 6700 yards because they don't seem to understand how far their ball is going to roll - and these are 30-45-year-old guys who drive it 250 on the fly.
In the 90s it seemed en vogue to me to "punish" yourself on the course, but I just don't see it these days. I see people more often than not playing the tees that are pretty good for them.
Do I just live in an area where people are more down-to-earth? Or am I seeing things? Are y'all?
The little I know you gives me the impression that you look forward to the happiness that playing brings you as you fight the ignorance of life while you aren't. Rose colored range finder so to speak.
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I see people saying this, and it just doesn't compute. I don't see this much at all at the course I play most frequently.
My course tips out at 6804. I often don't play the back tees (they're fine, and on some holes honestly the driving angle is better). I see fit and healthy 25- and 30-year olds playing the whites all the time. I play the whites when I play with my 61-year-old friend… or my daughter, who plays the white tees. They're 6052 yards. The blues are 6475 (but you hit hybrid off about four par fours).
I genuinely don't see this much at any of the clubs around me. And I'm going to Sand Valley shortly, and we're trying to drag people back to 6700 yards because they don't seem to understand how far their ball is going to roll - and these are 30-45-year-old guys who drive it 250 on the fly.
In the 90s it seemed en vogue to me to "punish" yourself on the course, but I just don't see it these days. I see people more often than not playing the tees that are pretty good for them.
Do I just live in an area where people are more down-to-earth? Or am I seeing things? Are y'all?
I agree with this.
If you move the tees up for maintenance or variety nobody complains and few even notice.
years ago, on average, people played tees that were far longer in relation to the equipment being used, and I'd say generally "white" tees were longer-as they were one of two men's choices and the tees most played, with the "back" tees not much farther behind.
Now there are three, four or five sets of tees just for men-plus the obligatory combo tees and/or hideous scorecards.
On average I'd say non back tee players play LESS yardage than they did in the 1970's.
Slow play is caused by slow players,emulating the nonsense they see on TV. and it's a problem for some no matter what tees they play.
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99% of all courses exaggerate the distance from the tees you choose. It's a dirty lie told to the golfer in an attempt to speed up play. This type of breech of trust never works out in the long run.
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99% of all courses exaggerate the distance from the tees you choose. It's a dirty lie told to the golfer in an attempt to speed up play. This type of breech of trust never works out in the long run.
This seems to be SOP at some daily-fee or resort courses. Several I have played recently have tees moved up 50 or more yards on a third to half the holes.
The last time I played Longbow (no longer a Kavanaugh design, I think) it was very noticeable.
It pisses me off because if I post rounds from those tees it artificially lowers my differential for the round.
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99% of all courses exaggerate the distance from the tees you choose. It's a dirty lie told to the golfer in an attempt to speed up play. This type of breech of trust never works out in the long run.
This seems to be SOP at some daily-fee or resort courses. Several I have played recently have tees moved up 50 or more yards on a third to half the holes.
The last time I played Longbow (no longer a Kavanaugh design, I think) it was very noticeable.
very common
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99% of all courses exaggerate the distance from the tees you choose. It's a dirty lie told to the golfer in an attempt to speed up play. This type of breech of trust never works out in the long run.
This seems to be SOP at some daily-fee or resort courses. Several I have played recently have tees moved up 50 or more yards on a third to half the holes.
The last time I played Longbow (no longer a Kavanaugh design, I think) it was very noticeable.
It pisses me off because if I post rounds from those tees it artificially lowers my differential for the round.
I think Longbow still is, perhaps you are thinking of Vista Verde where Lehman made some basic non routing changes. Is a Ross ever no longer a Ross?
I owe Garland thanks for pointing out to me that the USGA allows changing the course rating based on actual yardage. Rather than we all being honest and keeping things simple the lies of the course begat more lies by the player. I get it at resorts where you are renting time and space but there is no excuse for owners of private clubs to lie to its members. Often they are one and the same.
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I often play the wrong tees. It's hard to convince people they aren't good enough for 6700 yards....I have given up. That's why it's awesome to play short courses, knuckleheads can't out vote you to step back. 6000 yards is plenty long enough for me. I bet come Friday I will be playing tees too far back...because its macho.
Ciao
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If you have a hcp higher than scratch the game is already too difficult for you.
Why make it even harder by playing from tees that are further back?
Put your ego and vanity on hold and play from tees further forward.
atb
Later edit - for future reference purposes see also this thread - https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,69935.0.html (https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,69935.0.html)
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If you have a hcp higher than scratch the game is already too difficult for you.
Why make it even harder by playing from tees that are further back?
Put your ego and vanity on hold and play from tees further forward.
atb
I knew I was on the wrong tees when I came upon a 240 par 3 over water. Gulp.
Ciao
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Do I just live in an area where people are more down-to-earth?
That must be it. ??? ::)
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If you have a hcp higher than scratch the game is already too difficult for you.
Why make it even harder by playing from tees that are further back?
Put your ego and vanity on hold and play from tees further forward.
atb
Have you ever got up in the morning knowing that you need to shoot par to break even? It's work and rarely just a friendly game. I have to be very careful to play from far enough back that I am not a scratch for the sake of my wallet, psyche, friendships and soul.
Any set of tees where your course handicap is 6, which allows for a few lapses of judgment, makes much more sense than scratch.
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I'd love to set up courses and make you guys play from where you could be "scratch". I'd say the course would be at around 1,000 yds for 18 holes. Have fun and hug your kids when you get home early.
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I have the general impression that men are starting to get the message and playing shorter sets of tees. This comes from personal anecdotes, i.e., as a kid, my dad wouldn't play a course under 6,000 yards. Now, during master plans, etc., I find that seniors (you know, guys about my age) avoid playing tees over 5,999 yards, and seem to prefer 5,750 or so. They still balk at going under 5,000 yards!
Another anecdote which affected me....I was playing Pinehurst no. 2 with Rees Jones not long after his remodel there. When I went to the typical men's tees, he admonished me and said he was playing the senior tees (he is older than I) I moved up to be sociable, hit a lot of greens, and the lightbulb went on - golf is fun when hitting far more greens and fringes than not. And I still play at around 6,000 yards instead of 6,600+.
Side note, the top tracer tech at many driving ranges now probably contributes to more golfer depression cases than any other thing. Now, I know for a statistical fact my drives are only in the 216 yards range......and can only justify a few more yards based on the interior guts of the ball probably cost a few yards. At least, they don't sound great leaving the club, so I presume they are different.
Statistically, driving distance falls into six categories for men, and for all but the top distance range, are going down. Those seem to be about 295, 258, 216, 170-200 (broad range for senior men) and 140 for recreational females. BTW, those lower groups can hit further, but only do so about 20% of the time, complicating matters) BTW 2 - that 216 used to be 229 prior to about 2000.
The "typical" course yardages have been 7250, 6800, 6350, 5750, and <5000. If we make all tee distances proportional, so everyone is hitting about the same club as pros/scratch, those yardages would be 7250, 6340, 5308, 4669, and 3440. Basically, even the "A" players could stand to be playing a bit shorter, although I expect some to contest the idea that they should be hitting the same clubs as pros.
Another way to measure is multiples of tee shots. Say the scratch player is 25x tee shot distance (i.e. 300 yard drives and 7500 yard courses.) If we make that 26, 27, 28, and 29x drives for other levels of players, because hitting the same clubs seems like too much of a giveaway, it comes out to 7500, 6708, 5832, 5,320, 4,060. Any way I measure it, from the middle tees forward, courses are generally just too long.
I once wrote an article (actually 2 or 3) for Golf Course Industry along those lines, and was quoted in 2008 by the Wall Street Journal as saying "you course is too damn long!" I also noted the back tees should be "merely a rumor" to most players, etc. Short version, as a designer I tend to feel golfers can't play the "wrong tee" but that the tees they choose from are merely in the wrong place. Golf tradition keeps them where they were, but where they were was based on tradition, i.e. circular and flawed logic. With more stats in place, I think gca's need to do a better job of placing tees - and designing the holes - for shorter hitters, rather than design from the back tees and ignore other driving distances, while hoping for the best.
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Then NC Sandhills are the poster child for playing from the wrong tees. If 3 in a group of 16 play the tips, they all do. Bad scores are washed away with copious quantities of beer on the 2nd 18.
A few years ago I played #2 with Sean Arble and we moved up to the green tees @5800 vs white @ 6300+. Sean was quick to point out that moving up made the course play more as it is designed as pinch points and various hazards came into play. That move made for a more fun course to play. I could now, with a good drive, be tempted to take on the impossible pins on an approach shot. In the past from the regular men's tees I would hit to the widest part of the fairway, play a second shot to around the front of the green, chip on and hope to 2 putt. Easy bogey possible par.
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Then NC Sandhills are the poster child for playing from the wrong tees. If 3 in a group of 16 play the tips, they all do. Bad scores are washed away with copious quantities of beer on the 2nd 18.
A few years ago I played #2 with Sean Arble and we moved up to the green tees @5800 vs white @ 6300+. Sean was quick to point out that moving up made the course play more as it is designed as pinch points and various hazards came into play. That move made for a more fun course to play. I could now, with a good drive, be tempted to take on the impossible pins on an approach shot. In the past from the regular men's tees I would hit to the widest part of the fairway, play a second shot to around the front of the green, chip on and hope to 2 putt. Easy bogey possible par.
I was incredibly impressed with those forward tees. The game off the tee was highly engaging. I reckon I was facing the same same choices the pros were from the US Open tees.
Ciao
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Playing the wrong tees many people means they don’t get to experience of making decisions and playing the course as it was designed strategically. The further you hit the ball relative to the hole you’re playing, the more likely you are to have to make decisions. (Being forced to make agonizing decisions is aided by being crooked as well. Ask me how I know). Playing with shorter hitters, I don’t know if I feel sorry for them or envy in that most holes just seem to be grab a driver and rip it whereas I am constantly having to decide if I’m going over that thing or short of it, around that corner or over it, or hitting the chicken stick two iron.
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More greens hit in regulation equals more three putts. No fun in that. I thought you guis loved green side options and recoveries.
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If you have a hcp higher than scratch the game is already too difficult for you.
Why make it even harder by playing from tees that are further back?
Put your ego and vanity on hold and play from tees further forward.
atb
Come on Dai! As fast as you play, you could play from 8000 yards faster than 95% of scratch golfers.
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Slow play is caused by slow players,emulating the nonsense they see on TV. and it's a problem for some no matter what tees they play.
So, if you play quick, you can play match play from the back tees, as long as the course doesn't put up ridiculous obstacles. No need to be a scratch golfer.
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JK,
Sadly, golf is really two different games. More greens hit is fun. It doesn't have to result in more three putts, and missing greens statistically results in a chip and 2 to 3 putts, maybe 2.2 putts on average.
Missing the green statistically causes the hole score to go from 5 to an average of 5+ for C and D players. According to Broadie, from 30 yards away, the 100 shooter averages 3.7 strokes to hole out from rough, and only 3.3 strokes if chipping/pitching from the fw. But from 80 yards, which is more likely if average golfers keep playing longer courses, it takes 4.1 strokes from the rough and 3.9 strokes from the fw. So, shorter holes do help average golfers.
Similarly, while the median leave for average golfers about doubles that of the average PGA Tour pros (i.e., from 100 yards, 24 feet vs 52 feet) average players are relatively close to tour pros on putting leaves from 40 feet - about 4 feet for average golfers and 3 feet for PGA Tour pros.
Statistically, it would seem getting on the green really does help the average golfers score. Long putting statistics are close, and also statistically, for average golfers their approach shots net them the most strokes gained, and by a long shot. Designing to hit greens is probably the best equalizer.
Lastly, in checking the stats, sand saves are way lower for average golfers vs pros. Thus, converting several sand bunkers to grass probably equalizes the challenges.
BTW, the suggestion to play match play is a great one for speed of play, and maybe just letting golfers play. Any awful shot doesn't even cost you a stroke, it cost you a hole, but keeps play fun, until you lose 9 and 8 or something.
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We are just now getting past society dictating where many different types of people can play. Telling everyone how to play feels like a step back.
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Misplaced and uncontrolled ego is probably the biggest problem I see in golf.
I remember playing with a jerk who was a 15-20 handicap who asked me where the 280-line was on a hole. I wanted to tell him that he hadn't seen 280 yards for years if ever.
I am enjoying playing 6000-6200 yards, but I do agree that it tends to raise the handicap since course ratings are in my book overly tied to distance.
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We are just now getting past society dictating where many different types of people can play. Telling everyone how to play feels like a step back.
Technically, we are just giving them options, at least at the gca level. All the course managers typically do is gently persuade, although I think a few set what tees to play by handicap.
I noticed that when playing in Asia, those societies still place an emphasis on macho, with most male players playing either the back or next to back tees, ignoring any suggestion I made that 6300 yards might be more appropriate.
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A lot of you seem to think that playing further back is tied to ego.
I play forward every once in a while to remind myself that I can shoot a low a score and that I really am good at golf.
That, my friends, is Ego.
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A lot of you seem to think that playing further back is tied to ego.
I play forward every once in a while to remind myself that I can shoot a low a score and that I really am good at golf.
That, my friends, is Ego.
Perfect.
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Misplaced and uncontrolled ego is probably the biggest problem I see in golf.
I would find it hilarious if somehow golf courses became the last bastion of the macho man. :)
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I’m considering joining the over 60 men’s golf league at a L&M course where I have a home. They play the senior tees of course. My 4.2 index translates to a course handicap of +3 from those tees. Being a two man scramble format I won’t be posting scores so I’m stuck. I suppose you could say it’s my ego keeping me from playing.
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JK,
I will stick with the premise that shorter courses are more fun for senior men. As they say, "Your experience may differ."
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This is an interesting thread that I generally agree with although i'm not sure how much its applies to us chop High Cappers.
- Rough is still rough and it remains a bitch to play from it whether you're hitting a 6 iron or 4 iron.
- Water and OB are still extra strokes/time whether you hit into it with a 8 iron or 6 iron.
- Bunkers are still bunkers whether they be fairway or greenside and provide plenty of challenge regardless of which club you used to get into it.
- Ditto for missed greens, they still will provide the same challenge to chip on and/or near the hole.
- And you're still gonna be hitting driver off most tees, the club that goes the furthest offline.
I've played up a set of tees several times and didn't see much variation in my score, even if moving back to 6700 from say 6100 had a much larger effect with so many more long approaches. But then again, the vast majority of courses I've played only had 1 set of tees under 6000, and that takes a lot of humility to play from the shortest tees on the course
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Kalen,
You need to pair this one with the other thread on designing for both high and low handicappers. No doubt, shorter course doesn't help much if everything you do just kills the misses.
The thing that convinced me I was on the right track with shorter courses was comments from senior and female golfers. One woman, a good, but shorter hitting layer, played the new tees at La Costa. They were 4500 yards and she hit 13 or 18 greens, which I thought was great, but she wondered why we didn't lay it out so she could reach all 18? (Sometimes the topo and other factors don't allow it, so I was a bit lax in trying, until that comment)
Ditto with senior men. You think they have ego problems with playing at 5400 yards? They have even bigger ego problems not being able to carry that creek at 140 yards, and then they have the lost $4-5 Golf ball to deal with as well.
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What do you think about the set of tees that you play affecting your handicap? Course rating are supposed to handle the difference, but I often wonder.
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I am reminded of a Bobby Jones comment. Something about golf being a game played on a five-inch course, the space between the players ears.
Each to their own though.
Atb
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Dave,
I have seen women and seniors in particular, if they are at a club that plays interclub matches, be very concerned that their traveling handicaps won't work well if their course is made easier.
I suppose ladies in particular don't have to move down to the 4300 yard tees if they are worried, and they can stay back at over 5000 or whatever if it helps that situation.
I don't really consider competitions as much as every day fun for the most players when laying them out, but I suppose other, more competition sensitive gca's would.
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The other twist on this topic is, GCA has a long history of complaining, moaning, whining, etc. ;D ....that there are too many tee boxes and tee placements on golf courses. Its usually phrased along the lines of "3 sets of tees ought to be enough for everyone".
So if your tees are set at 5600, 6300, and 6800, do you honestly think anyone playing at 6300 is going to go up and play those forward tees, especially if they're red? ;) Would it perhaps be better to have 5 sets, adding one at say 4900 and another at 5950 to accommodate/tempt more people to actually move up, both men and women?
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There was a time not long ago when the benchmark for what tee you should play was dictated by how close you could get to 150 yards out from the green, because the course was designed to be a second shot course.
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A NYT article more than 10 years ago had what I felt was a good formula...
Your comfortable full shot 5-iron distance x 36... for me currently that's 170 x 36 = 6120...which seems exactly right in this era.
If one no longer plays a 5-iron, I guess it would be the near equivalent of that role in your current set.
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What do you think about the set of tees that you play affecting your handicap? Course rating are supposed to handle the difference, but I often wonder.
I play back to lower my index.
If I play forward it goes up.
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What do you think about the set of tees that you play affecting your handicap? Course rating are supposed to handle the difference, but I often wonder.
I play back to lower my index.
If I play forward it goes up.
Same at my club. I think the rating from the back is too high relative to the regular tees. I shoot the same scores from either tees.
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So this summer I have been playing a lot more golf than usual. I noticed a very common occurrence in my rounds. The majority of men play the wrong tees. I can't begin to tell you the number of times I've seen men playing from 6700 or 7000 and they have trouble getting it over the women's tee box! It slows down play and must make for a miserable round for these guys who think its the "MENS" tee boxes. I'm about a 7 handicap and hit driver 250 at best and I play between 6000 and 6500. Have you ever been tempted to tell people in front of you that they are playing the wrong tees? Food for thought
My home club is 6800 from the white tees. Which are the tees 90% of club competitions are played from, by everyone. In three balls, medal rounds take three and a half hours. It isn't the tees that are the problem.
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The other twist on this topic is, GCA has a long history of complaining, moaning, whining, etc. ;D ....that there are too many tee boxes and tee placements on golf courses. Its usually phrased along the lines of "3 sets of tees ought to be enough for everyone".
So if your tees are set at 5600, 6300, and 6800, do you honestly think anyone playing at 6300 is going to go up and play those forward tees, especially if they're red? ;) Would it perhaps be better to have 5 sets, adding one at say 4900 and another at 5950 to accommodate/tempt more people to actually move up, both men and women?
Kalen,
No need whatsoever for 5 tee boxes; that's just extra maintenance. The answer is hybrid tees on the scorecard, so that there is a set that plays about 6000 in between the 5600 set and the 6300 set. I'm always surprised in this day and age when I see a course that hasn't bothered to do this, since all they have to do is submit the hybrid set to the state golf association to be rated, and then include it on the scorecard the next time they have cards printed. Zero cost...
More options for golfers with no cost to courses is a HUGE no-brainer.
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So this summer I have been playing a lot more golf than usual. I noticed a very common occurrence in my rounds. The majority of men play the wrong tees. I can't begin to tell you the number of times I've seen men playing from 6700 or 7000 and they have trouble getting it over the women's tee box! It slows down play and must make for a miserable round for these guys who think its the "MENS" tee boxes. I'm about a 7 handicap and hit driver 250 at best and I play between 6000 and 6500. Have you ever been tempted to tell people in front of you that they are playing the wrong tees? Food for thought
My home club is 6800 from the white tees. Which are the tees 90% of club competitions are played from, by everyone. In three balls, medal rounds take three and a half hours. It isn't the tees that are the problem.
+1
On a links, with tall grass and "weather" occasionally.
I doubt there's a lot of "aimpointing" and caddy chat going on
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I see people saying this, and it just doesn't compute. I don't see this much at all at the course I play most frequently.
My course tips out at 6804. I often don't play the back tees (they're fine, and on some holes honestly the driving angle is better). I see fit and healthy 25- and 30-year olds playing the whites all the time. I play the whites when I play with my 61-year-old friend… or my daughter, who plays the white tees. They're 6052 yards. The blues are 6475 (but you hit hybrid off about four par fours).
I genuinely don't see this much at any of the clubs around me. And I'm going to Sand Valley shortly, and we're trying to drag people back to 6700 yards because they don't seem to understand how far their ball is going to roll - and these are 30-45-year-old guys who drive it 250 on the fly.
In the 90s it seemed en vogue to me to "punish" yourself on the course, but I just don't see it these days. I see people more often than not playing the tees that are pretty good for them.
Do I just live in an area where people are more down-to-earth? Or am I seeing things? Are y'all?
Erik, I agree with you, with two qualifications.
The first is that often there is a golfer in a group that plays the wrong tees because he doesn't want to go forward and be the only guy up there, so that you might have three guys on the correct set of tees, but one guy really struggling. That I DO see all the time where I play.
The other is a little bit more "course dependent" and occurs when guys just automatically go to what they think is the same set of tees that they play at home by yardage or location, either because they don't understand or don't pay attention to the course and slope rating of the unfamiliar course. The two best examples that I see regularly are True Blue and Tot Hill Farm; guys go to the second set of tees, or play from a familiar yardage, and just get KILLED by a golf course that is actually a ton of fun IF you go to the correct course and slope rated tees.
But like you, I typically don't see a whole foursome of guys playing the wrong tees. What I do see is guys who hit the ball far enough for the tees they are playing but with no idea where it's headed. And that wouldn't change if they moved up.
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What do you think about the set of tees that you play affecting your handicap? Course rating are supposed to handle the difference, but I often wonder.
I play back to lower my index.
If I play forward it goes up.
I found the same. I wonder is it is the fault of course rating, or that my long game is better than my short game.
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I am torn on this subject.... I use to play with a big group with 4-5 tee times and they had an ABCD player in each group so every groups handicap added up to the same number. I stop playing in that group, but it was close to playing alone since everyone used a different set of tees.
I now play in a group that only 1 of us are playing the correct tees. Two of us are playing to far up, and another is playing too far back. I do like it more this way as it is more sociable and we do not hold anyone up.
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I am torn on this subject.... I use to play with a big group with 4-5 tee times and they had an ABCD player in each group so every groups handicap added up to the same number. I stop playing in that group, but it was close to playing alone since everyone used a different set of tees.
I now play in a group that only 1 of us are playing the correct tees. Two of us are playing to far up, and another is playing too far back. I do like it more this way as it is more sociable and we do not hold anyone up.
Paul-In a four ball game I’m not interested in playing a different set of tees than other players in the group. I would rather have everyone play the same tees even if it means the low markers move up and give more shots. If it’s casual with no gambling it then becomes a non issue.
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I am torn on this subject.... I use to play with a big group with 4-5 tee times and they had an ABCD player in each group so every groups handicap added up to the same number. I stop playing in that group, but it was close to playing alone since everyone used a different set of tees.
I now play in a group that only 1 of us are playing the correct tees. Two of us are playing to far up, and another is playing too far back. I do like it more this way as it is more sociable and we do not hold anyone up.
Paul-In a four ball game I’m not interested in playing a different set of tees than other players in the group. I would rather have everyone play the same tees even if it means the low markers move up and give more shots. If it’s casual with no gambling it then becomes a non issue.
Tim,
We do play for money and give strokes, but it is very little - usually $2 a hole and $1 birdies.
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Erik, I agree with you, with two qualifications.
I agree with your qualifications/specific outliers, yes.
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The other twist on this topic is, GCA has a long history of complaining, moaning, whining, etc. ;D ....that there are too many tee boxes and tee placements on golf courses. Its usually phrased along the lines of "3 sets of tees ought to be enough for everyone".
So if your tees are set at 5600, 6300, and 6800, do you honestly think anyone playing at 6300 is going to go up and play those forward tees, especially if they're red? ;) Would it perhaps be better to have 5 sets, adding one at say 4900 and another at 5950 to accommodate/tempt more people to actually move up, both men and women?
Kalen,
No need whatsoever for 5 tee boxes; that's just extra maintenance. The answer is hybrid tees on the scorecard, so that there is a set that plays about 6000 in between the 5600 set and the 6300 set. I'm always surprised in this day and age when I see a course that hasn't bothered to do this, since all they have to do is submit the hybrid set to the state golf association to be rated, and then include it on the scorecard the next time they have cards printed. Zero cost...
More options for golfers with no cost to courses is a HUGE no-brainer.
Well, that is just horse feathers to me. Any superintendent will tell you they need 1.5-2 SF of tee per 100 rounds, i.e., 6,000-8,000 SF of tee for a 40,000 round course. Too small probably means more maintenance for most courses. So, proposing "only" three tees will either cause them to be too small, and/or stretch them out enough where you have a few more logical positions, i.e., move them all the way forward on weekends, being a typical course set up strategy.
I will grant you that 6 tees, given the minimum 6 foot front and back the USGA recommends for tee marker placement does take up more room than 5, and 5 needs more tee space than 4, etc., resulting in some additional space created, without tee markers being placed there.
Also, I realize that designing tees around one's actual golf games rather than the social aspects can cause some problems, but they are solvable - either players willingly play the "wrong" tee for social or competitive reasons, or they agree that each can play the tee they want. All we can do is give most (and hopefully all) golfers a choice. No gca or super can think to a level of detail about who might get butt hurt by their group's tee choice that day. ::)
As to your previous post, Broadie and others show that statistically, longer hitters are straighter, with exceptions of course. If a player can play at XXXX yardage but is wild, that is possible. For any 4 players to be at that yardage and similarly wild would be a statistical oddity. And, to be honest, the basic thread here is about combatting those folks who still cling to playing too long a course.
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I am seeing a common theme on this thread--that the course ratings have too big a difference between longer tees and shorter tees, while many of us don't shoot a lot different between the different tees. This causes our handicaps to go up when we play the shorter tees.
I assume this result is because the primary determinant in course ratings is distance. In my unscientific opinion, there is too much emphasis on distance in the ratings. Does anyone on here know enough to refute my conclusion?
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While combo tees can get the course to a total yardage that a person wants to play, how much thought is put into deciding which hole plays as a blue vs white? Rumor is that Tom picked the tees for Tumble Creek, but not sure of what his qualifier was. There are several holes at Chambers where I think they got it wrong.
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... Broadie and others show that statistically, longer hitters are straighter, ...
What a load of BS!
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I am seeing a common theme on this thread--that the course ratings have too big a difference between longer tees and shorter tees, while many of us don't shoot a lot different between the different tees. This causes our handicaps to go up when we play the shorter tees.
I assume this result is because the primary determinant in course ratings is distance. In my unscientific opinion, there is too much emphasis on distance in the ratings. Does anyone on here know enough to refute my conclusion?
I can confirm same in anecdotal/unscientific fashion.
When I lived in Spokane, I played a handful of courses pretty regularly.
- One of them is 6450 yards from the whites, which I played from every time. It has 6 holes with water and 10+ holes with external OB.
- The other is 6255 from the Blues and just under 6000 yards from the white, which I split about equally. It has zero water hazards and only 1 hole with OB.
Guess which one I consistently played best and posted probably 8 of my 10 best scores (between the two) on? ;)
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The other twist on this topic is, GCA has a long history of complaining, moaning, whining, etc. ;D ....that there are too many tee boxes and tee placements on golf courses. Its usually phrased along the lines of "3 sets of tees ought to be enough for everyone".
So if your tees are set at 5600, 6300, and 6800, do you honestly think anyone playing at 6300 is going to go up and play those forward tees, especially if they're red? ;) Would it perhaps be better to have 5 sets, adding one at say 4900 and another at 5950 to accommodate/tempt more people to actually move up, both men and women?
Kalen,
No need whatsoever for 5 tee boxes; that's just extra maintenance. The answer is hybrid tees on the scorecard, so that there is a set that plays about 6000 in between the 5600 set and the 6300 set. I'm always surprised in this day and age when I see a course that hasn't bothered to do this, since all they have to do is submit the hybrid set to the state golf association to be rated, and then include it on the scorecard the next time they have cards printed. Zero cost...
More options for golfers with no cost to courses is a HUGE no-brainer.
Well, that is just horse feathers to me. Any superintendent will tell you they need 1.5-2 SF of tee per 100 rounds, i.e., 6,000-8,000 SF of tee for a 40,000 round course. Too small probably means more maintenance for most courses. So, proposing "only" three tees will either cause them to be too small, and/or stretch them out enough where you have a few more logical positions, i.e., move them all the way forward on weekends, being a typical course set up strategy.
I will grant you that 6 tees, given the minimum 6 foot front and back the USGA recommends for tee marker placement does take up more room than 5, and 5 needs more tee space than 4, etc., resulting in some additional space created, without tee markers being placed there.
Also, I realize that designing tees around one's actual golf games rather than the social aspects can cause some problems, but they are solvable - either players willingly play the "wrong" tee for social or competitive reasons, or they agree that each can play the tee they want. All we can do is give most (and hopefully all) golfers a choice. No gca or super can think to a level of detail about who might get butt hurt by their group's tee choice that day. ::)
As to your previous post, Broadie and others show that statistically, longer hitters are straighter, with exceptions of course. If a player can play at XXXX yardage but is wild, that is possible. For any 4 players to be at that yardage and similarly wild would be a statistical oddity. And, to be honest, the basic thread here is about combatting those folks who still cling to playing too long a course.
Jeff,
Sorry to have riled you; my son is a superintendent, and the last thing I want to do is come across as knowing more about that business than I do. I'm a member at a course with a 600 yd. gap between the blue and white tees, and with a similar gap between the gold and the blue, and hybrids on the card have solved a lot of dilemmas. Both our interclub teams, regular and senior, play from the recommended CGA yardages, which happen to be the two hybrid sets; none of the existing tee boxes would work nearly as well. That's all I meant; didn't mean to sound like I know how many tee boxes you should build on a new course or one that you are renovating.
We agree on Broadie's stats, too; I am a believer that the same skill set that allows somebody to hit the ball a long way also makes them into a relatively straight hitter. I think the "long but wild" idea mistakes a ball that went a long way on a particular vector as a lot wilder than a ball that went a shorter distance on that same vector. But that's not what I was talking about, and if I wrote it poorly, I guess I should have finished my second cup of coffee before I typed.
I hate that I wrote horse feathers! ;)
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I am seeing a common theme on this thread--that the course ratings have too big a difference between longer tees and shorter tees, while many of us don't shoot a lot different between the different tees. This causes our handicaps to go up when we play the shorter tees.
I assume this result is because the primary determinant in course ratings is distance. In my unscientific opinion, there is too much emphasis on distance in the ratings. Does anyone on here know enough to refute my conclusion?
Course ratings are not based on a particular golfer idiosyncracies. They are based on averages of all golfers. Dr. Knuth, The Pope of Slope, communicated to me that Wild Willies will be able to obtain lower indexes by playing back. (Wild Willies, long but wild)
The short straight players will be able to obtain lower indexes by playing forward.
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... I am a believer that the same skill set that allows somebody to hit the ball a long way also makes them into a relatively straight hitter. ...
More BS! Strength automatically translates to skill. Who knew?
Guess that's why long drive competitions allow you 6 attempts to get one in play. ::)
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... I am a believer that the same skill set that allows somebody to hit the ball a long way also makes them into a relatively straight hitter. ...
More BS! Strength automatically translates to skill. Who knew?
Guess that's why long drive competitions allow you 6 attempts to get one in play. ::)
Garland,
I think you miss the point. Unlike weight lifting where raw strength translates to bench pressing 300+ pounds its often not the case when swinging a golf club. The Tour is littered with guys who wouldn't be strong by anyone's measure, but have learned the technique to get everything in synch to hit the ball a long ways.
Even those long ball competitions have a couple of small guys who can compete with the best of em.
-
The other twist on this topic is, GCA has a long history of complaining, moaning, whining, etc. ;D ....that there are too many tee boxes and tee placements on golf courses. Its usually phrased along the lines of "3 sets of tees ought to be enough for everyone".
So if your tees are set at 5600, 6300, and 6800, do you honestly think anyone playing at 6300 is going to go up and play those forward tees, especially if they're red? ;) Would it perhaps be better to have 5 sets, adding one at say 4900 and another at 5950 to accommodate/tempt more people to actually move up, both men and women?
Kalen,
No need whatsoever for 5 tee boxes; that's just extra maintenance. The answer is hybrid tees on the scorecard, so that there is a set that plays about 6000 in between the 5600 set and the 6300 set. I'm always surprised in this day and age when I see a course that hasn't bothered to do this, since all they have to do is submit the hybrid set to the state golf association to be rated, and then include it on the scorecard the next time they have cards printed. Zero cost...
More options for golfers with no cost to courses is a HUGE no-brainer.
Well, that is just horse feathers to me. Any superintendent will tell you they need 1.5-2 SF of tee per 100 rounds, i.e., 6,000-8,000 SF of tee for a 40,000 round course. Too small probably means more maintenance for most courses. So, proposing "only" three tees will either cause them to be too small, and/or stretch them out enough where you have a few more logical positions, i.e., move them all the way forward on weekends, being a typical course set up strategy.
I will grant you that 6 tees, given the minimum 6 foot front and back the USGA recommends for tee marker placement does take up more room than 5, and 5 needs more tee space than 4, etc., resulting in some additional space created, without tee markers being placed there.
Also, I realize that designing tees around one's actual golf games rather than the social aspects can cause some problems, but they are solvable - either players willingly play the "wrong" tee for social or competitive reasons, or they agree that each can play the tee they want. All we can do is give most (and hopefully all) golfers a choice. No gca or super can think to a level of detail about who might get butt hurt by their group's tee choice that day. ::)
As to your previous post, Broadie and others show that statistically, longer hitters are straighter, with exceptions of course. If a player can play at XXXX yardage but is wild, that is possible. For any 4 players to be at that yardage and similarly wild would be a statistical oddity. And, to be honest, the basic thread here is about combatting those folks who still cling to playing too long a course.
Jeff,
Sorry to have riled you; my son is a superintendent, and the last thing I want to do is come across as knowing more about that business than I do. I'm a member at a course with a 600 yd. gap between the blue and white tees, and with a similar gap between the gold and the blue, and hybrids on the card have solved a lot of dilemmas. Both our interclub teams, regular and senior, play from the recommended CGA yardages, which happen to be the two hybrid sets; none of the existing tee boxes would work nearly as well. That's all I meant; didn't mean to sound like I know how many tee boxes you should build on a new course or one that you are renovating.
We agree on Broadie's stats, too; I am a believer that the same skill set that allows somebody to hit the ball a long way also makes them into a relatively straight hitter. I think the "long but wild" idea mistakes a ball that went a long way on a particular vector as a lot wilder than a ball that went a shorter distance on that same vector. But that's not what I was talking about, and if I wrote it poorly, I guess I should have finished my second cup of coffee before I typed.
I hate that I wrote horse feathers! ;)
Not really riled, and I understand your points.
For the last 15 years or so, I design courses with more "proportional tee lengths" i.e., about 90, 80, 70, and 60 percent of the 7,200 back tee length. That does open up 500-600 yard gaps at (theoretically) 6,480, 5630, etc. On public courses, I think the customers follow whatever tee markers are set out more than at private clubs. And, management is all too happy with the shorter overall yardages for its effect on the pace of play among other things.
A lot of the members at one course just preferred the more traditional 62-6300 yards they were used to playing. So, they did some hybrid tees to get to that yardage, so I'm not against those by any means.
It's actually fun to see how pros and members tweak the course design to their liking, and who am I to complain? I am trying to get them to have fun, but there are just so many golfers and probably just as many favorite playing scenarios, I just can't predict them all. While I don't study how hybrid tees are created in any depth, the ones I have looked at tend to use the white tee on long holes and the blue on short ones, which does tend to bunch holes together in length. I think a few examples of really long and really short would be more fun day to day, even if it played havoc with handicaps.
I think my bigger issue is with good players who demand that they never see a shorter tee in front of them. I get that, as well, but in general, feel like it's one of those "greater good vs. individual rights" type of things, and players just need to grin and bear it as courses try to design for all levels of play. While a neat idea, and I have seen it done, the compromises made otherwise usually outweigh the desire to present a better look for back tee players.
Fazio has done it by widely separating front tees side to side and building them behind a small rise. It works to hide them, but I think that those tees might play at worse angles, with worse views, etc., and those comprise the bulk of the players at most places. If in a wooded area, or for a housing developer trying NOT to give all the land to the golf course, is it really worth clearing trees or using land to scatter those tees more, just so the 1-3% of those who play the back tees won't complain? In most cases, usually not. The saying from the other thread, i.e., "The ability to see things from others point of view" seems relevant.
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... I am a believer that the same skill set that allows somebody to hit the ball a long way also makes them into a relatively straight hitter. ...
More BS! Strength automatically translates to skill. Who knew?
Guess that's why long drive competitions allow you 6 attempts to get one in play. ::)
Garland,
I think you miss the point. Unlike weight lifting where raw strength translates to bench pressing 300+ pounds its often not the case when swinging a golf club. The Tour is littered with guys who wouldn't be strong by anyone's measure, but have learned the technique to get everything in synch to hit the ball a long ways.
Even those long ball competitions have a couple of small guys who can compete with the best of em.
Kalen,
You miss the point. I don't see any of the longest drivers on tour in the most accurate drivers on tour.
1 1 Bryson DeChambeau 63 321.9 38,631 120
2 2 Rory McIlroy 57 318.7 34,422 108
3 3 Cameron Champ 59 318.0 34,984 110
4 4 Wyndham Clark 76 315.5 45,438 144
5 5 Will Gordon 80 314.6 49,077 156
6 7 Dustin Johnson 55 313.8 32,632 104
7 8 Luke List 73 313.2 44,477 142
8 6 Matthew Wolff 48 312.8 26,905 86
9 9 Joaquin Niemann 85 311.6 51,097 164
10 10 Gary Woodland 58 311.0 36,072 116
1 1 Brendon Todd 83 75.19 800 1,064
2 3 Ryan Armour 66 72.72 669 920
3 2 Brian Stuard 88 72.62 870 1,198
4 4 Chez Reavie 68 72.02 664 922
5 5 Ryan Moore 38 71.40 377 528
6 6 Abraham Ancer 81 71.32 776 1,088
7 7 Brice Garnett 80 70.47 747 1,060
T8 8 David Hearn 56 70.44 510 724
T8 10 Josh Teater 40 70.44 355 504
10 12 Satoshi Kodaira 66 69.91 639 914
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...
Guess which one I consistently played best and posted probably 8 of my 10 best scores (between the two) on? ;)
How is this in the least bit pertinent?
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Garland the key is "relatively" straight.
Yes they may not be as straight as the best players in the world, but I'm guessing they are far straighter, aka hitting it in the fairway, than the weekend warrior whose hitting it 100 yards shorter.
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...
Guess which one I consistently played best and posted probably 8 of my 10 best scores (between the two) on? ;)
How is this in the least bit pertinent?
Because according to its Rating and Slope, the shorter one should have been the "Easier" course, but in fact was not.
Course 1:
6255 - 69.8/124
5950 - 68.3/121
Course 2:
6429 - 69.7/125
And this is not just based on my rounds there, it was also true for 3 others I regularly played with. The 4 of us consistently posted better scores on the one with the higher Rating and Slope and in the aggregate we played hundreds of rounds between the two courses.
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I am seeing a common theme on this thread--that the course ratings have too big a difference between longer tees and shorter tees, while many of us don't shoot a lot different between the different tees. This causes our handicaps to go up when we play the shorter tees.
I assume this result is because the primary determinant in course ratings is distance. In my unscientific opinion, there is too much emphasis on distance in the ratings. Does anyone on here know enough to refute my conclusion?
That has been my experience, though I don't know enough about the course rating process to have an opinion on the reason (s).
There appears to be another common theme that runs through many of discussions on this site. And that is that if golfers do things that are contrary to what we personally prefer, it is either wrong, not smart, selfish/too self-absorbed, irresponsible, etc. Might we consider that some golfers prefer playing longer tees because they enjoy the game more for a variety of reasons?
I am probably an anomaly: I am old, carry my clubs the vast majority of my rounds, and 75% of my scores are 85 and under, posted from tees at 6700 on average. The vast majority of my rounds at my home club where we are usually off by 8:00 a.m. are played in under three hours (2-4 balls).
No one forces me to play the second set of tees, nor do I require any one to comply with my preferences. During the summer, one of our regulars who has skin cancer issues plays the 6200 yard tees in 2:30 or less, walking. I will occasionally play with him and he slows down to 2:40 and moves back to the hybrids at around 6500. He hits the ball 50 yards longer than I do and seemingly enjoys hitting wedges into the longer par 4s and irons into the 5s. I don't see the point, but c'est la vie.
My scores are nearly the same from 6800 yards as they are from 6500, and only marginally higher than at 6200. The course rating differential from 6800 to 6200 is 2.7 strokes. Perhaps my scores would go down with more play at 6200, but I enjoy hitting a variety of clubs and being stretched to hit the driver a bit further when required. My remembrances of golf through my first 10-20 years were that I hit quite a few long irons into 3s and 4s, and I seldom had a mid-iron for a second shot on a 5. One set of tees up, I am hitting a lot of the same shots today. To each his own?
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This is an interesting discussion. My main takeaway is that most people here are lousy wedge players. If you're moving up 600 yards and hitting many more wedges into greens than before, I would hope scores would go down. If not, this means we are equally competent with a 7 iron as we are with a wedge. Is this true for the group? If so, that's a talent/practice problem :)
If it's not true, then is there an issue with the course? I find that sometimes when I play very short courses I can't hit driver in a place where I can score, so I'm left hitting iron off the tee. Therefore, the advantage of distance disappears. I suspect the lack of lower scores at shorter tees is a combination of both factors, but likely more an indication of where our games are weak. Perhaps we should look inward before looking out.
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Garland the key is "relatively" straight.
Yes they may not be as straight as the best players in the world, but I'm guessing they are far straighter, aka hitting it in the fairway, than the weekend warrior whose hitting it 100 yards shorter.
How about the weekend warrior that is hitting it farther, but landing it two fairways over?
::)
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Garland the key is "relatively" straight.
Yes they may not be as straight as the best players in the world, but I'm guessing they are far straighter, aka hitting it in the fairway, than the weekend warrior whose hitting it 100 yards shorter.
How about the weekend warrior that is hitting it farther, but landing it two fairways over?
::)
Garland,
There are always going to be some outliers to every measurement. And you're the worst long-hitting player I've every played with, so you got that going for you! You're the walking exception to Strokes gained off the tee! ;)
Kalen
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... you're the worst long-hitting player I've every played with ...
Guess you haven't played with many people!
I would be interested in seeing the actual quote from Broadie that people are trying to promote here. I can't help but think they are leaving something out. After all, we all saw Bryson win the open from the rough.
Faster club head speed results in longer shots. If you believe the faster the club head speed results in better club head alignment at impact, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
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... My main takeaway is that most people here are lousy wedge players. ...
Perhaps not the best take away. Perhaps a better take away is that bomb and gouge works. I.e., hitting more wedge approaches even from the rough allows you to score better than the person hitting 7 iron from the fairway when playing the same tees.
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As to your previous post, Broadie and others show that statistically, longer hitters are straighter, with exceptions of course.
Yep. Faster players tend to be better players, so they also tend to be more skilled and thus hit it straighter.
https://share.getcloudapp.com/kpuDvbYK (https://share.getcloudapp.com/kpuDvbYK) - There's the image from ESC.
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I currently live on a course 90 degrees left of the one up tee's. There are 4 sets of tees and most people play from the 6511 one up. The tips are maybe 30 yards back on the hole we live on (7240 total). Our house has been hit a couple of times by younger guys playing the tips. It's always high school/college age guys. Think ego has a lot to do with it. Our neighbor has a number of holes in their stucco from the side of their house being drilled. Absolutely crazy that these guys think they need to play from the tips. I assume most are left handed because I'm not even sure how a right handed player could hit our house.
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I currently live on a course 90 degrees left of the one up tee's. There are 4 sets of tees and most people play from the 6511 one up. The tips are maybe 30 yards back on the hole we live on (7240 total). Our house has been hit a couple of times by younger guys playing the tips. It's always high school/college age guys. Think ego has a lot to do with it. Our neighbor has a number of holes in their stucco from the side of their house being drilled. Absolutely crazy that these guys think they need to play from the tips. I assume most are left handed because I'm not even sure how a right handed player could hit our house.
"Drilled"!
The right hander trying to hit it hard will hit a hard pull left. The left hander will hit a high floating slice left. I would suggest your word "drilled" incriminates the righty.
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"Drilled"!
The right hander trying to hit it hard will hit a hard pull left. The left hander will hit a high floating slice left. I would suggest your word "drilled" incriminates the righty.
For our house the right handed player would have to basically hit it between their legs. Our neighbor it would have to just miss their left leg. I guess maybe they could fall off the shot really bad and pull it really hard.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jAEbnYhJBCZbw1l5SKA9Pg0s50CCqdjL1GRVux9ilcUHPU--pwSL4f_gq6dH7AwK3IasDVLNxQai-EH7gxuo9wSZY4Hzo8mu84ntB1cAuEKCIw7JAXVRD8uChIy9vKK4NUHl2EwpvlEAD1SSOZ7iylnXEeCB84BUodMiOS8CQUzmcUIfnr1SFFcbv-6IFWchgBTy2bbRH6tdgW_RjlQobXB8qrdVQ8xKSoWR1Vt1MIZUClrAHv494224ThzhorYuuDSjHyMESUBAWsGAWIE3spoE40oQT330Nd_FuQvh4k6zqdRAMdx6p-wXoJEwNMgr8NyFe6lBHdl2Y46DL9UxQzfFWoGWgTvctqwYAA5giYn0gaXcb7PhbAYyB6Pn7qWXlVci2NdLQDTcuJlsJ-NCXzR7aIGnFkmPp6DRQTY3tlEiKCkMb6cfEkbZe6ePeXe4zMdaJgx1-2vlG0IM0HA09Fl_nyWWhN5RBLUvtWOqE_czeX_LrUquKIrNCoIhbFywSNmHdJFI5CeZtJ7L9oQo6Zcwc1QJ1IyKePGOwj25QacM2ssShBtfc9QSwIcy_p8qJ5kDAaH9LLcxungRzG92liLdyeDKslYaSEyb-SYgZoWgAPKcwiswuK8ezztgtVdXzuROs-fFzGf7HpEosVlCyNwTqTPFHieQZn0ZiW_aDBTwauTDWGPuJhaAJFJrpHj8i-9qsx9YnBUVwG5AZZ3Imlo=w876-h657-no?authuser=0)
I just took a photo and you can see the one up and then just see the front of the back tee box.
There was an outing today and just noticed for some reason they inverted the tee colors with yellow back, white one back, blue and then black front. I seriously think it matters to some people what color they play.
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Faster club head speed results in longer shots. If you believe the faster the club head speed results in better club head alignment at impact, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
That’s basically true but missing the point, I think. I would agree, generally speaking, that longer players hit the ball straighter. Clubhead speed/solid contact is largely a product of skill as is control. If we’re comparing players of similar skill, that’s likely going to not be true, but scratch players that hit it 260 will likely be more accurate than the 12 handicap hitting it 220.
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Attempt to see if I can make the post readable.
"Drilled"!
The right hander trying to hit it hard will hit a hard pull left. The left hander will hit a high floating slice left. I would suggest your word "drilled" incriminates the righty.
For our house the right handed player would have to basically hit it between their legs. Our neighbor it would have to just miss their left leg. I guess maybe they could fall off the shot really bad and pull it really hard.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jAEbnYhJBCZbw1l5SKA9Pg0s50CCqdjL1GRVux9ilcUHPU--pwSL4f_gq6dH7AwK3IasDVLNxQai-EH7gxuo9wSZY4Hzo8mu84ntB1cAuEKCIw7JAXVRD8uChIy9vKK4NUHl2EwpvlEAD1SSOZ7iylnXEeCB84BUodMiOS8CQUzmcUIfnr1SFFcbv-6IFWchgBTy2bbRH6tdgW_RjlQobXB8qrdVQ8xKSoWR1Vt1MIZUClrAHv494224ThzhorYuuDSjHyMESUBAWsGAWIE3spoE40oQT330Nd_FuQvh4k6zqdRAMdx6p-wXoJEwNMgr8NyFe6lBHdl2Y46DL9UxQzfFWoGWgTvctqwYAA5giYn0gaXcb7PhbAYyB6Pn7qWXlVci2NdLQDTcuJlsJ-NCXzR7aIGnFkmPp6DRQTY3tlEiKCkMb6cfEkbZe6ePeXe4zMdaJgx1-2vlG0IM0HA09Fl_nyWWhN5RBLUvtWOqE_czeX_LrUquKIrNCoIhbFywSNmHdJFI5CeZtJ7L9oQo6Zcwc1QJ1IyKePGOwj25QacM2ssShBtfc9QSwIcy_p8qJ5kDAaH9LLcxungRzG92liLdyeDKslYaSEyb-SYgZoWgAPKcwiswuK8ezztgtVdXzuROs-fFzGf7HpEosVlCyNwTqTPFHieQZn0ZiW_aDBTwauTDWGPuJhaAJFJrpHj8i-9qsx9YnBUVwG5AZZ3Imlo=w876-h657-no?authuser=0)
I just took a photo and you can see the one up and then just see the front of the back tee box.
There was an outing today and just noticed for some reason they inverted the tee colors with yellow back, white one back, blue and then black front. I seriously think it matters to some people what color they play.
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Joe,
My understanding from your first post was that your house was 30 yards forward of the back tee. Don't know where they would aim to put you house on a line between their legs. ;)
Being accomplished at the hard pull, at one KP, I was advised not to play with spectators as I would kill someone. :-[
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The other twist on this topic is, GCA has a long history of complaining, moaning, whining, etc. ;D ....that there are too many tee boxes and tee placements on golf courses. Its usually phrased along the lines of "3 sets of tees ought to be enough for everyone".
So if your tees are set at 5600, 6300, and 6800, do you honestly think anyone playing at 6300 is going to go up and play those forward tees, especially if they're red? ;) Would it perhaps be better to have 5 sets, adding one at say 4900 and another at 5950 to accommodate/tempt more people to actually move up, both men and women?
Kalen,
No need whatsoever for 5 tee boxes; that's just extra maintenance. The answer is hybrid tees on the scorecard, so that there is a set that plays about 6000 in between the 5600 set and the 6300 set. I'm always surprised in this day and age when I see a course that hasn't bothered to do this, since all they have to do is submit the hybrid set to the state golf association to be rated, and then include it on the scorecard the next time they have cards printed. Zero cost...
More options for golfers with no cost to courses is a HUGE no-brainer.
Well, that is just horse feathers to me. Any superintendent will tell you they need 1.5-2 SF of tee per 100 rounds, i.e., 6,000-8,000 SF of tee for a 40,000 round course. Too small probably means more maintenance for most courses. So, proposing "only" three tees will either cause them to be too small, and/or stretch them out enough where you have a few more logical positions, i.e., move them all the way forward on weekends, being a typical course set up strategy.
I will grant you that 6 tees, given the minimum 6 foot front and back the USGA recommends for tee marker placement does take up more room than 5, and 5 needs more tee space than 4, etc., resulting in some additional space created, without tee markers being placed there.
Also, I realize that designing tees around one's actual golf games rather than the social aspects can cause some problems, but they are solvable - either players willingly play the "wrong" tee for social or competitive reasons, or they agree that each can play the tee they want. All we can do is give most (and hopefully all) golfers a choice. No gca or super can think to a level of detail about who might get butt hurt by their group's tee choice that day. ::)
As to your previous post, Broadie and others show that statistically, longer hitters are straighter, with exceptions of course. If a player can play at XXXX yardage but is wild, that is possible. For any 4 players to be at that yardage and similarly wild would be a statistical oddity. And, to be honest, the basic thread here is about combatting those folks who still cling to playing too long a course.
Jeff,
Sorry to have riled you; my son is a superintendent, and the last thing I want to do is come across as knowing more about that business than I do. I'm a member at a course with a 600 yd. gap between the blue and white tees, and with a similar gap between the gold and the blue, and hybrids on the card have solved a lot of dilemmas. Both our interclub teams, regular and senior, play from the recommended CGA yardages, which happen to be the two hybrid sets; none of the existing tee boxes would work nearly as well. That's all I meant; didn't mean to sound like I know how many tee boxes you should build on a new course or one that you are renovating.
We agree on Broadie's stats, too; I am a believer that the same skill set that allows somebody to hit the ball a long way also makes them into a relatively straight hitter. I think the "long but wild" idea mistakes a ball that went a long way on a particular vector as a lot wilder than a ball that went a shorter distance on that same vector. But that's not what I was talking about, and if I wrote it poorly, I guess I should have finished my second cup of coffee before I typed.
I hate that I wrote horse feathers! ;)
Not really riled, and I understand your points.
For the last 15 years or so, I design courses with more "proportional tee lengths" i.e., about 90, 80, 70, and 60 percent of the 7,200 back tee length. That does open up 500-600 yard gaps at (theoretically) 6,480, 5630, etc. On public courses, I think the customers follow whatever tee markers are set out more than at private clubs. And, management is all too happy with the shorter overall yardages for its effect on the pace of play among other things.
A lot of the members at one course just preferred the more traditional 62-6300 yards they were used to playing. So, they did some hybrid tees to get to that yardage, so I'm not against those by any means.
It's actually fun to see how pros and members tweak the course design to their liking, and who am I to complain? I am trying to get them to have fun, but there are just so many golfers and probably just as many favorite playing scenarios, I just can't predict them all. While I don't study how hybrid tees are created in any depth, the ones I have looked at tend to use the white tee on long holes and the blue on short ones, which does tend to bunch holes together in length. I think a few examples of really long and really short would be more fun day to day, even if it played havoc with handicaps.
I think my bigger issue is with good players who demand that they never see a shorter tee in front of them. I get that, as well, but in general, feel like it's one of those "greater good vs. individual rights" type of things, and players just need to grin and bear it as courses try to design for all levels of play. While a neat idea, and I have seen it done, the compromises made otherwise usually outweigh the desire to present a better look for back tee players.
Fazio has done it by widely separating front tees side to side and building them behind a small rise. It works to hide them, but I think that those tees might play at worse angles, with worse views, etc., and those comprise the bulk of the players at most places. If in a wooded area, or for a housing developer trying NOT to give all the land to the golf course, is it really worth clearing trees or using land to scatter those tees more, just so the 1-3% of those who play the back tees won't complain? In most cases, usually not. The saying from the other thread, i.e., "The ability to see things from others point of view" seems relevant.
I have always thought that the back tees should be at least as much about a tougher angle as added length. I spose differing angles creates off set tees which means forward tees are less likely to mar the visuals from the back tee. Which is partly why I don't like circular tees, they are harder to "hide".
Yes, I dislike loads of tee space in front of me 😎. It's most annoying when the landing zone is well below the tee. I want to see the ball land in the valley, not look at tee space in front of me.
Ciao
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A related aspect.
Does anyone 'lay-up' off the tee anymore?
Once upon a time, a zillion years ago when I hit the ball more than a smidgen further, I and others didn't hit Driver off every tee (par 3's excepted) we'd hit fairway metals/woods and long irons with the objective of positioning our tee shots in such spots as to minimise the chances of getting into trouble and maximise the chances of being in the optimum position for the next shot. Knowing when and how to lay-up was a skill.
Now I rarely lay-up these days. Occasionally however, I'll play with a long hitter who does, someone easily long enough to play from way-back tees but happy to play from tees further forward and use course management and thoughtfulness as a weapon ... and usually score rather well by doing so. It's rare to come across someone like this though, very rare, as it seems like these days laying-up is a lost art, players generally just thump a Driver.
atb
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A related aspect.
Does anyone 'lay-up' off the tee anymore?
Once upon a time, a zillion years ago when I hit the ball more than a smidgen further, I and others didn't hit Driver off every tee (par 3's excepted) we'd hit fairway metals/woods and long irons with the objective of positioning our tee shots in such spots as to minimise the chances of getting into trouble and maximise the chances of being in the optimum position for the next shot. Knowing when and how to lay-up was a skill.
Now I rarely lay-up these days. Occasionally however, I'll play with a long hitter who does, someone easily long enough to play from way-back tees but happy to play from tees further forward and use course management and thoughtfulness as a weapon ... and usually score rather well by doing so. It's rare to come across someone like this though, very rare, as it seems like these days laying-up is a lost art, players generally just thump a Driver.
atb
I see quite a bit of laying up. Although, sometimes it's more about hitting a comfort club rather than seeking position or a certain yardage for the next shot.
I rarely bother to layup even when I know I should, which isn't often.
Played Woking yesterday. As I thought would happen, we played the back tees. Unfortunately this meant for 3 and 4 I was too far back to properly enjoy the bunkering.
Ciao
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A related aspect.
Does anyone 'lay-up' off the tee anymore?
I just went through the 4 courses I play the most, I lay up on 18 of the 56 non par 3s. Of those 6-7 are forced, but the rest are by choice.
Many of the good players I’ve seen layup a lot. When I refereed the finals of the US Mid-am a few years ago, I was surprised by how often the two players hit hybrids on long par 4s and par 5s, but they did it so far, it didn’t make a huge difference in their approach shots.
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Thanks John (and Sean),
It’s not so much the higher echelon player I was considering when mentioning laying-up, more longer hitters in general and the tendency amongst same to get the Driver out of the bag when, given their power, they likely don’t really need to and indeed might score better by adopting a different approach.
Just an aside though.
Atb
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I don't lay up. I straighten out. With a shorter club off the tee. ;)
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And a very legitimate method that is too Garland. I know a couple of players who only use irons because they struggle to keep shots with woods/metals in play. Not much worse than looking for your golf ball …. well, unless it’s looking for someone else’s!! :)
Atb
PS - there’s a great line in Tommy Armours modestly titled 1954 book ‘How to play your best golf all the time’ where he states “Play the shot you’ve got the greatest chance of playing well, and play the shot that makes the next shot easy.”
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A related aspect.
Does anyone 'lay-up' off the tee anymore?
Once upon a time, a zillion years ago when I hit the ball more than a smidgen further, I and others didn't hit Driver off every tee (par 3's excepted) we'd hit fairway metals/woods and long irons with the objective of positioning our tee shots in such spots as to minimise the chances of getting into trouble and maximise the chances of being in the optimum position for the next shot. Knowing when and how to lay-up was a skill.
Now I rarely lay-up these days. Occasionally however, I'll play with a long hitter who does, someone easily long enough to play from way-back tees but happy to play from tees further forward and use course management and thoughtfulness as a weapon ... and usually score rather well by doing so. It's rare to come across someone like this though, very rare, as it seems like these days laying-up is a lost art, players generally just thump a Driver.
atb
My first thought on any hole is, is there any way I can get away with not hitting driver here? I would say on most courses, I’m hitting 6 to 10 drivers per round.
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As to your previous post, Broadie and others show that statistically, longer hitters are straighter, with exceptions of course.
Yep. Faster players tend to be better players, so they also tend to be more skilled and thus hit it straighter.
https://share.getcloudapp.com/kpuDvbYK (https://share.getcloudapp.com/kpuDvbYK) - There's the image from ESC.
The illustration provided by Erik says "Longer hitters tend to be straighter. Driver distance and driver accuracy improve with golfer skill."
The illustration also shows only tour pros hitting it 300 yards. It does not show the 100 shooters that can drive it 300 yards. It does not show the 90 shooters that can drive it 300 yards. It does not show 80 shooters that can drive it 300 yards. It looks somewhat like data tailored to the premise.
Where are the
... I know a couple of players who only use irons because they struggle to keep shots with woods/metals in play. Not much worse than looking for your golf ball …. well, unless it’s looking for someone else’s!! :)
Atb
PS - there’s a great line in Tommy Armours modestly titled 1954 book ‘How to play your best golf all the time’ where he states “Play the shot you’ve got the greatest chance of playing well, and play the shot that makes the next shot easy.”
We all know Arnold's dad taught him to hit it long, long before he taught him to hit it straight.
Ben Hogan was one of the longest on tour, but couldn't stick on tour until he learned to hit it straighter.
Length is mostly athleticism, accuracy is mostly trained skill.
Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle could hit it farther than most pros, but couldn't hit it straight and score.
Most players graduating from the lower tour to the pga tour learn that they have to restrict their distance if they want to stick to the big tour.
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The illustration provided by Erik says "Longer hitters tend to be straighter. Driver distance and driver accuracy improve with golfer skill."
The illustration also shows only tour pros hitting it 300 yards. It does not show the 100 shooters that can drive it 300 yards. It does not show the 90 shooters that can drive it 300 yards. It does not show 80 shooters that can drive it 300 yards. It looks somewhat like data tailored to the premise.
Not sure you understand how averages work… Your 100 shooter hitting it 300 may move the average up, but they're rare. And if you read the rest of the note under the image, it says how the ovals represent 75% of the good drives, and how 1 in 4 drives travel longer?
Length is mostly athleticism, accuracy is mostly trained skill.
Length is a skill as well, and hitting the ball more solidly and controlling launch conditions allows you to hit the ball farther.
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Garland,
I'm certainly not as traveled as you, but in my experience I tend to agree with Erik in that players who can regularly hit it 300 rarely are even 90 shooters, much less 100 shooters. And I presume this carries over to how long they can hit their wedges, irons, and fairway woods. Length is everything and hitting an approach shot from the rough at 120 out on a 410 par 4 is a helluva advantage over being faced with 200 in the fairway.
So you may be the exception here, even if you aren't a 300 guy, more like 260-270. ;)
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As to your previous post, Broadie and others show that statistically, longer hitters are straighter, with exceptions of course.
Yep. Faster players tend to be better players, so they also tend to be more skilled and thus hit it straighter.
https://share.getcloudapp.com/kpuDvbYK (https://share.getcloudapp.com/kpuDvbYK) - There's the image from ESC.
The illustration provided by Erik says "Longer hitters tend to be straighter. Driver distance and driver accuracy improve with golfer skill."
The illustration also shows only tour pros hitting it 300 yards. It does not show the 100 shooters that can drive it 300 yards. It does not show the 90 shooters that can drive it 300 yards. It does not show 80 shooters that can drive it 300 yards. It looks somewhat like data tailored to the premise.
Where are the
... I know a couple of players who only use irons because they struggle to keep shots with woods/metals in play. Not much worse than looking for your golf ball …. well, unless it’s looking for someone else’s!! :)
Atb
PS - there’s a great line in Tommy Armours modestly titled 1954 book ‘How to play your best golf all the time’ where he states “Play the shot you’ve got the greatest chance of playing well, and play the shot that makes the next shot easy.”
We all know Arnold's dad taught him to hit it long, long before he taught him to hit it straight.
Ben Hogan was one of the longest on tour, but couldn't stick on tour until he learned to hit it straighter.
Length is mostly athleticism, accuracy is mostly trained skill.
Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle could hit it farther than most pros, but couldn't hit it straight and score.
Most players graduating from the lower tour to the pga tour learn that they have to restrict their distance if they want to stick to the big tour.
Garland, I am 99% certain your two highlighted assertions are off base.
Broadie and others didn't tailor make their stats. Length is all about clubhead speed and contact. It's physics, and it all makes perfect sense, really. Your ball leaves the club head with X amount of energy. With that energy, and given the right launch angle and spin, it can go maybe 300 yards straight, or 280 yards and 20 yards off line (example only, not running the math) for a 300 yard tee shot to go 30 yards off line, it means that player could have hit it 340 or whatever, and those players are rare.
Obviously there are variants in any distance group, with a few being wilder and a few being straighter for their length, etc. but within a range. I will say that chart (from his book) confused me a bit too, in that I would think there was a near scratch group shorter than the 297 average of the Tour Pros and above the 258 of the A and B players. Many gca's put their dogleg points at about 285, which according to his stats, may serve nobody very well.
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... for a 300 yard tee shot to go 30 yards off line, it means that player could have hit it 340 or whatever...
a2 + b2 = c2
a2 + 302 = 3002
a = 298 and change
The person who hits it 300 yards and ends up 30 yards off line is level with the person who hits it 298 yards and change to the middle of the fairway.
Where do you get the 30 yards? Hitting it two fairways over is clearly more than 30 yards off line.
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Length is a skill as well, and hitting the ball more solidly and controlling launch conditions allows you to hit the ball farther.
Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle couldn't care less about controlling launch conditions. On random instances they hit the sweet spot and sent the ball off the planet.
Your propoganda has warped your brain.
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Garland,
I'm certainly not as traveled as you, but in my experience I tend to agree with Erik in that players who can regularly hit it 300 rarely are even 90 shooters, much less 100 shooters. And I presume this carries over to how long they can hit their wedges, irons, and fairway woods. Length is everything and hitting an approach shot from the rough at 120 out on a 410 par 4 is a helluva advantage over being faced with 200 in the fairway.
So you may be the exception here, even if you aren't a 300 guy, more like 260-270. ;)
Kalen,
Shooting 90 is simply hitting every green in regulation, and three putting all of them. Start missing greens in regulation, and hitting it OB, or losing the ball, and you quickly get to 100.
It takes both a long game and a short game and some consistency to score. Strokes add up quickly.
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a2 + b2 = c2
a2 + 302 = 3002
a = 298 and change
Energy transfer in golf doesn't work like that.
Your propoganda has warped your brain.
Length — SPEED — is a skill. Hell, it's the one skill that almost defines what is a "sport" versus a game. "Speed kills".
Shooting 90 is simply hitting every green in regulation, and three putting all of them. Start missing greens in regulation, and hitting it OB, or losing the ball, and you quickly get to 100.
At this point I have to assume you're doing a bit or something.
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... My main takeaway is that most people here are lousy wedge players. ...
Perhaps not the best take away. Perhaps a better take away is that bomb and gouge works. I.e., hitting more wedge approaches even from the rough allows you to score better than the person hitting 7 iron from the fairway when playing the same tees.
But apparently it doesn't for several people here? A few stated they score the same from tees several hundred yards back. So if they get a wedge in their hand compared to a short or mid iron, they aren't scoring any better. Either they are mistaken in their judgement of their game or their wedges are not helping them score better.
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... My main takeaway is that most people here are lousy wedge players. ...
Perhaps not the best take away. Perhaps a better take away is that bomb and gouge works. I.e., hitting more wedge approaches even from the rough allows you to score better than the person hitting 7 iron from the fairway when playing the same tees.
But apparently it doesn't for several people here? A few stated they score the same from tees several hundred yards back. So if they get a wedge in their hand compared to a short or mid iron, they aren't scoring any better. Either they are mistaken in their judgement of their game or their wedges are not helping them score better.
The pros play all the way back, and often have a wedge in their hands for the approach. So from all the way back, the long wild hitter will have wedge in his hand, and be able to score better than the person hitting 7 iron in, which is what the averages used in figuring ratings more likely reflects. Since he is likely to be hitting approaches from the rough when he moves forwards, as he was from the back tees, he will not be able to control the ball real well, and will not be gaining much in scoring by moving forward.
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a2 + b2 = c2
a2 + 302 = 3002
a = 298 and change
Energy transfer in golf doesn't work like that.
...
I breathlessly await your detailed explanation of that Mr. Physics Major.
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I breathlessly await your detailed explanation of that Mr. Physics Major.
Pretty simple. Smash factor doesn't remain constant, and thus ball speed is lower. It's a more glancing blow, so the ball speed is not only lower, but the spin is increased.
Imagine swinging a driver at 115 and hitting the ball flush (about 172 ball speed) with 1900 RPM spin, 0° tilt to the spin axis. Now open the face 30° to that path… and you're not going to get anywhere close to 172. Same is true at 5° - you're not getting 172.
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Sure enough played Golden Horseshoe yesterday , thanks for the suggestions guys ! Watched a group of 4 guys all decked out in Puma attire and custom bags tee off from tips . First guy hit a ball in fairway not that far . The other 3 guys was like watching a horror show of hitting balls of trees and spraying shots aimlessly ! Fellas ,,, please pick the correct tees !
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I think that the older you get, and the more you're into "the game," the more you understand the game and the importance of playing from the tees that fit your game. I think that the TV ads for drivers and the TV announcers who "wow!" on long drives are an issue here.
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For those who haven't, or won't, read Broadie's book, there is graph (figure 6.3) on p. 104 of the hardback edition. The graph, based solely on his data across all levels of golfers, shows that as the playing level increases, so do BOTH the distance off the tee AND accuracy off the tee.
"Figure 6.3 shows the longer-straighter pattern across golfers. The reason long hitters tend to be straighter hitters is simple: Golfers with better skills score lower because they hit better golf shots, and better golf shots are both long and straight. Tour pros are the longest and straightest of all." (p. 103)
To summarize the graph MUCH too briefly, the number of degrees that a drive is offline grows steadily larger as the drives become shorter, with scores becoming higher. 100 shooters are offline between 5 and 11 degrees on drives that anywhere from 160 to 240, 80 shooters between 4 and 9 degrees on drives that average between 220 and 280, and Tour pros only 3 to 4 degrees offline, even though their average drives are approaching 300 yards.
It is critical to understand that Broadie's research, as well as the book, is primarily descriptive, rather that prescriptive. Broadie simply points out that a particular golfer can find himself on the graph, and by doing so determine whether he should work on accuracy or distance.
Broadie also provides a couple of Tour pro pairings that have outlier results. (Remember that the book came out almost 10 years ago now.) Furyk is crazy accurate off the tee but relatively short, while Daly is crazy long but much less accurate that the norm for a Tour pro. But Weekley is longer AND more accurate than Maruyama. All of these examples, of course, are just isolated data points. Broadie's overriding conclusion looking at ALL the data points is this:
"Looking across a range of golfers from amateurs to pros, a clear pattern emerges: Longer hitters tend to be straighter hitters." (p. 103)
Hope that helps. I know not everybody likes this, but it's just...data. Facts are pesky.
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For those who haven't, or won't, read Broadie's book, there is graph (figure 6.3) on p. 104 of the hardback edition. The graph, based solely on his data across all levels of golfers, shows that as the playing level increases, so do BOTH the distance off the tee AND accuracy off the tee.
AG, I posted that graphic earlier in the topic. :)
The added copying/pasting of the accompanying text adds to the information and discussion, of course.
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For those who haven't, or won't, read Broadie's book, there is graph (figure 6.3) on p. 104 of the hardback edition. The graph, based solely on his data across all levels of golfers, shows that as the playing level increases, so do BOTH the distance off the tee AND accuracy off the tee.
AG, I posted that graphic earlier in the topic. :)
The added copying/pasting of the accompanying text adds to the information and discussion, of course.
Oops! And thank you!
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But apparently it doesn't for several people here? A few stated they score the same from tees several hundred yards back. So if they get a wedge in their hand compared to a short or mid iron, they aren't scoring any better. Either they are mistaken in their judgement of their game or their wedges are not helping them score better.
It's a somewhat common reply I get when I ask why a person is playing from so far back. In particular, it comes from a handful of women who don't or won't play the shortest tees at my club.
I have played with some of these folks and they aren't actually wrong. What's common among them is that they have absolutely abysmal short games.
By abysmal I mean commonly taking FIVE strokes from less than 20 yards off the green. Examples include a chunk, a blade, then three putts. Or blading one over a green and not being able to get the next one on the green.
I think that some (perhaps a lot) of them are better off not being too close to the green, or more likely, there's so much randomness in their scoring that the length isn't an important variable.
The first time I played with one member of my regular game he hit five bunker shots on the first two holes and was only in two bunkers. He's about a 13 handicapper and commonly putts from 30 yards off the green because his chipping and pitching is so unreliable.
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Ken not to be cynical here, but if its this bad, how worse can it really be to see these kinds of golfers play a par 4 from 300 or 330? Seems like its gonna be a supreme shit show either way.
I know GCA has a pet peeve of people playing too far back, but in my observation, its the things that golfers must still face otherwise that causes the slow downs. OB, Water, fairway bunkers, rough, chipping, greenside bunkers, wild greens...or pretty much everything! ;D
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The wrong tees especially the desire for further back tees directly effects issues that in turn effect golf … land and water availability, rising population, housing and urbanisation, the food chain etc etc. Just saying.
Atb
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Ken not to be cynical here, but if its this bad, how worse can it really be to see these kinds of golfers play a par 4 from 300 or 330? Seems like its gonna be a supreme shit show either way.
I know GCA has a pet peeve of people playing too far back, but in my observation, its the things that golfers must still face otherwise that causes the slow downs. OB, Water, fairway bunkers, rough, chipping, greenside bunkers, wild greens...or pretty much everything! ;D
No doubt. In fact, for some of the people who are like the ones I described, the solution to pace of play is to just not play by the rules. My wife and I have a new neighbor who wanted to play golf with us and he's a good guy so we happily took him along. I didn't expect him to be a rules purist and I wasn't disappointed.
He brought along a coworker and the both played pretty fast and loose. His friend had fairly new irons and wasn't willing to hit them out of the desert so he always moved the ball to the grass, the neighbor hit several "mulligans" and two or three times just dropped one in the fairway.
They played at a decent pace as result, and when it was over the neighbor said he shot 95...not in any universe I inhabit. But I didn't care, we weren't gambling, so no big deal.
For others, picking up after net double max works fine, and the reality is that some of the people I have experience with only do that two or three times a round. But it does mean that moving up or back a tee box makes almost no difference in their scores.
No so for me.
At age 73 I am hitting it about 180 on good tee balls unless the course is firm and fast. And I have a very good short game for a 16.2 index.
Moving back makes a huge difference for me.
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I breathlessly await your detailed explanation of that Mr. Physics Major.
Pretty simple. Smash factor doesn't remain constant, and thus ball speed is lower. It's a more glancing blow, so the ball speed is not only lower, but the spin is increased.
Imagine swinging a driver at 115 and hitting the ball flush (about 172 ball speed) with 1900 RPM spin, 0° tilt to the spin axis. Now open the face 30° to that path… and you're not going to get anywhere close to 172. Same is true at 5° - you're not getting 172.
So you really have no conception of how any of this is calculated. That physics degree you claimed elsewhere is not doing you any good. You just are of the opinion that bad things happen somehow. You continue to sound like an English lit major.
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Hope that helps. I know not everybody likes this, but it's just...data. Facts are pesky.
Does he state specifically how his data was collected?
Was any of his work published in peer reviewed scientific journals?
Or, did he simply collect his data, and use it to write his book?
My understanding is that the book is prescriptive of how to approach your strategy for playing a golf course. I have no problem with that, it is probably a reasonably good resource for that.
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... for a 300 yard tee shot to go 30 yards off line, it means that player could have hit it 340 or whatever, and those players are rare.
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You have used that 340 yard figure a couple times now. I assume that you are trying to relate a ball flight that curves. For a ball flight to go 30 yards off line at 300 yards by curving, the energy that hits a ball 305 yards straight would be more than adequate according to Trajectoware software.
The reason I used the Pythagorean theorem in my previous post was that I believe it entirely possible that Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, or any other athletic strongman could easily line up so that the perfectly struck golf ball could travel straight for 300 yards, and be 30 yards from the intended target line. Certainly I am as bad or worse than that when I address the golf ball. That's what happens when you don't play as often as necessary to maintain (let alone improve) your skills.
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Moving back makes a huge difference for me.
Exactly as the Pope of Slope says. The short straight hitter is also outside the averages that make up the handicap and course rating system. You naturally should expect your index to go up by moving back.
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Hope that helps. I know not everybody likes this, but it's just...data. Facts are pesky.
Does he state specifically how his data was collected?
Was any of his work published in peer reviewed scientific journals?
Or, did he simply collect his data, and use it to write his book?
My understanding is that the book is prescriptive of how to approach your strategy for playing a golf course. I have no problem with that, it is probably a reasonably good resource for that.
It's actually a pretty good read.
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So you really have no conception of how any of this is calculated. That physics degree you claimed elsewhere is not doing you any good. You just are of the opinion that bad things happen somehow. You continue to sound like an English lit major.
Garland, I understand this far more than you do, and nothing in your post refutes anything I've said. You simply continue to get things wrong. Among the things you get wrong is "the physics degree you claimed."
The simple truth: if you hit the ball 300 yards with a relatively straight shot, a ball that's hit 30 yards off-line will not fly 300 yards. The energy transferred to the ball is not the same, because the spin loft changes. Heck, that's why pulls or pull-draws with irons often go farther - because the smash factor goes up, spin goes DOWN, etc.
When talking about a driver, it's generally going to go shorter, given that many guys are close to their optimal numbers with their good/normal "straight" shot.
The reason I used the Pythagorean theorem in my previous post
Be honest. ;D The reason you used the pythagorean theorem is that you have no idea how any of this stuff works, so you used fifth grade math to explain a complex three-dimensional issue.
Max Homa played with Bubba, and he said for example (and I know it's anecdotal, and one sample, but it tracks) that when Bubba plays his massive cut off the tee, Max is right there with him. But when Bubba hits it straight, he's 40 or 50 yards longer. Max wasn't specifically talking about distance, he was talking about how impressive it is to play with Bubba and see where he aims, and so on, but the 340 number probably isn't that far off. 305 is definitely off when the player is hitting the ball with curve.
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I breathlessly await your detailed explanation of that Mr. Physics Major.
Pretty simple. Smash factor doesn't remain constant, and thus ball speed is lower. It's a more glancing blow, so the ball speed is not only lower, but the spin is increased.
Imagine swinging a driver at 115 and hitting the ball flush (about 172 ball speed) with 1900 RPM spin, 0° tilt to the spin axis. Now open the face 30° to that path… and you're not going to get anywhere close to 172. Same is true at 5° - you're not getting 172.
On the general subject of off-line balls going a long way...off the course
Agreed for the most part, but there are times when the player hits it dead center of the club and the face is square or closed to the path that the smash stays the same, or even increases(lofted club closed)
Players lined up for a fade who simply hit it straight left, or players lined up for a draw, or simply aimed too far right, who flush it with the face square to the path(which is too far right in relation to "target")
I played with a high speed player who absolutely flushed a drive a good 30 degrees off line who hit it across his own fairway, the fairway next door and across another to OB. The ball was easily 330 from the tee-a high push fade riding a left to right wind helping wind. I drove it in the left rough and our drives were 200+ yards apart, and though he was farther from the hole, his drive traveled significantly farther.
I was almost like he aimed it 30 degrees right and flushed it-I didn't see his process but saw the ball-solidly struck and FAR off line
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Agreed for the most part, but there are times when the player hits it dead center of the club and the face is square or closed to the path that the smash stays the same, or even increases(lofted club closed)
Yeah, I had edited to point out that a pull (typically with an iron) often goes farther. Generally guys are close to optimal with their drivers, so generally anything off-line will result in less total distance. In the case of a pull with a driver, the smash may stay the same (or increase a couple hundredths), but the ball will generally be lower with less spin.
It's not something you solve by Pythagorean theorem.
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I think the intent of what Garland was trying to say still stands though, even if this problem is not best explained using the Pythagorean theorem.
If you hit a ball 50 yards and its off line by 30 yards, the hypotenuse is a very different distance in relationship to the "straight" side at 10 yards, or 20% shorter. As compared to if you hit a ball 300 yards and its offline by 30 yards, that difference will be minimal. (less than 2 yards, less than 1% shorter)
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... for a 300 yard tee shot to go 30 yards off line, it means that player could have hit it 340 or whatever, and those players are rare.
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You have used that 340 yard figure a couple times now. I assume that you are trying to relate a ball flight that curves. For a ball flight to go 30 yards off line at 300 yards by curving, the energy that hits a ball 305 yards straight would be more than adequate according to Trajectoware software.
The reason I used the Pythagorean theorem in my previous post was that I believe it entirely possible that Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, or any other athletic strongman could easily line up so that the perfectly struck golf ball could travel straight for 300 yards, and be 30 yards from the intended target line. Certainly I am as bad or worse than that when I address the golf ball. That's what happens when you don't play as often as necessary to maintain (let alone improve) your skills.
I thought I made it clear I was pulling numbers out of the air.
You can believe what you want, and yes, it's possible for Babe Ruth or a golfer to hit one further off line and a great distance. As someone pointed out, a ball might go much further right in a crosswind where there is a 200 foot drop. The basic point remains, that the general overall pattern is longer equals straighter, and it does make sense with physics, i.e., any given club head speed generates only so much energy, which can only fly so high and carry so far. given the characteristics of a golf ball. The longest shots are one with the least side spin, etc.
In a separate report in 2009, Broadie shows a diagram of 513 shots by both D and A players, and another which shows the average degrees off line by C and D players. He doesn't tell us where this data was collected (i.e. sea level vs. mountains) or if 513 shots is the sum total of his research. I suspect there are more data points, but surprisingly, if not, it is still one of the bigger data surveys on how average players play. The USGA did field surveys of shot patterns when determining the SLOPE system, and more recently, R and A do include some stats on driving distance by handicap in their annual distance reports.
I have actually stretched to diagram of shot plots out to estimate the typical shot dispersion patterns of the C and B players. As a designer, I can use these averages to plot corridor widths to hopefully keep 2/3, 3/4, or7/8ths of C and/or D players on the short grass. I can use height, carry, and roll stats from other sources to locate carry hazards, or tree buffers for safety, etc.
That you can imagine a scenario where balls fly further off line than is within statistical boundaries hasn't affected any of my thinking. I believe any gca would prefer people think the way you do, especially if on juries for a golf ball strike case. We need the security blanket of knowing that it's impossible to contain all golf shots, and just need to prove, if sued, that we were reasonable in our design assumptions.
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What I find interesting is I think I drive the ball the farther when I hit a slight fade than when I hit a slight draw. No physics involved but I always feel like a draw runs more to the left than a fade runs to the right and ends up father.
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What I find interesting is I think I drive the ball the farther when I hit a slight fade than when I hit a slight draw. No physics involved but I always feel like a draw runs more to the left than a fade runs to the right and ends up father.
It's just the impact conditions, the spin loft, the clubhead speed, etc. that you do to hit it. Those who think a draw goes farther than a fade should ask themselves why that's true of lefties, too - when a lefty fade is a righty draw. The ball doesn't know where the golfer is standing, it only knows the inputs it gets at impact: speed, contact location, spin loft, etc.
You may deliver more optimal conditions with a fade than a draw.
Two shots to consider…
165 MPH ball speed, 0 tilt to the spin axis, launches at 12°.
https://p197.p4.n0.cdn.getcloudapp.com/items/Wnux9K2p/8ba78dee-1e61-4ea9-aa64-616ad9852607.png?v=ba0b22e8aa0127508558863ceac1f3df (https://p197.p4.n0.cdn.getcloudapp.com/items/Wnux9K2p/8ba78dee-1e61-4ea9-aa64-616ad9852607.png?v=ba0b22e8aa0127508558863ceac1f3df)
Face left open so the ball has only 160 MPH ball speed, launches at 13°, has a bit more spin (from "sidespin") and obviously the spin axis is tilted a bit:
https://p197.p4.n0.cdn.getcloudapp.com/items/7KuoldB1/178294a1-6c59-4d39-a0e0-a3be155fedc3.png?v=bd2fd9f3f0d2c17c8bd4357bb97d7b06 (https://p197.p4.n0.cdn.getcloudapp.com/items/7KuoldB1/178294a1-6c59-4d39-a0e0-a3be155fedc3.png?v=bd2fd9f3f0d2c17c8bd4357bb97d7b06)
The end result is this: the better players tend to be both longer AND more accurate if you measure "accuracy" by angles, not by "fairways hit" or something like that.
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What I find interesting is I think I drive the ball the farther when I hit a slight fade than when I hit a slight draw. No physics involved but I always feel like a draw runs more to the left than a fade runs to the right and ends up father.
The end result is this: the better players tend to be both longer AND more accurate if you measure "accuracy" by angles, not by "fairways hit" or something like that.
Erik,
This last part is how I interpreted it as well. For example, using more right triangle calculations:
- If Player A hits it 300 yards and is 30 yards off line, assuming a straight ball with no wind, the angle of the club face is off by 5.7 degrees at impact.
- Whereas if Player B hits it 200 yards, under similar conditions, (no wind, straight ball) they could be off by a larger amount, say 7 degrees, and still only be 24 yards offline.
In that scenario I would certainly consider player A to be "straighter"
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In that scenario I would certainly consider player A to be "straighter"
As would Mark Broadie (and me, and many others). Yes.
I chuckle when they talk about how gosh-darn accurate LPGA Tour players are. Sure, but if the PGA Tour players were hitting 3I off the tee… they'd be pretty darn accurate (by "fairway hit percentage"), too.
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Since no one answered my question about how Braodie obtained his data, I did a little bit of searching online and found this article: https://golf.com/travel/the-man-with-two-brains-stokes-gained-guru-mark-broadies-pioneering-analytics-have-radically-altered-the-game/
If my interpretation of contents is correct, he collected data on course from volunteers that were willing to take the time record that data for him.
It is my contention that he is overstepping when he makes statements like "Longer hitters tend to be straighter. Driver distance and driver accuracy improve with golfer skill."
There are at least two ways his data fall short of allowing him to validly conclude that.
1) His measurements are made by shots taken on course. Since the longest shots will be those that land in short grass and stay in short grass, taking measurements on course automatically skews the data to show inaccurate shots are shorter. Driver shots that land and run out in the fairway are in almost all cases going to go farther than those that do not. So how does he know driver distance improves with skill based on this data?
2) He has not randomized the subjects from which he collects data. The subjects are skewed towards those willing to keeps stats about their game. I would guess that these would be the same people that are interested lowering their scores through stats gathering. I would also surmise that these golfers are throttling back their swings to bring their stats inline with their goals, one of which would be to improve their accuracy.
If he wants to make assertions about longer hitters tending to be more accurate, he needs to allow his random sample to include smash mouth golfers that don't care much about how well they are aimed at the target, and others that might upset the apple cart of his premise. Furthermore, he needs the experiment to be set up to treat all struck balls equally, and not be set up to penalize the offline shots so that it produces an essentially self fulfilling prophecy.
And, Jeff, I guess this means you have to design more conservatively for safety for the public courses where you might more often get baseball, or softball sluggers out for a change of pace in their athletic endeavours.
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Due to the obvious high quality of the collected data below, I would assert that driving distance goes down, as skill goes up. ;D
Korn Ferry Tour (lessor skilled)
1 Brent Grant 323.5
2 John Somers 322.9
T3 Taylor Pendrith 321.8
T3 Kevin Dougherty 321.8
5 Jordan Niebrugge 319.8
TOUR AVERAGE 300.9
PGA Tour (higher skilled)
1 1 Bryson DeChambeau 63 321.9 38,631 120
2 2 Rory McIlroy 57 318.7 34,422 108
3 3 Cameron Champ 63 317.6 37,480 118
4 4 Wyndham Clark 76 315.5 45,438 144
5 5 Will Gordon 84 314.9 51,648 164
Regardless of the year, an average driving distance of around 290 yards is typical.
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Since no one answered my question about how Braodie obtained his data, I did a little bit of searching online and found this article: https://golf.com/travel/the-man-with-two-brains-stokes-gained-guru-mark-broadies-pioneering-analytics-have-radically-altered-the-game/ (https://golf.com/travel/the-man-with-two-brains-stokes-gained-guru-mark-broadies-pioneering-analytics-have-radically-altered-the-game/)
He collected tens of thousands of rounds. Maybe you should read the book before you comment so much on it? You're speaking from a place of ignorance.
It is my contention that he is overstepping when he makes statements like "Longer hitters tend to be straighter. Driver distance and driver accuracy improve with golfer skill."
And your contradictory information is… entirely anecdotal?
1) His measurements are made by shots taken on course. Since the longest shots will be those that land in short grass and stay in short grass, taking measurements on course automatically skews the data to show inaccurate shots are shorter. Driver shots that land and run out in the fairway are in almost all cases going to go farther than those that do not. So how does he know driver distance improves with skill based on this data?
No, because he measured the average drives against the SKILL LEVEL of the players. Look at the chart - the X axis isn't average length with the Y axis being average degrees offline. It's player ability level versus drive length and accuracy.
2) He has not randomized the subjects from which he collects data. The subjects are skewed towards those willing to keeps stats about their game. I would guess that these would be the same people that are interested lowering their scores through stats gathering. I would also surmise that these golfers are throttling back their swings to bring their stats inline with their goals, one of which would be to improve their accuracy.
Yeah, uhhhh, no.
If he wants to make assertions about longer hitters tending to be more accurate, he needs to allow his random sample to include smash mouth golfers that don't care much about how well they are aimed at the target, and others that might upset the apple cart of his premise. Furthermore, he needs the experiment to be set up to treat all struck balls equally, and not be set up to penalize the offline shots so that it produces an essentially self fulfilling prophecy.
Right. So now that you're off your dumb Pythagorean theorem idea, you're now telling one of the leading stats guys in golf how to collect and summarize statistics.
Oooooooookkkkaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy.
Occam's Razor, dude: the "smash mouth" golfers are rare, and the bad smash mouth golfers don't average anywhere close to 300 yards because they mis-hit it 80% of the time or something.
Better players tend to be both straighter and longer. If you were to define the game of golf and come up with the requisite skills, "accuracy" and "distance" would be near the top of the list, so I am not sure why it befuddles you so that the better the player, the "more" they have of BOTH of those things… particularly since a straight ball hit more flush goes farther than a ball hit with the same clubhead speed but which goes sideways 30 or 60 yards or whatever.
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At least in San Diego, there are many poor golfers who carry the ball 300 yards and usually crooked. My buddy has two sons who are exceptional baseball players, and during Covid last year they got the golf bug, and they routinely hit it 350. There is are houses on the 11th st Pauma Valley that they usually bombard off the 15th tee, and those houses are 300 yards carry and are close to 100 yards from the middle of the fairway. More concerning, is that quite a few houses on the 11th are being hit off the 15th tee, even though the course was built with very big fairway corridors. This is not an isolated issue Good athletes with modern equipment are hitting it very long and wild, and teeing forward based upon their handicaps may result in even more problematic outcomes.
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At least in San Diego, there are many poor golfers who carry the ball 300 yards and usually crooked.
I'd take that bet.
I'd either win, or learn that your definition of "many" is pretty far off from how most people would define "many."
We're talking about the average drive. Bad golfers generally DO NOT average 300 yards. They may pop one occasionally, but they're not doing it very often, owing to their mis-hits, their slices, their heel jobs, etc.
"Anecdata" doesn't trump actual data.
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What’s the definition of “better player”?
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I'm thinking about it, and the last time I played with a consistently 300 yard but wild driver who fit the stereotypes was about 1981. I can think of 1 or 2 others tops.
I think most of those stories are urban or golf legend, i.e. "A,guy I know said] his friend knew a guy who knew a guy who......"
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Jeff - I’ve played with three guys in tournaments over the past 2 months that carried their drivers 285-300. One was a junior in high school and a good player. The other two were ok, capable of low numbers when they found their misses, but very wild when it went south. There are more of these young high club-head speed guys out there than you might think. Not common amongst average daily fee guys maybe, but still definitely not negligible.
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At least in San Diego, there are many poor golfers who carry the ball 300 yards and usually crooked.
I'd take that bet.
I'd either win, or learn that your definition of "many" is pretty far off from how most people would define "many."
We're talking about the average drive. Bad golfers generally DO NOT average 300 yards. They may pop one occasionally, but they're not doing it very often, owing to their mis-hits, their slices, their heel jobs, etc.
"Anecdata" doesn't trump actual data.
I know of the golfers Robert refers to(pretty sure I work with their father on air) and sure, it completely depends on your definition of "many" but if 150 rounds ae played and 2 windows are broken does it matter how "many"?
I'll play along---poor golfers usually don't carry it 300 yards on wild shots as you mention, often because of oblique strikes.
But can't we agree that a house that once was safe, is less safe now because higher club and ball speeds are being generated by longer, lighter drivers with faces that rebound and balls that spin less?
If a ball struck 30 degrees off line by an athletic infrequent player was capable of flying 225 yards in 1985, wouldn't it follow that a golfer of similar ability with a modern driver and ball could hit it 30 degrees off line and have it go 260?
Which would put more property/people in danger than previously?
I see young athletic players flying it into our grass tennis courts 320 yards away(downwind) that also propel balls that nearly go that far into our first fairway(110 yards right of the center of our range)
Perhaps they could hit a wooden driver that far offline before, but never that far.
Watching the recent IKE Amateur played at The Bridge, there are plenty of long drivers around-shockingly many carrying it 300, but there were many, many multiples of lost balls and provisionals on corridors averaging 80-100 yards wide, and with a field average well above 80, a lot of lost balls which would be in backyards on housing courses.
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Eric seems to mostly see golfers with major LOFT issues. Out here in SD, there are a lot of incredible athletes playing golf. And most baseball players out here play so golf, and SD probably has the best high school baseball depth in the country. I know my friend's son was clocked at 134 to 137 on Trackman last fall, and his misses were more a function of path rather than contact. When hitting balls at couple local ranges, I see a lot of kids who have speed and pretty good contact, but path and clubface issues. Of course there are the usual LOFT types chopping away, but on the local courses, I don't see too many short hitters hitting from back tees.
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Eric seems to mostly see golfers with major LOFT issues. Out here in SD, there are a lot of incredible athletes playing golf. And most baseball players out here play so golf, and SD probably has the best high school baseball depth in the country. I know my friend's son was clocked at 134 to 137 on Trackman last fall, and his misses were more a function of path rather than contact. When hitting balls at couple local ranges, I see a lot of kids who have speed and pretty good contact, but path and clubface issues. Of course there are the usual LOFT types chopping away, but on the local courses, I don't see too many short hitters hitting from back tees.
Well Robert, when those guys are playing baseball,"path" issues result in shorter distance to left and right field fences, and spray hitting doubles and triples on mishits ;)
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But can't we agree that a house that once was safe, is less safe now because higher club and ball speeds are being generated by longer, lighter drivers with faces that rebound and balls that spin less?
Sure, but I haven't argued against that. People generally swing the driver faster these days.
Eric seems to mostly see golfers with major LOFT issues.
No, I have seen the data from thousands upon thousands of golfers. I'm not referring to anecdotal evidence.
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What’s the definition of “better player”?
My impression is a single digit or better HC. Regularly shooting scores in the 70s or better, with a few low 80s sprinkled in...
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What’s the definition of “better player”?
My impression is a single digit or better HC. Regularly shooting scores in the 70s or better, with a few low 80s sprinkled in...
Still someone for whom the course is too hard …. coz if the course wasn’t too hard for them well, they wouldn’t need a handicap! :)
Atb
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What’s the definition of “better player”?
My impression is a single digit or better HC. Regularly shooting scores in the 70s or better, with a few low 80s sprinkled in...
Still someone for whom the course is too hard …. coz if the course wasn’t too hard for them well, they wouldn’t need a handicap! :)
Atb
Yes Thomas good point.
But when I read better, i usually just add two words to the end for context.. "than most". Of all the golfers on the planet, I'm guessing maybe 10-15% of them are legitimate single digit cappers or "better"
P.S. Let us not forget the generally accepted context for par : "For golf purposes, the USGA defined "par" as, "the score that an expert player would be expected to make for a given hole. Par means expert play under ordinary weather conditions, allowing two strokes on the putting green."
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It is my contention that he is overstepping when he makes statements like "Longer hitters tend to be straighter. Driver distance and driver accuracy improve with golfer skill."
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... the "smash mouth" golfers are rare, and the bad smash mouth golfers don't average anywhere close to 300 yards because they mis-hit it 80% of the time or something.
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You may be talking about a golfer's average, but he did not make that qualification in his statement. Therefore, "It is my contention that he is overstepping" in his statement.
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You may be talking about a golfer's average, but he did not make that qualification in his statement. Therefore, "It is my contention that he is overstepping" in his statement.
He's not over-stepping. He has the data of tens of thousands of golfers and is an expert in precisely this type of stuff.
Better players tend to be both longer and more accurate (as measured by degrees offline). The R^2 is not 1.0, but it's strongly correlated to both values.
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When I was a student some years back, Mrs. Pate gave me an F on a book report that I thought was well-written. I went to her after class to ask why I had received an F, and she answered that I got an F because F was the lowest grade that she was allowed to give. I didn't understand, and she explained in no uncertain terms that no matter how good my writing was, it was quite obvious that I had not read the book I was reporting on. And she was right, of course.
From that time on, I've made it a point not to discuss books that I have NOT read in a voice that implies that I know what I am talking about. It has been a good policy, I think, and one I intend to continue for whatever time I have left.
Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. Mrs. Pate was my 5th grade teacher; I was 10 years old at the time. Even that may have been late to learn the lesson that one should read books before one critiques said books.
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Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. Mrs. Pate was my 5th grade teacher; I was 10 years old at the time. Even that may have been late to learn the lesson that one should read books before one critiques said books.
A.G.-I agree and would say the same rule should apply for critiquing golf courses. It’s not fair to the architect if someone hasn’t played or walked the holes.
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Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. Mrs. Pate was my 5th grade teacher; I was 10 years old at the time. Even that may have been late to learn the lesson that one should read books before one critiques said books.
A.G.-I agree and would say the same rule should apply for critiquing golf courses. It’s not fair to the architect if someone hasn’t played or walked the holes.
Tim, I agree 100%. Back in the days of Pat Mucci and Tommy Naccarato and Tom Huckaby a host of others that brought this site to prominence, that was gospel.
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Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. Mrs. Pate was my 5th grade teacher; I was 10 years old at the time. Even that may have been late to learn the lesson that one should read books before one critiques said books.
A.G.-I agree and would say the same rule should apply for critiquing golf courses. It’s not fair to the architect if someone hasn’t played or walked the holes.
Tim, I agree 100%. Back in the days of Pat Mucci and Tommy Naccarato and Tom Huckaby a host of others that brought this site to prominence, that was gospel.
I miss Pat. He was a wealth of information.
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When I was a student some years back, Mrs. Pate gave me an F on a book report that I thought was well-written. I went to her after class to ask why I had received an F, and she answered that I got an F because F was the lowest grade that she was allowed to give. I didn't understand, and she explained in no uncertain terms that no matter how good my writing was, it was quite obvious that I had not read the book I was reporting on. And she was right, of course.
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I guess I have to give you and Erik an F, as neither of you have made the slightest attempt at answering a simple question about the book. Dare i surmise you haven't read it? ;)
Erik at least claims it was from tens of thousands of rounds of golf, but criticizes my suggestion that his method was described in the article I linked. Yet still he does not state how the data was collected.
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We're talking about the average drive. Bad golfers generally DO NOT average 300 yards. They may pop one occasionally, but they're not doing it very often, owing to their mis-hits, their slices, their heel jobs, etc.
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There, you see you said it. Golfers capable of long hits are inaccurate. A very nice refutation of Broadie's "Longer hitters tend to be straighter." ;D
Thank you for your support!
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I guess I have to give you and Erik an F, as neither of you have made the slightest attempt at answering a simple question about the book. Dare i surmise you haven't read it? ;)
Surmising that would be on point for you and as accurate as anything else you've said in this topic. You've offered nothing but anecdotes, but sure, you know more about this than a guy who has made a name for himself doing just this stuff.
Again, of the skills you could list that make for a better golfer, distance and accuracy would be at the top. It makes sense that better players hit it both farther and more accurately than worse players. There will be exceptions, but they aren't as prevalent as many seem to believe by their anecdotal evidence.
Pretty simple.
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When I was a student some years back, Mrs. Pate gave me an F on a book report that I thought was well-written. I went to her after class to ask why I had received an F, and she answered that I got an F because F was the lowest grade that she was allowed to give. I didn't understand, and she explained in no uncertain terms that no matter how good my writing was, it was quite obvious that I had not read the book I was reporting on. And she was right, of course.
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I guess I have to give you and Erik an F, as neither of you have made the slightest attempt at answering a simple question about the book. Dare i surmise you haven't read it? ;)
Erik at least claims it was from tens of thousands of rounds of golf, but criticizes my suggestion that his method was described in the article I linked. Yet still he does not state how the data was collected.
I can see why A.G. and Erik made no attempt to answer how the data was collected based on having read the book. Other than stating he used Shotlink data from the PGA Tour, Broadie says little about how the data was collected, other than to say he has lots of it. However, they have no excuse for not answering whether the research was published in peer reviewed journals. The book has no bibliography, nor does it mention any published research. So there was no reason to omit stating that other than perhaps it would upset their apple cart of idolizing Broadie.
I thought of raising their grades to C, but their utter failure to recognize that Broadie himself disputed his own assertion suggests though they may have read the book, they don't seem to remember or comprehend much from it. On page 102, Broadie wrote, “For a 90-golfer who hits wild 300-yard drives, accuracy is the weakness that needs to be addressed.” So Broadie admits that it is possible to hit it long without having accuracy! Furthermore, he discusses how Arnie learned to hit it long before learning to hit it straight by stating on the same page that Arnie's father’s advice to Arnie was: “Hit it hard boy. Go find it and hit it hard again.” So Broadie was making the same arguments that length and accuracy don't go hand in hand that I was making, and A. G. and Erik either didn't retain this from their reading, or avoided it, because it didn't mesh with their idolization of him.
Broadie further directly contradicts his highlighted assertion that A. G. and Erik have been defending here with his further statement on page 102, “Junior golfers who hit it long can often learn to hit it straight later.”
Finally on page 103, Broadie highlights the assertion, “Longer hitters tend to be straighter hitters.”
This is a strange assertion since it appears on the same page as his statement “For tour pros, there’s little relation between distance and direction.” One has to wonder if he himself has been reading what he has been writing. ???
If this were a book review, I would have to give the book a thumbs down. It appears to be simply an effort monetize a simple (in his own words) calculation. It only takes subtraction to come up with the stats given the database of averages compiled from Shotlink. I found quite boring all the added fluff to fluff the content up to book size. I would recommend the Cliff's Notes (if one exists) version over the full book.
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I can see why A.G. and Erik made no attempt to answer how the data was collected based on having read the book.
Because at a certain point (which I keep moving earlier and earlier into any conversation with you), wasting time engaging with you is just that: a waste of time. You've got absolutely nothing to stand on here.
What data have you got, Garland? Does it include millions of shots?
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Garland,
Not sure why this topic rankles your feathers this much, but Broadie does show a descending line chart, noting that any pro above the line is more accurate than average, below is less accurate. It's not that he doesn't acknowledge there are exceptions, but for golfers, he (and others who use stats similarly) thinks using stats to play for avoiding the miss is a statistically smart move. You have given some one off examples, which don't really matter, other than proving that there are exceptions to every rule. I believe his statistics are still valid for design use.
The data I mostly use isn't from his book, but from his 2009 golf metrics paper, which is obviously a foundation for his book, although I note a few differences I can't reconcile but haven't called him to discuss. For me, even though his data was then just 513 A players and 513 D players, from which I have extrapolated the B and C dispersion patterns. Surprisingly, those 513 shots are the most data available anywhere on amateur players, although the USGA/RA has been doing similar work in their last three distance reports, and before the Broadie data above, it did a one day, 150 shot dispersion study on a course in NJ. BTW, those two studies and a few others I have collected from gca's over the years, seem remarkably consistent to me, although I am no statistician.
I feel pretty comfortable in using that to determine that if I want 1 in 8 D players to stay on the short grass to speed play, my play corridor needs to be X feet wide, and usually about 125%-150% wider on the right than left. Of course, as I note in my book, accomodating 1 in 8 D players probably requires an area the size of Montana, LOL. My perception is that having at least some data that can corroborate that I, a) thought about it, and b) am statistically above the vague "preponderance of shots should be contained" legal theory is my driving force in using his and other data.
Which brings me back to the question of why this data, or disproving it, seems so important to you? Just asking.
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Not sure why this topic rankles your feathers this much,
...
Which brings me back to the question of why this data, or disproving it, seems so important to you? Just asking.
1. The statement highlighted is meaningless (depending on how he wants to define the word tend), or wrong. If you take his data from the top 40 strokes gained driving, you will find that the most accurate five drivers are significantly shorter than the top five drivers. They average 17.4 yards shorter, but average 0.634 degrees more accurate. That means the longest drivers lose almost 18% in accuracy to gain their 17.4 yards. Had he said that highly trained top professionals tend to be both long and accurate, I would have no problem with it. But of course that too would be meaningless, because they wouldn't be top professionals if they weren't highly trained.
2. He bases his "descending line" result on a vast amount of data, but offers no information on the source of the data for nonprofessional golfers. The article I was able to find and post a link to indicates that the source of his data was not a properly scientifically chosen sample. Therefore, it seems disingenuous to me to present results from his data as if it were scientific without a proper disclaimer. Likewise presenting like it were scientific without having it go through scientific review. (I would be interesting in knowing more about the paper you mentioned.)
3. Certain posters on this site mislead readers of the site by promulgating such questionable statements like they were unassailable facts.
4. I should have suspected this from seeing his quotation before reading his book, but I find his writing and the editing of his editors to be quite sloppy now that I have read his work. For example, page 136 "Downhill putts: Target should be farther beyond the hole." Sloppy (or lazy) use of the word target, instead of, for example, "desired finish". For the conventional use of the word target, making your target farther beyond the hole on downhill putts than you do for uphill putts would result in you putting off the green oft times.
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Garland,
I thought it was somewhat poorly written, and I don't know if it was you or someone else who felt thought it was padded to turn a booklet into a book, a charge I could level at many, many books. So, I'm with you there.
That said, my take on golf stats is they don't have to be nearly as accurate as say, space shuttle engineering math. It's a pretty new field, and no one's life is on the line, so I give them something of a pass. It's sort of similar to the statistical legitimacy of golf business studies, which I find to be much less stringent than in other fields, again, perhaps due to lack of data.
And, all that said, for my purposes, they are a step forward. And, while you adequately answered my question as to rankled feathers, you didn't address why it seems so important to you, as basically, an uninterested bystander. I still don't see why there would be so much anger, even if Broadie really is only a first step to understanding golf shots. :-\
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Jeff,
He does claim scientific results in the book. For his shot link data, he has a valid claim since he has total coverage of the sample space as long as he only uses it to report results for the tour pros in the data. Interestingly he admittedly violates his own criteria for accepting data by including Rory's stats even though the data set is only 3/5s of what he requires for other players. Then magically it turns out that Rory is the primary example of long and straight to support his claim that long hitters tend to be more accurate.
For the rest of his data, he does not have a validly scientifically derived sample from the sample space. So statements about all golfers are not scientifically valid. He even goes to absurd lengths by even calculating strokes gained for a round Bobby Jones wrote about, and stating that Bobby lost 0.7 strokes to the average PGA tour putter. He made no mention whatsoever about why that is a total nonsense stat!
BTW Congrats on Ran et. al., putting at least two of your courses in his latest top 100.
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to support his claim that long hitters tend to be more accurate.
First, it's not his "claim." It's simply what the data shows. It's the "result," not his "claim." He's not proving or disproving a hypothesis.
Second, the results says more fully: "Longer drivers tend to be straighter: driving distance and driving accuracy improve with golfer skill." If you compare two PGA Tour players (roughly equally skilled), there are going to be differences. One will be longer and/or more or less accurate. One will be a better putter. But, on average, they're all going to be longer/more accurate than the average scratch golfer (and better putters too), given a large enough sample size, which he achieved.
I'll ask again: what's your data set that shows otherwise?
For the rest of his data, he does not have a validly scientifically derived sample from the sample space.
Yes, he does.
Look, if you just get to keep saying "it's not" then I can say "it is." Because… it is. He didn't select only those players who would fit his hypothesis (largely because he had no hypothesis). He had thousands of players of varying ability levels chart their shots. These are the results.
His results are "scientifically valid." Not that they even need to be, because he wasn't conducting an experiment: he was measuring. So, more importantly, they're also statistically valid.
So statements about all golfers are not scientifically valid.
They are.
Where's your data set?
Better players tend to be both longer and more accurate. Those "three" adjectives are all linked. Broadie could have just as easily written this: "Straighter drivers tend to be longer: driving accuracy and driving distance improve with golfer skill."
Your mistake appears to be using either small sample sizes (i.e. accurate PGA Tour players compared to some other PGA Tour player, or small numbers of such) or anecdotal (long hitting wild players you know).
My daughter hits a ton of fairways. More than I do. She also hits it about 70 yards shorter than I do. Better players are generally both more accurate and longer. Your refusal to accept that with no real evidence is boggling.
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I’m measuring when I use a Stimpmeter.
If I don’t do it correctly, and nobody is there to review it, my results are not valid. Scientifically or statistically.
When a claim is made about statistics, it becomes science.
Untested science. But science.
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When a claim is made about statistics, it becomes science.
Nope. Science is more than that, and though (often) based in observation, it typically involves much more than just counting things up and saying "this is what the data says."
I can stand in front of a grocery store and count the number of people wearing blue jeans, then tell you as a percentage. There's no hypothesis. There's nothing to learn except the counts. No knowledge base is advanced. Very few people would call that "science." Are census takers scientists? No. They're tabulators. Counters. Data collection is a part of science, but it isn't in and of itself "science" as most would define it.
Broadie shared the results of millions of golf shots and said that higher skilled players tend to be both longer and more accurate. It's not 100% of the time, hence the sizes of the bubbles and the use of the words "tend to." This should be obvious to all: better players do tend to be longer and more accurate.
And again, if Garland has a data set that says otherwise, let's see it. He doesn't.
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It isn't saying much, is it? Better players tend to be longer and straighter stands to reason. The real question is how much better do you have to be to be longer and straighter (I don't know the than who part which is very important)?
Ciao
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It isn't saying much, is it? Better players tend to be longer and straighter stands to reason.
Ciao
Millions of shots to determine an outcome that was already a forgone conclusion?
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I got a kick out of Garland pulling in the quote "Downhill putts: target should be farther beyond the hole." When I read the book I remember thinking "what does that mean" Showed it to friend and he was equally confused.
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For the rest of his data, he does not have a validly scientifically derived sample from the sample space. So statements about all golfers are not scientifically valid. He even goes to absurd lengths by even calculating strokes gained for a round Bobby Jones wrote about, and stating that Bobby lost 0.7 strokes to the average PGA tour putter. He made no mention whatsoever about why that is a total nonsense stat!
100% agree with this. Also, something that's being missed in all of this is that no golfer is "average," and many golfers have wildly out of the norm traits in their games. Try to tell my buddy with the pitching yips to "get as close to every green as possible," as a strategy, and you just gave the guy the worst possible way of playing golf ... for him ... on certain holes.
I've seen the guy make double, triple, and worse many, many times from 20 to 50 yards in front of a green where he has to cover a bunker with a pitch shot. But with a full wedge (80 to 120?) he makes par, or birdie (and some bogies, of course) virtually every time. Guy was a 1 to 2 who had the full game of a +3/+4, the putting of an 8, and the pitching game of a bad beginner.
Strokes gained or Fawcett can't tell him what to do because they don't have HIS data. If they did, they would tell him "Hey, you probably don't want to ever leave yourself a "tweener" shot over a bunker if you can help it. You tend to make huge numbers from there and very reasonable numbers from 80 to 120."
And in reality, the system would never pick up how bad his game truly is with those shots, because he's usually picking up at bogey or double depending on who he is playing in match play (where the overwhelming majority of golf is played for amateurs)!
Golf statistics are in their infancy for the average golfer. I'm excited to see what new we can learn in the future, but right now there just is not enough accurate data on average golfers, and the stats guys don't know what to do with outliers. They don't want to have to bother with them, as they are just "outliers" if you are looking at the data statistically only. However, each outlier is a living, breathing golfer whose strategy needs to be adjusted based on who they are as a unique golfer, not adjusted based on the "average."
There is much to be learned from averages for sure, but I'd just like the language that the stats guys use to be tempered more frequently: "For most golfers ..." "The overwhelming majority of golfers..." etc.
I think I'm making sense here. But who knows anymore. The older I get the more I doubt myself.
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Without casting judgement in either direction on this issue, I think the number 1 problem with presenting conclusions based on data is:
A person has already formed a notion on something and is looking to find data that would support it, instead of going in with none (as best as possible) and trying to follow where the data leads them. I'm certainly not guilt-free on this one..
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It isn't saying much, is it? Better players tend to be longer and straighter stands to reason.
Pretty much.
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I haven't read through the 7 pages of responses to this, but I will say this:
People who say others need to play the right tees fundamentally don't understand how others play golf. The notion of multiple tees fixing everyone's problems is the one single thing that most golfers, whether they're high or low handicappers, great or terrible architects, whatever, get wrong.
It's an awful solution to a completely different problem.
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It isn't saying much, is it? Better players tend to be longer and straighter stands to reason.
Pretty much.
Unfortunately what Erik wrote is not what Broadie wrote! With what Erik wrote, I have one thing to say.
DUH!
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Unfortunately what Erik wrote is not what Broadie wrote! With what Erik wrote, I have one thing to say.
False.
Second, the results says more fully: "Longer hitters tend to be straighter: driving distance and driving accuracy improve with golfer skill."
That's quoted directly from the text beneath the graphic which has been posted a few times in this topic:
https://thesandtrap.com/gallery/image/34-figure-6-1/ (https://thesandtrap.com/gallery/image/34-figure-6-1/)
I also wrote this:
Better players tend to be both longer and more accurate. Those "three" adjectives are all linked. Broadie could have just as easily written this: "Straighter drivers tend to be longer: driving accuracy and driving distance improve with golfer skill."
I've written (and you've ignored) this, too:
Where's your data set?
What's your evidence to the contrary?
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Erik, since you are so in tune with Broadie could you explain to me what this means "Downhill putts: target should be farther beyond the hole."
I agree with Garland. Follow that advice and I’m looking at some long comeback putts.
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Erik, since you are so in tune with Broadie could you explain to me what this means "Downhill putts: target should be farther beyond the hole."
Even though it's wildly off topic…
I will note that the graphic on page 136 is on the errata page:
http://everyshotcounts.com/errata/ (http://everyshotcounts.com/errata/)
(I believe the Kindle version gets updated.)
The content makes sense if you actually read it all. I won't quote the whole section, but the thing some of you seem to have missed (maybe because you didn't actually read the book?) is that Mark is talking about four foot putts, and he says things like this:
For short putts, the main goal is to sink it, because a three-putt is not a big worry. In order to be sunk, the putt has to reach the hole. So the target needs to be set far enough beyond the hole so that almost all putts have a chance to go in. By setting the target beyond the hole, pros leave almost no putts short. Let’s consider two short putts, a four-foot uphill and a four-foot downhill. How far beyond the hole should you set your target for these putts? Should the target be farther beyond the hole for the uphill putt or the downhill putt?
And if you read more than a sentence or two taken out of context, the meaning of the word "target" is pretty clear.
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Unfortunately what Erik wrote is not what Broadie wrote! With what Erik wrote, I have one thing to say.
False.
Second, the results says more fully: "Longer hitters tend to be straighter: driving distance and driving accuracy improve with golfer skill."
Here is what Broadie made as a highlighted point in his book.
Page 103, “Longer hitters tend to be straighter hitters.”
That is the whole total of his statement at that point.
As for the part that you show he wrote on the next page: ": driving distance and driving accuracy improve with golfer skill."
I have already said:
DUH!
Now for what you wrote:
...
I also wrote this:
[/font]
Better players tend to be both longer and more accurate. [/u][/font]
Emphasis and underlining added.
I believe that is the statement Sean was responding to.
Again
DUH!
You continued:
Those "three" adjectives are all linked. Broadie could have just as easily written this: "Straighter drivers tend to be longer: ..."
I doubt you will find data to support that! I doubt you will find posters on this website that support that!
...
Where's your data set?
What's your evidence to the contrary?
You seem to not have been reading the thread with much comprehension or recall. I retract my guess that you were an English Lit major, because even they comprehend and recall better than you seem to.
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Here is what Broadie made as a highlighted point in his book.
Page 103, “Longer hitters tend to be straighter hitters.”
That is the whole total of his statement at that point.
Yes, it's highlighted… but you're lacking the context. You're reading the headline, not the entire article.
That's your mistake. You're arguing about something you still apparently haven't read and something you clearly don't understand. You're reading a headline, not the thousands of words that flesh out what that means.
The paragraph above that:
Across a wide range of golfers, from 115-golfers to tour professionals, do longer or shorter drivers of the ball hit it straighter? From Figure 6.2 we see that John Daly’s average distance is 20 yards longer than Jim Furyk’s. Compared with Jim Furyk, John Daly hits fewer fairways and his directional error is almost one degree larger, a huge difference in accuracy. Intuition might suggest that long and wild go together. But let’s compare Boo Weekley to Shigeki Maruyama. Weekley’s average distance is 15 yards longer than Maruyama’s, he hits more fairways, and his directional error is one degree smaller. Weekley is longer and straighter than Maruyama. For every long-wild and short-straight pair of pro golfers, there’s another long-straight and short-wild pair. For tour pros, there’s little relation between distance and direction. Looking across a range of golfers from amateurs to pros, a clear pattern emerges: Longer hitters tend to be straighter hitters.
The paragraph right after that "headline" (basically a pull quote, emphasis added):
Figure 6.3 shows the longer-straighter pattern across golfers. The reason long hitters tend to be straighter hitters is simple: Golfers with better skills score lower because they hit better golf shots, and better drives are both long and straight. Tour pros are the longest and straightest of all.
Figure 6.3 is of course the one I and others have quoted a few times. The bold words appear literally about nine or ten words (depending on how you count) away from the pull quote you love to cite.
As for the part that you show he wrote on the next page:
It's a pull quote. A headline. Because you refuse to acknowledge that you're missing (or intentionally ignoring) not only the immediate context - i.e. the stuff that's a few words away, or a few inches, or all the stuff around the pull quote - but the context as a whole doesn't make this a Broadie issue or error - it makes it yet another Garland mistake.
Those "three" adjectives are all linked. Broadie could have just as easily written this: "Straighter drivers tend to be longer: ..."
I doubt you will find data to support that! I doubt you will find posters on this website that support that!
OMG. Mark Broadie's data supports this. As he explains right in this very section of the book.
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For the rest of his data, he does not have a validly scientifically derived sample from the sample space. So statements about all golfers are not scientifically valid. He even goes to absurd lengths by even calculating strokes gained for a round Bobby Jones wrote about, and stating that Bobby lost 0.7 strokes to the average PGA tour putter. He made no mention whatsoever about why that is a total nonsense stat!
100% agree with this. Also, something that's being missed in all of this is that no golfer is "average," and many golfers have wildly out of the norm traits in their games. Try to tell my buddy with the pitching yips to "get as close to every green as possible," as a strategy, and you just gave the guy the worst possible way of playing golf ... for him ... on certain holes.
I've seen the guy make double, triple, and worse many, many times from 20 to 50 yards in front of a green where he has to cover a bunker with a pitch shot. But with a full wedge (80 to 120?) he makes par, or birdie (and some bogies, of course) virtually every time. Guy was a 1 to 2 who had the full game of a +3/+4, the putting of an 8, and the pitching game of a bad beginner.
Strokes gained or Fawcett can't tell him what to do because they don't have HIS data. If they did, they would tell him "Hey, you probably don't want to ever leave yourself a "tweener" shot over a bunker if you can help it. You tend to make huge numbers from there and very reasonable numbers from 80 to 120."
And in reality, the system would never pick up how bad his game truly is with those shots, because he's usually picking up at bogey or double depending on who he is playing in match play (where the overwhelming majority of golf is played for amateurs)!
Golf statistics are in their infancy for the average golfer. I'm excited to see what new we can learn in the future, but right now there just is not enough accurate data on average golfers, and the stats guys don't know what to do with outliers. They don't want to have to bother with them, as they are just "outliers" if you are looking at the data statistically only. However, each outlier is a living, breathing golfer whose strategy needs to be adjusted based on who they are as a unique golfer, not adjusted based on the "average."
There is much to be learned from averages for sure, but I'd just like the language that the stats guys use to be tempered more frequently: "For most golfers ..." "The overwhelming majority of golfers..." etc.
I think I'm making sense here. But who knows anymore. The older I get the more I doubt myself.
FWIW, Broadie would never tell your buddy with the chipping yips NOT to play holes accordingly. Here's a quote: "While the importance-of-the-long-game principle applies for all groups of golfers, from the best pros to the worst amateurs, individual golfers have unique areas of strength and weakness. To get better, golfers need to understand where they stand." And a bit earlier, Broadie even has a section where he talks about "awful" shots, and urges amateurs to track these in order to better address their scoring issues AND identify their best strategies for playing.
I love Broadie's work; no secret there. But I've never made the mistake (or misrepresentation; take your pick) of saying that Broadie's book is an instruction manual of any sort; it isn't, and it wouldn't be useful that way. If a golfer reads the book, and isn't led to try to better analyze THEIR OWN GAME, but instead thinks that Broadie is telling him/her or ANY other golfer how to proceed, then he or she has completely missed the point.
The most interesting thing in all these pages of discussion, and not only on this thread, are the criticisms of Broadie's data, with ZERO data offered in it's place. Broadie's data, regardless of perceived imperfections, is the best in the game, and there is no second place. To say that he needs more data from high handicappers, while ignoring the fact that he has the best data set on high handicappers in the world, is sort of silly. As are anecdotal criticisms of the data set based on "this guy that I once played with...".
The book was published in 2014; in the years since, if anybody in the world has complied data which proves a single thing in Broadie's work invalid, I am unaware of it.
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Erik, since you are so in tune with Broadie could you explain to me what this means "Downhill putts: target should be farther beyond the hole."
Even though it's wildly off topic…
I will note that the graphic on page 136 is on the errata page:
http://everyshotcounts.com/errata/ (http://everyshotcounts.com/errata/)
(I believe the Kindle version gets updated.)
The content makes sense if you actually read it all. I won't quote the whole section, but the thing some of you seem to have missed (maybe because you didn't actually read the book?) is that Mark is talking about four foot putts, and he says things like this:
For short putts, the main goal is to sink it, because a three-putt is not a big worry. In order to be sunk, the putt has to reach the hole. So the target needs to be set far enough beyond the hole so that almost all putts have a chance to go in. By setting the target beyond the hole, pros leave almost no putts short. Let’s consider two short putts, a four-foot uphill and a four-foot downhill. How far beyond the hole should you set your target for these putts? Should the target be farther beyond the hole for the uphill putt or the downhill putt?
And if you read more than a sentence or two taken out of context, the meaning of the word "target" is pretty clear.
The target to me would be a spot short of the hole. I want to hit the putt like it's a 2 foot putt. The "goal" world be for it to stop 2.2 feet from the hole if the putt is missed. Semantics. Thanks for the reply
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Erik and A. G.,
Perhaps I fail to get across my point with my previous comments. When I indicate what Broadie wrote is wrong, I am criticizing his language.
To illustrate, let's consider his language on short downhill putts. He refers to the distance of the desired finish of a missed putt beyond the hole as the target. He doesn't refer to it as the target distance for missed putts. He refers to it as the target, which ignores that if the ball had really hit its target it would be in the hole. So since a ball really hits its target when it goes in the hole he is really referring to at least two targets. A high side miss target, and a low side miss target.
I hope you can see He has been a little careless in his language.
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Now for the statement:
Longer hitters tend to be straighter hitters.
As you guys have pointed out, he follows on by giving his graph of averages for groups of amateurs and the pros.
When he earlier gave the example of young Arnie learning to hit it long before he learned to hit it straight, he didn't point out that Arnie could probably hit it 300 yards, but maybe averaged 260 because foul balls hit trees, don't run much in rough, etc.
So it seem what his contested sentence should have said:
Players that are able to maintain a long average for their tee shots tend to be straighter hitters. After all, being relatively straight is how they keep their average up.
Now if you put that on the book jacket, it will guarantee I won't buy the book!
No worries, you guys had already exposed enough of the content that I read the library's copy.
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Perhaps I fail to get across my point with my previous comments. When I indicate what Broadie wrote is wrong, I am criticizing his language.
It's essentially a pull quote. You don't get to judge someone's "language" when you ignore the surrounding context.
That THIS is your point makes your entire argument here all the more laughable.
To illustrate, let's consider his language on short downhill putts. He refers to the distance of the desired finish of a missed putt beyond the hole as the target.
Again, because you don't read the context.
He doesn't refer to it as the target distance for missed putts.
He does, not by calling it the "target distance," but by the meaning of the words around the pull quote you like to focus on.
He refers to it as the target, which ignores that if the ball had really hit its target it would be in the hole. So since a ball really hits its target when it goes in the hole he is really referring to at least two targets. A high side miss target, and a low side miss target.
I have a start line target with my full swing shots. My ball hopefully doesn't stop on a spot a foot in front of my golf ball. It passes over it.
The word "target" has different meanings, especially when that's made clear by the context surrounding the pull quote.
I hope you can see He has been a little careless in his language.
Broadie isn't the careless one here, man.
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For the rest of his data, he does not have a validly scientifically derived sample from the sample space. So statements about all golfers are not scientifically valid. He even goes to absurd lengths by even calculating strokes gained for a round Bobby Jones wrote about, and stating that Bobby lost 0.7 strokes to the average PGA tour putter. He made no mention whatsoever about why that is a total nonsense stat!
100% agree with this. Also, something that's being missed in all of this is that no golfer is "average," and many golfers have wildly out of the norm traits in their games. Try to tell my buddy with the pitching yips to "get as close to every green as possible," as a strategy, and you just gave the guy the worst possible way of playing golf ... for him ... on certain holes.
I've seen the guy make double, triple, and worse many, many times from 20 to 50 yards in front of a green where he has to cover a bunker with a pitch shot. But with a full wedge (80 to 120?) he makes par, or birdie (and some bogies, of course) virtually every time. Guy was a 1 to 2 who had the full game of a +3/+4, the putting of an 8, and the pitching game of a bad beginner.
Strokes gained or Fawcett can't tell him what to do because they don't have HIS data. If they did, they would tell him "Hey, you probably don't want to ever leave yourself a "tweener" shot over a bunker if you can help it. You tend to make huge numbers from there and very reasonable numbers from 80 to 120."
And in reality, the system would never pick up how bad his game truly is with those shots, because he's usually picking up at bogey or double depending on who he is playing in match play (where the overwhelming majority of golf is played for amateurs)!
Golf statistics are in their infancy for the average golfer. I'm excited to see what new we can learn in the future, but right now there just is not enough accurate data on average golfers, and the stats guys don't know what to do with outliers. They don't want to have to bother with them, as they are just "outliers" if you are looking at the data statistically only. However, each outlier is a living, breathing golfer whose strategy needs to be adjusted based on who they are as a unique golfer, not adjusted based on the "average."
There is much to be learned from averages for sure, but I'd just like the language that the stats guys use to be tempered more frequently: "For most golfers ..." "The overwhelming majority of golfers..." etc.
I think I'm making sense here. But who knows anymore. The older I get the more I doubt myself.
FWIW, Broadie would never tell your buddy with the chipping yips NOT to play holes accordingly. Here's a quote: "While the importance-of-the-long-game principle applies for all groups of golfers, from the best pros to the worst amateurs, individual golfers have unique areas of strength and weakness. To get better, golfers need to understand where they stand." And a bit earlier, Broadie even has a section where he talks about "awful" shots, and urges amateurs to track these in order to better address their scoring issues AND identify their best strategies for playing.
I love Broadie's work; no secret there. But I've never made the mistake (or misrepresentation; take your pick) of saying that Broadie's book is an instruction manual of any sort; it isn't, and it wouldn't be useful that way. If a golfer reads the book, and isn't led to try to better analyze THEIR OWN GAME, but instead thinks that Broadie is telling him/her or ANY other golfer how to proceed, then he or she has completely missed the point.
The most interesting thing in all these pages of discussion, and not only on this thread, are the criticisms of Broadie's data, with ZERO data offered in it's place. Broadie's data, regardless of perceived imperfections, is the best in the game, and there is no second place. To say that he needs more data from high handicappers, while ignoring the fact that he has the best data set on high handicappers in the world, is sort of silly. As are anecdotal criticisms of the data set based on "this guy that I once played with...".
The book was published in 2014; in the years since, if anybody in the world has complied data which proves a single thing in Broadie's work invalid, I am unaware of it.
Thanks for that. FWIW, I was not really talking about Broadie, specifically. More his and Fawcett's sycophants who can't have a discussion without telling you why you "don't understand" the data.
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Funny I was at the range today and you can see the first 3 holes from there. I know I posted this awhile back but saw a foursome walk to back tees which stretches over 7300 yards and not one hit any drive past 250 on any of the first 3 holes. We have 2 par 3's over 240 so it will be a long day for these boys and the poor people behind them. >:(