Is the game the same except for distance....

[Bob_Huntley]

Is there a statistician in the house?

I keep reading how the current tour denizens are better athletes, have greater skills, think better and all in all, are so much better than golfers of old that I am beginning to believe it.

However, what are the stats if any, on par 3's of say, less than 200yds getting aced or birdied than twenty, thirty or even fifty years ago?

I would hazard a guess that the difference is de minimus.

Bob

[Dan_Callahan]

But wouldn't you somehow need to factor in hole location? Seems like all the talk these days is about how the holes are getting cut closer and closer to the edge. I would imagine that would have a significant impact on scoring average.

[ForkaB]

Excellent post, Bob.  My vote is for de minimus too.

[JESII]

My bet is that the bar tab after the aces on tour 30 years ago would have been higher than todays are.

[Anthony Butler]

But wouldn't you somehow need to factor in hole location? Seems like all the talk these days is about how the holes are getting cut closer and closer to the edge. I would imagine that would have a significant impact on scoring average.

Sometimes it seems like they're only two paces onto the green. I was under the impression the accepted minimum was 9 feet. Can someone enlighten me on this?

[RSLivingston_III]

I keep reading how the current tour denizens are better athletes, have greater skills, think better and all in all, are so much better than golfers of old that I am beginning to believe it.

Here's the contrarian view.
Modern pros are better athletes, but have less skills and generally don't have to think much at all. Even the USGA thinks the game has been de-skilled.

[Bryan Izatt]

I doubt if there is anything that is statistically sound to support or refute the the theory.  There are too many variables that relate to scoring beyond players' abilities. Length of par 3's, pin location, green conditions, etc.

For what it's worth, the tour's leader in percentage of par 3's (of any length) birdied on has gone up from 17.5% to 18.2% in the last 25 years.  Less than 5% improvement.  The 40th ranked player has fone from 14.2% to 14.4%.  The current 1st and 40th leaders are Corey Pavin   and Tiger Woods.  I guess that's why Corey, who's last in driving, is still in business on the Tour.

The 1st and 40th leaders in total eagles, have gone from 16 to 19 and from 5 to 8 from 1980 to 2005.  Say a 20% to 60% gain.  Surprisingly the average score on par 5's has only gone down 2%.

The conclusion from the "stats" - those poor players are just barely keeping up with the tougher courses.  

[Jim Nugent]

I'm not a statistician, but I did find some numbers that address your question, Bob.  They are what percentage of the time tour players birdie par 3's.  Not a perfect answer, but at least a move in the right direction.

Percentages are for the 100th rated player each year.  (That is a lot easier than figuring the mean average, which I don't want to spend the time to do.)  Stats are from PGATOUR.com, and only go back as far as 1980:

2005               13%

1995               13%

1985               11.8%

1980               11.8%

So the 100th rated pro birdies par 3's about 10% more than the 100th rated pro did 20 or 25 years ago.  While there are some obvious limitations, that does not seem to me like much of a difference.  

BTW, I wonder if anyone can guess who the leader was last year -- i.e. who birdied par 3's last year the highest percentage of the time?

That marvel of a physical specimen, Corey Pavin.  

[Doug Siebert]

Bryan beat me to it, but I was going to suggest that the proper metric is birdies, not aces.

If someone finds some stats for aces in say 1980 versus 2005, I'll bet that aces per round have probably doubled since then, but not because they are all that much better now than they used to be.  The greens are faster which means that a ball hit onto a green will roll more.  Given 1000 shots that land within say 15 feet of the hole, they are probably twice as likely to make one of them if the ball rolls twice as far.  If the ball just stuck exactly where it landed and didn't move you'd see only a few aces a year on tour, because those in-on-the-fly aces are about as rare as they always have been.

[Peter Pallotta]

A very good question, Bob, and neatly phrased.

This might be a little off point, but I'd only say this: I find it interesting that (according to a recent 'technolgy' thread) the USGA used to test golf balls for swing speeds that maxed out at 109 miles an hour. Yes, swing speeds HAVE increased since then (i.e. the 60s and 70s), but not by THAT much, have they? And certainly not by as much as one might start to imagine.

I mean, take the modern golfer (i.e. in the gym ALL the time, with a better diet, a more "schooled" technique, and a greater self-discipline and self-regard) and then take an old style golf pro from the 60s, with his scotch-on-the-rocks diet, his girl in every port life-style, and his near fanatic aversion to doing ANY exercise whatsoever, and you'd think that swing speeds would have almost DOUBLED in the last 30 years, judging from the way people talk about it. Instead, they've gone up, what, 10 miles an hour on average, 15? And that's not even factoring in that maybe the old guys weren't swinging full out, EVER, because of the equipment they were using.

Which is to say, this is one of the absolute charms of golf: there are so many ways to play it, so many ways to score well, so many ways to work your way around a golf course, and so many different types of people/personalities who can play it, and play it well. It's something intrinsic to the game/sport: try as you might, you can't CONQUER it; but then again, neither can the otherwise outstanding athlete.

Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky were absolute greats in their sports, and top-flight athletes, but I bet there are a few broken down, scotch drinking, cigarette smoking 40 year olds on this site who could more than hold their own against them over 18 holes.

So, no, the game hasn't changed that much, IMHO.

Peter

[David Ober]

I'm not a statistician, but I did find some numbers that address your question, Bob.  They are what percentage of the time tour players birdie par 3's.  Not a perfect answer, but at least a move in the right direction.

Percentages are for the 100th rated player each year.  (That is a lot easier than figuring the mean average, which I don't want to spend the time to do.)  Stats are from PGATOUR.com, and only go back as far as 1980:

2005               13%

1995               13%

1985               11.8%

1980               11.8%

So the 100th rated pro birdies par 3's about 10% more than the 100th rated pro did 20 or 25 years ago.  While there are some obvious limitations, that does not seem to me like much of a difference.  

BTW, I wonder if anyone can guess who the leader was last year -- i.e. who birdied par 3's last year the highest percentage of the time?

That marvel of a physical specimen, Corey Pavin.  

I terms of high level golf, a 10% improvement in any part of your game is a HUGE improvement. If I made 10% more birdies, 10% fewer bogies, 10% more putts, and hit it 10% farther off the tee I'd make a very, very good living playing this game.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Is there a statistician in the house?

I keep reading how the current tour denizens are better athletes, have greater skills, think better and all in all, are so much better than golfers of old that I am beginning to believe it.

However, what are the stats if any, on par 3's of say, less than 200yds getting aced or birdied than twenty, thirty or even fifty years ago?

I would hazard a guess that the difference is de minimus.

Bob,

I'd say that ball flight has changed dramatically, horizontally and vertically.

Hi-tech clubs and balls have narrowed shot patterns and made it more difficult to work the ball.

The ability of clubs to get higher trajectories has also served to negate the need for ball movement.

[Jim Thompson]

It is with great pleasure that I state that Ralph Livingston is correct.

It is with some reluctance that I must admit that Mucci is too.

JT

[Jim_Kennedy]

Bob,
I see you went with the safe bet.  
The stats posted seem to bear out your conclusion, just a slight change over the past 20-25 years. The numbers might increase a bit more if there were stats to compare from the pre-1930 era, but that's just a guess on my part and, overall, I think they are more indicative of better conditioning. I don't think we'll ever see big differences in those numbers, IMO there would not be more than a couple of birdies separating Jones, Nelson, Hogan, Palmer, Nicklaus, Watson or Woods if they each hit 100 shots and putted out on the same mid length par 3. Take away the element of distance and golf is tiddly-winks, it's all about feel and touch, and those skills aren't purely the function of athleticism.  

[David Ober]

Take away the element of distance and golf is tiddly-winks, it's all about feel and touch, and those skills aren't purely the function of athleticism.  

You're absolutely right, but distance has been and always will be a huge part of this game, so players who COMBINE athletic ability with great tiddly-winks acumen will always come to the fore.

[Doug Siebert]

This might be a little off point, but I'd only say this: I find it interesting that (according to a recent 'technolgy' thread) the USGA used to test golf balls for swing speeds that maxed out at 109 miles an hour. Yes, swing speeds HAVE increased since then (i.e. the 60s and 70s), but not by THAT much, have they? And certainly not by as much as one might start to imagine.

Peter,

The ODS and initial velocity tests used 109 mph and only 109 mph because that was supposedly the speed at which Byron Nelson swung (at least at whatever time that was measured, it may or may not been in his younger years when he had maximum swing speed)  They didn't think it was any sort of a maximum and probably didn't give much thought at the time about whether if you lost 25 yards dropping from 109 to 99 in their test if it meant you also gained 25 yards increasing from 109 to 119.

Swing speeds have increased, but I think much of it is due to 1) longer clubs, 2) lighter clubs, 3) more forgiving clubs that encourage one to swing harder with confidence.  Not saying golfers aren't bigger and more interested in fitness today, I just don't agree with those who say its all "increased athleticism".  Give JB Holmes a steel shafted persimmon driver and I'll bet his swing speed drops (even if he CAN swing it as fast as his regular driver, he won't if he wants a chance to make cuts)

[Bill Shotzbarger]

I'm not a statistician, but I did find some numbers that address your question, Bob.  They are what percentage of the time tour players birdie par 3's.  Not a perfect answer, but at least a move in the right direction.

Percentages are for the 100th rated player each year.  (That is a lot easier than figuring the mean average, which I don't want to spend the time to do.)  Stats are from PGATOUR.com, and only go back as far as 1980:

2005               13%

1995               13%

1985               11.8%

1980               11.8%

So the 100th rated pro birdies par 3's about 10% more than the 100th rated pro did 20 or 25 years ago.  While there are some obvious limitations, that does not seem to me like much of a difference.  

BTW, I wonder if anyone can guess who the leader was last year -- i.e. who birdied par 3's last year the highest percentage of the time?

That marvel of a physical specimen, Corey Pavin.  

Guys, please realize that to say that this is "only" a 10% difference is sort of statistical hocus pocus because there are realistic paramaters surrounding how much that stat can move and because of where you're starting.  It depends on what the base is.  If you assume that 11.8% of Tour players will always birdie par 3's and use that  as your base/starting point, the percentage increase is also infinite.  

I still don't understand how you guys are getting 10%...

13% - 11.8% = 1.2%

Thus, a pro in '05 birdies par 3s 1.2% more than a pro in '80.

[Ted Kramer]

My bet is that the bar tab after the aces on tour 30 years ago would have been higher than todays are.

I love short, simple, accurate, unexpected answers.
Nicely done!

-Ted

[Doug Siebert]

I still don't understand how you guys are getting 10%...

13% - 11.8% = 1.2%

Thus, a pro in '05 birdies par 3s 1.2% more than a pro in '80.

Assume 1000 holes were played, so 11.8% is 118 birdies and 13% is 130 birdies.  Going from 118 to 130 birdies would be an increase of just over 10%.

[Jim_Kennedy]

David,
Of course distance is a major component but Bob asked a somewhat different question.

When it comes to distance, think about what any of the golfers I mentioned would have been able do in their prime with the tools of today's Pro.

[Bob_Huntley]

Talking of shot making, I played today with an old friend and someone who could really call the shots. Artie McNickel was a Northern Californian who won bunches of stuff as an amateur, had some high finishes on tour, played in a couple of Masters and had top tens in the US Open etc.

I was asking him about distance and he replied that he is as long now as in his best days. He was sixty years old this year.

He plays with a Titleist driver and when I noticed it had a 7.5 degree face and commented that everyone on tour seems to have gone to the plus ten degree club, his comment was, "What if you want to hit it lower?"  

Just seeing a player contol the ball, instead of a massive heave was a delight.

Bob

[Jim Nugent]

I terms of high level golf, a 10% improvement in any part of your game is a HUGE improvement. If I made 10% more birdies, 10% fewer bogies, 10% more putts, and hit it 10% farther off the tee I'd make a very, very good living playing this game.

David, I doubt that 10% difference is statistically significant in this case.  As Bryan said above, there are too many variables.    

 

[Bryan Izatt]

In a year the pros play about 90 rounds with, say, 4 par 3's per round.  If the sample player here is making 13% birdies on those holes, that a total of 47 birdies a year on par 3's.  A 10% improvement is maybe 5 more birdies a year.   That's 1 every 18 rounds or 1 every 5 tournaments.  It's not going to help much with the time share jet payments

[Jim Nugent]

The differences show up a lot more on par 4's and par 5's.  Here are the figures for percentage birdies or better for the 100th rated player, again from PGATOUR.com:

Par 4's...

2005            16.1%

2000            15.4%

1995            14.8%

1990            14.1%

1985            13.4%

1980            12.4%

In 2005, the 100th rated player made birdie 29.8% more often than in 1980.  Tiger was the leader last year: he birdied (or better) 22.4% of all par 4's.  Corey only birdied 14.7% of par 4's.  He had a much better chance to birdie par 3's.  Seems like a pretty clear message on what he needs to do to improve his game.

Par 5's...

2005            40.7%

2000            36.7%

1995            35.5%

1990            33.9%

1985            30.9%

1980            29.7%  

The average score on tour has dropped about a stroke or so since 1980.  Now we see in a nutshell where that is coming from.  And why are they making so many more birdies on par 4's and 5's?  I put my money on equipment, not better training or athletes.    

[TEPaul]

"He plays with a Titleist driver and when I noticed it had a 7.5 degree face and commented that everyone on tour seems to have gone to the plus ten degree club, his comment was, "What if you want to hit it lower?""

Bob:

There is a huge amount of concern today over increased distance but that remark above indicates that some golfers (good ones?) are still very much aware of the give and take available amongst the variety of balls and equipment and the results in performance in their combinations. Clearly there are a number of very good golfers who for one reason or another could pick up even more yardage if they chose to. (The USGA Tech Center mentioned this semi-caveat the other day).

Obviously, if he wanted to your friend Artie McNickel could hit an available golf ball farther due to more carry distance but for whatever reason he chooses not to do that (maybe he thinks a lower flight pattern is safer---eg wind?).

The somewhat scary fact is there is no question at all that some of these ultra long players like J.B. Holmes and that young man from Nebraska, John Hurley who both produced recorded (by the USGA) ball speeds of around 195 mph (the highest the USGA has seen in person), purposely choose to use equipment and balls that do not produce the maximum distance or carry distance they could acheive it they chose to.

For instance J.B. Holmes apparently uses a reduced COR driver and a higher spin ball than he could use and Hurley, who is as long as any competitor you will see hits the ball fairly low compared to some of the other ultra long players he competes against.

I actually asked him about that and he said he likes to hit it lower because it can be very windy in Nebraska. He said he was fitted with equipment, including a driver that probably produced maximum distance for him but he broke his driver. When I asked him if the one he was using also produced maximum distance he said it likely didn't. When I asked him why he didn't get another one that produced maximum distance for him he merely said because he likes the one he has just fine even if it's not as long due to a less high trajectory and less carry distance. He said distance just wasn't a problem for him.

That's certainlly the distance understatement of the year.

Having watched him for close to a week it appears that in neutral conditions the driver he uses produces a CARRY DISTANCE of around 320-330 with a really well executed swing. I guess if he chose to use a driver with a loft that produced maximum available loft and launch angle and carry distance for the ball that's ideal for carry distance with his particular swing he could probably carry the ball around 340-350yds. (There are definite anomalies with players like that because he did hit a drive at PCC that went about 390 yards on an uphill hole apparently without an excessive amount of roll-out---eg probably something like 30 yards).

BTW, the USGA Tech Center's rough calculation of a ball speed of 195 mph is the product of a swing speed of app 133-135 mph.

That's ultra fast.

Some say that long driving champions produce a swing speed of 150 mph. I do not believe that for a moment. I think that sounds decidedly like a gross exaggeration, and a swing speed that is just an exaggerated prediction and not an actual test result.