[TEPaul]

Well, how much better? What have you---or can you learn from them?

[Jordan Wall]

The pros hit driver every hole.
We amatuers really do all the thinking!!

[Adam Clayman]

The tenth at Shinnethingy, back in ought four, highlited their weakness in management. Michaud's shaving of the rear hillside was such a simple way to expose them, too.

[Matt_Sullivan]

From my experience, the pros are more conservative than we are. I saw a number of Euro Tour events at my previous home course in Singapore and the pros (including the top pros) played the course more conservatively than I (or my friends) did.

I saw Monty shoot a 67 where he basically hit away from the water the whole time (and there is a lot of water on the course). So if a pin was within 5 or 6 paces of the water, Monty was 5 or 6 paces away on the other side of the pin. Similarly off the tee, water on the right the everyone took it down the left half. (The only fairways I saw Faldo miss all day was on the left side of fairways with water on the right).

At pro events I see genuine disgust in a player's face when he short sides himself or leaves himself in a really bad position. They tend to take their medicine when they get into trouble. (Look how remarkable we all thought Mickelson's antics were at Winged Foot -- and yet I do something similar once every weekend!)

Generally the poorest shots I have seen top pros play (topped woods, fat bunker shots) have been in skins events where they are really going for it.

I think in general, a pro's course management is aimed at avoiding big numbers. The rise of bomb and gouge in recent years is not a result of pros changing to a more aggressive strategy. It is simply that if you are long enough, hitting the driver as far as you can is the best percentage play.

[Glenn Spencer]

I will put my thinking up against anyone, anytime, anywhere. My execution and putting are something all together different.

[RichMacafee]

I will put my thinking up against anyone, anytime, anywhere. My execution and putting are something all together different.

Exactly. It is a lot easier to manage your way around a golf course when you know where you are going to hit it!

[Eric Franzen]

"The Elements of Scoring" by Raymond Floyd is a decent book that describes how he thinks his way around the course and what we can learn from it.

It's a game of misses, and a scorer knows where to miss it

I am sure that we mortal creatures have a lot to pick up from these guys on how to handle yourself on the course in a competitive situation. Especially when it comes to dealing with temptations.

[Tom_Doak]

Jordan:  For pros, hitting driver every hole is a good play.  They are pretty comfortable where they're going to hit it, and they are also pretty confident their wedge will get them out of trouble if things go wrong.

Matt has it right, or at least Pete Dye agrees with him ... most pros are very conservative in their course management until it gets to the back nine on Sunday and they are in contention.  I suspect that's why some of them go haywire when they have a chance to win -- it's not just the pressure that puts them out of their comfort zone but also the fact that they are actually thinking about attacking the hole and their conscience is still telling them to watch out.

[Padraig Dooley]

Pros have better short games not necessarily better strategy, I could be wrong but course conditions and set up negate a lot of stategy.

If you birdie the par 5's and par everything else you are looking at 16 under, which I think would make you slightly rich.

Become a demon wedge player and play to the middle of the green on par 3's and 4's, no need for strategy then.

As Pete Dye said when you get them thinking they're in trouble.

[Michael Moore]

"The difference," Tom said, "is that when you guys get in tournaments, the likelihood is that you'll lose your concentration on four or five shots every round."

- Dr. Bob Rotella, Golf is Not a Game of Perfect

[Glenn Spencer]

Actually, I take back what I said above. I was thinking only from the fairway or off the tee. I think the place where the pros REALLY shine, is when they have driven it into trouble. This is where they separate themselves in my opinion.

[Phil Benedict]

Golf isn't rocket science.  Their advantage is overwhelming in execution, not thinking.  To the extent they out-think us, it's because they are doing it for a living and are playing metal play.  We are doing it for recreation and usually playing match play, where a bad decision costs you a hole.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I think its 500% better than the average golfer, and its harder and harder (but not impossible, see Mickelsons US Open final hole) to fool them into a mistake.

I know one pro who had the coach temporarily suspend his grandson from a college golf team because as he followed him, he was upset with his course management, bombing tee shots and second shots on par 5's that had no chance of getting home, but did have a chance of finding hazards, etc.  "Defense wins championships" in all sports, including golf.

Over on Cybergolf - and I think I posted it here once - I wrote a piece on the value of strategy.  While I concluded that strategy/course management could only save you one stroke a round, perhaps 2, four shots in a 72 hole tournament would cost a pro millions of dollars over the course of a career.  And the competition makes the margins so small between golfers that its enough to make the difference at high levels.

Having said all that, it would be interesting to self study your self, i.e. play to the middle of the greens, wide side of fw, etc. for a full round, and go back out the next day and take normal chances that pros don't take to see how much it would improve the average score.

[Jeff Fortson]

No offense to anyone in here but.....

I am not on the PGA Tour or even the Nationwide Tour but players on those tours and even players on mini-tours think their way around courses MUCH better than the average ameteur.  Someone said above that it is hard to fool tour pros and he's right.  Nearly every decent professional at any level can sniff out sucker hole locations and high risk tee shot opportunities like good poker players can sniff out suckers.

Most pros have game plans or strategy predetermined before they tee it up where many amateurs make decisions as they come.  I see more carelessness in preshot routines and preparation from amateurs as well.  Pros simply "take care" of the ball better.

Look, it's like this.....  It's a tour pro's job to play golf.  If it were your job, I'm sure you'd be more prepared and smarter with your decisions too.  If I were an accountant I would certainly "take care" of my business and clients better than I could now.  

I think most players think they know the proper play.  It's about putting forth a system in which one executes that plan.  Most can't execute what they see or get too flustered to really focus.  I mean everything from preparing one's mind, to preparing one's swing, and to preparing one's body to hit the shot one intends is how a tour pro really out-thinks an ameteur.  


Jeff F.

[Tom Huckaby]

Jeff:

I'd agree with all of that... BUT... I think the conclusion is not that pros "think" better, but rather that they are simply better golfers.   I guess it's just semantics but your descriptions tell me why they produce better shots and better scores, but not necessarily why they think better.

Because I too fully believe that in terms of course management, the pros are WAY better than us yokel amateurs.  And of course they handle pressure way better, get themselves in the proper frame of mind to hit the shot way better, choose the best shot to hit way better.  All true.

BUT... I think there's a grain of truth to what several have said in this thread - they don't have the challenges we do when it comes to thinking.   You probably ought not to do this for your frame of mind as a competitive golfer, but work with me here:  try to remember the last time you were playing REALLY poorly and didn't really know where the ball was going.  Did you continue to think as perfectly that round?  Oh, I have no doubt you managed to scrape a decent score in even with that mindset.  But the point is this:  THAT is how damn near all amateurs have to face every single round they play.

So the challenges are a LOT higher for us!  

And those who succeed in getting the most out of their abilities - with this as their reality in the hitting of the shots - those to me are the great thinkers in golf.

Thus I nominate my Dad as a better thinker than any pro.  The man can't hit the ball more than 175 yards ever, can't carry it 150, but yet he manages to scrape it around 100 any time he cares to try hard.  He has never met a hazard he couldn't find a way around.  He plays to his limited strengths with unflagging devotion.  He limits the bleeding on his bad holes amazingly.

THAT to me is great golf thinking.  What the pros do is great golf execution.  Again, maybe it's semantics... But this is another way to look at it anyway.

TH

[Glenn Spencer]

Jeff:

I'd agree with all of that... BUT... I think the conclusion is not that pros "think" better, but rather that they are simply better golfers.   I guess it's just semantics but your descriptions tell me why they produce better shots and better scores, but not necessarily why they think better.

Because I too fully believe that in terms of course management, the pros are WAY better than us yokel amateurs.  And of course they handle pressure way better, get themselves in the proper frame of mind to hit the shot way better, choose the best shot to hit way better.  All true.

BUT... I think there's a grain of truth to what several have said in this thread - they don't have the challenges we do when it comes to thinking.   You probably ought not to do this for your frame of mind as a competitive golfer, but work with me here:  try to remember the last time you were playing REALLY poorly and didn't really know where the ball was going.  Did you continue to think as perfectly that round?  Oh, I have no doubt you managed to scrape a decent score in even with that mindset.  But the point is this:  THAT is how damn near all amateurs have to face every single round they play.

So the challenges are a LOT higher for us!  

And those who succeed in getting the most out of their abilities - with this as their reality in the hitting of the shots - those to me are the great thinkers in golf.

Thus I nominate my Dad as a better thinker than any pro.  The man can't hit the ball more than 175 yards ever, can't carry it 150, but yet he manages to scrape it around 100 any time he cares to try hard.  He has never met a hazard he couldn't find a way around.  He plays to his limited strengths with unflagging devotion.  He limits the bleeding on his bad holes amazingly.

THAT to me is great golf thinking.  What the pros do is great golf execution.  Again, maybe it's semantics... But this is another way to look at it anyway.

TH

I am on board with this. The typical amateur has much tougher and much cloudier judgments to make. Pros try not to leave themselves where they can't get it up and down. Not too tough to figure out. Amateurs try to leave it where they CAN get it up and down, much harder to discern.

[Dan Boerger]

I am certain pros think their way around the course (particularly in money events) better than I do. I'm an 11 index, have my own business, 3 children, and when I get time to play a full round (this afternoon and weekend at Whitemarsh in the member guest 8!) I tend to take riskier shots than I would otherwise (more in the practice round, however). Frankly, this makes golf more fun for me.

[Jason Topp]

I'm sure that pros think their way around much better than amateurs.  There are certainly many stories about pros talking a player through the course and the player shooting a much better score.

I think the difference becomes much more pronounced in tournament play.  I have tried to play more competition in recent years and it is amazing how stupid I am on occassion.  One example - I am probably most confident in my bunker play.  In a tournament last year, I had a simple bunker shot, but because there was no lip, for some reason decided to putt the ball.  A 4.5 turned into a 6.  Many more examples exist.

I often tell myself to use my routine, stay in the present and follow my game plan for each hole.  At the end of the round, I'm not even sure if I accomplished these goals because my mind is basically a fog.

[wsmorrison]

Shinnecock in 2004 taught us another thing about the way tour pros decide strategy.  According to Mark Michaud, who spent a lot of time around the 7th hole, he didn't see any tour pros try to hit a fade into the green.  While the proper Flynn tee should have been restored, and hopefully will be at some point, if that isn't an indictment on bad thinking, I don't know what is.  

I've always held the belief that not only are the tour pros blessed with more skill than others but that what really separated them from the pretenders is their mental acuity and strategic decision making.  Now I'm not so sure.

[George Pazin]

I think its 500% better than the average golfer, and its harder and harder (but not impossible, see Mickelsons US Open final hole) to fool them into a mistake.

The difference is, the average golfer doesn't have anything - or at least anything significant - on the line. Make him play for a living, even against his peers, and I can guarantee you he will start thinking better.

Let's face it, many of us don't have much time or opportunity to golf, and don't have the game to really enjoy competition. Why wouldn't we try outlandish shots?

[Tom Huckaby]

George - that is exceedingly well said, and it's a point I've made many times playing with my buddies.  Basically it's very little fun to play "smart", grinding out the best possible score.  Pros do this and do it very well, but that's because their livelihood is on the line.  For us yokel amateurs playing once a week if we're lucky, we're there for the hero shot as much or more than the score after 18 or the results of the match.  Outside the extremely great or extremely bad, those get forgotten quickly.  But a 220 yard cut 3wood around a tree over water with 2% at best chance of success simply cannot be left untried, because pull it off and you have a story forever... miss it and who cares?

The way I phrase it is "we don't play enough golf to play smart."  

And with nothing on the line, why would one play smart?  What's the fun in grinding out safe scores?

You're one of very few I've ever "talked" to who seems to get this....

Others do disagree, btw - some quite vehemently.  For some the joy is in finding and playing the "smart" shot.  But to each his own, and I really believe of us once a weekers, these smart players are a very unique breed.

TH

[Glenn Spencer]

It is just like any other sport. In baseball, there are guys that yell where  the next play is or how many outs there are, and then there are the guys that just know. Both types make it to the show, because they can play or hit. In basketball, I am sure that there are plenty of 6-foot coaches' sons out there that are selling insurance, while a 6'10" 18-year old is playing in the NBA because of his skills. Either you know the game or you don't. Some tour players are there because they can flat out play and some are there because they have learned how to score all their lives. This is why it typically takes a while to win out on tour, not everyone has the proper thinking required. Most of them can hit it, not all of them can manage.

[Brent Hutto]

Making the correct decisions on a golf course is a skill. You can learn it, you can be good or bad at it, some people are born with more talent at it than others. But thinking is a skill just as surely as hitting a flop shot off a tight lie is a skill.

Actually, that's a good illustration. Imagine a severely tight lie 20 yards off the green at Augusta National. What the heck, put the ball on a slight downslope while you're at it. Lots of golfers could throw the ball in the air with a lob wedge from there, some of them (Phil Mickelson) are very good at it while others (me) have about a 1-in-10 chance of executing it with other than a disasterous outcome.

Now imagine the golfer deciding whether to throw that ball way in the air off that lie. What the heck, imagine it's five holes before the end of a major championship and he's in contention. Not every golfer has the same level of skill in making the correct choice whether to attempt that shot or not. Phil Mickelson is probably better at making that decision than he was ten years ago but I'd bet Jack Nicklaus or Nick Faldo on average execute that decision much more effectively than Phil Mickelson ever will. It's just a skill that they're good at, partly through their personality tendencies and partly through applied effort to learn how to get the most out of their (physical) game.

OK, I think I've established that thinking is a skill in the same sense that hitting shots is a skill. In that case, why on earth would I imagine that I'm as good at the skill of thinking on a golf course as Jeff Fortson?

I know he's not as good as me at thinking his way through the analysis of a group-randomized trial accounting for covariates at multiple levels. I spent several years of my life learning how to think about that stuff and still struggle with it when I have to do it in the real world. Similarly, I'd expect that his ability to choose a trajectory and shot shape and landing spot from an upslope in the light rough into a breeze to a tight pin over water with his hands shaking because he's tied for the lead on the last hole of a tournament is a whole lot better than mine. Leaving aside all the shots he can hit that I can't, he can also take into account a bunch of factors that I wouldn't even notice and as a bonus probably knows from experience just how much extra distance being pumped up on the last hole is going to contribute. He's spent the last good many years learning how to think about this stuff and practicing it and it would be silly to think he's not pretty good at it by now.

And Phil Mickelson is probably better at it than Jeff. And Jack Nicklaus was better at it than Tom Weiskopf. I'll bet Weiskopf at his peak could carve the ball through the air in at least a couple of ways that Jack couldn't but Jack's ability to make the right decision at the right time was worth more (at their level of competition) than any small increment of ball striking could ever be worth.

[Jerry Kluger]

Professional golfers play a couple of practice rounds before the start of a tournament and they will get a feel as to how difficult the course will play.  They must come into the tournament with the goal of a top ten finish because in reality, they aren't going to make the cut every week and simply making the cut doesn't get them enough money to be exempt for the following year.  You look at the results and you see that most guys make it to the next season by having a few good tournaments, not necessarily a win, but a few good tournaments which carry them over to the next year.

Also, not many of the courses that they play will intimidate them outside of the majors. When you look at the courses that they will play you will see that there are a whole bunch which are not that tough for a top player.  You can't be conservative in playing a course when you know that it is going to take 4 under just to make the cut and 15 under or better is going to win.  I am not suggesting that they are going to hit driver on every hole but I imagine that in most events they are looking at making 6 birdies a round with a couple of bogies and you can't play conservatively and do that.  

[Garland Bayley]

...
Let's face it, many of us don't have much time or opportunity to golf, and don't have the game to really enjoy competition. ...

George,

I may not have game, but I really enjoy competition. That is what the handicap system is all about.

I score better in tournament rounds than I do in practice rounds, because in practice rounds I hardly ever find a risk not worth taking. And, if you don't have game, that can lead to some real disasters. In tournament rounds, I play boring golf. Also, known as delayed gratification. The gratification comes at the end with a good result as opposed to immediately with every shot.

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