Lefties at Augusta

[Garland Bayley]

Augusta is an easy course for a righty with a controlled draw. #news

Especially one who hits the ball 365 yards off the tee, and has wedges into par 5s with his second shot. 

Say everything about Bubba's game was the same -- length, creativity, flight path (right to left) -- but he was a righty.  So instead of fading the ball, he drew it, albeit from the right side.  Would he not do as well at Augusta? 

Fade flies higher than draw.

[jeffwarne]

I think this lefty thing is a product of a mass media grasping at straws for something new to write. Shame on us, supposed golf experts, for falling for it.

Augusta is an easy course for a righty with a controlled draw. #news

years ago a righty had an advantage because he could hit a draw powerfully around the corners

It is much harder to hit a controlled draw than it used to be with lower spinning equipment, and most players will use a 3 wood to hit a draw/hook which goes shorter than a fading driver by a lefty.
a fade now does not lose the power it used to with higher spinning equipment
Doesn't hurt that 2 of the lefties are Phil and Bubba

[Mike Hendren]

"You can talk to a fade, but a hook just won't listen."
- Lee Buck Trevino

[Zack Molnar]

The issue with the modern ball as stated is that the strong draw just doesn't spin enough to let the ball stay in the air as long as it would with a fade. So the golfer cant get the normal hang-time to the allow the ball to actually move. So the right-hander has to hit a 3-wood to get the spin necessary to get this shot to stay in the air, as opposed to a lefty, who who can hit the high fade on the right to left holes and allow the ball to hang in the air, see Bubba on 13 on Sunday. Scott McCarron and Rich Beem repeatedly made this point on the online broadcasts on Sunday and I think it is a very valid point.

The question is, will some righties begin to switch to a slightly higher spinning ball for The Masters to allow them to draw the ball around the course more?

[Simon Barrington]

"Mizuno says only 3% of USA golfers are LH and close to 20% of Canadians due to Hockey.."
Mike Y. -

Legend has it the highest percentage of lefty golfers in the world is in the area around Kingussie-Newtonmare in the Scottish Highlands, where the game of shinty (a field hockey-like game) is very popular.

From David Owen's 2007 article in Golf Digest:
"When we had finished, we had a drink with a group of regulars sitting at two picnic tables outside the clubhouse. One of them told me, "Kingussie has more left-handed and cross-handed players than any other golf club in the world" -- a consequence, he said, of the town's intense devotion to shinty, a bruising Highlands stick game that is similar to the Irish sport hurling (from which it evolved) and to field hockey, and in which there is a tactical advantage to playing from the wrong side of the ball, apparently. No, no, another member insisted: There are more left-handed golfers in Newtonmore, Kingussie's principal shinty rival, three miles to the west. The conversation then veered into a discussion of Newtonmore's golf course, which my new friends unanimously dismissed as too flat to bother with."
DT 

David,
Doing some reading around the site about Augusta and came across this, perhaps you ought to get some money on Bob McIntyre?

[Jeff Schley]

I enjoyed last year's Mickelson analysis of how 12 is easier for lefties than righties.

On the crucial 12th hole, though, lefties have a big advantage, as Phil explains:   "Another example would be 12, where it sits along our shot dispersion for lefty. So if we aim over the bunker and we pull it a little bit, it goes longer, right? And we can get to that back right pin. If we come out of it, it goes short left and still catches the green. So 12 as a whole where we get aggressive. Bubba and I we're thinking too, and we're getting after wherever the pin is, where as a right-handed player where it sits opposite their shot dispersion, they've got to be a little bit more cautious on that shot."
 

[Wayne_Kozun]

Compare it to some clubs here in Canada where the number is likely very high. At my club there is probably about 25% lefties.

To go back to the original premise, since Mike Weir won the Masters in 2003 6 of 12 winners of the Masters from 2003-14 were lefties - Weir, PM x3 and Bubba x2.

[Garland Bayley]

I enjoyed last year's Mickelson analysis of how 12 is easier for lefties than righties.

On the crucial 12th hole, though, lefties have a big advantage, as Phil explains:   "Another example would be 12, where it sits along our shot dispersion for lefty. So if we aim over the bunker and we pull it a little bit, it goes longer, right? And we can get to that back right pin. If we come out of it, it goes short left and still catches the green. So 12 as a whole where we get aggressive. Bubba and I we're thinking too, and we're getting after wherever the pin is, where as a right-handed player where it sits opposite their shot dispersion, they've got to be a little bit more cautious on that shot."
 

This has been quite obvious to me. I'm thinking a designer should balance and have approximately the same number of greens favoring righties as lefties.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Speaking of lefties at Augusta, this may be the most lefties ever in the field.  I have it at 8:


Past champs - PM, Bubba, Weir


Harman, Highsmith, McCarty, Bhatia, McIntyre. 

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