Do angles not matter?

[Lou_Duran]

Jeff,


I think that you might be describing the gulf between doers and thinkers, practice vs. theory.


As a senior golfer, I tend to play away from fairway bunkers more than positioning the tee shot to the side of the fairway with a better opening to the green.  Simply, i am a much better greenside bunker player than from those guarding the fairways.  And for those holes where I am likely to hit my approach on the green, I am typically hitting to the center as opposed to favoring one side (I am more concerned with short and long).


Even when I was a decent golfer, I had much better control of distance on my approaches than I did accuracy.  There were few greens that wouldn't accept my approaches, though, as you know, most greens in our part of the country were mostly tilted back to front in the direction of the shots (not much internal contouring or high spots to move the ball).


I think that strategy as often discussed on this site is mostly an intellectual exercise.  I remember going to my first King Putter and expecting these cracking golfers playing as the architecture indicated.  One particular guy, a very good writer who regularly extolled the virtues of the ground game, actually played accordingly.  But it was out of necessity as the guy couldn't get the ball in the air toward the target if he tried his best.  Put a bunker in front, and he had no choice but to go toward one of the sides.


Strategy is about choices and the ability to execute the shots that are available.  There is a frequent critique that modern players don't possess the shotmaking abilities of their predecessors.  I don't think that this is necessarily true- I've seen too many extraordinary recovery shots when the situation demanded it.  It is more likely a function that most skilled golfers play to their strengths, and absent high rough, holes cut in slopes, and heavy wind, they can more easily control the distance they hit the ball by air.


So, IMO, it is not that angles don't matter, but that they don't dictate a style of play.  I believe that this is true at most levels of play, excluding water hazards for the higher handicappers.

[Garland Bayley]

...
As a rookie on tour (1990), much the same.  Driving it in play on most courses I played was important.  Being able to hit one side of the fairway or another was hugely helpful, but not at the risk for most of us to hitting it in the rough. 
...

Is this an indication that narrowing fairways is reducing the effects of thoughtful design?

[Adrian_Stiff]

A thing of the past. 


Good players can control the ball enough it matters almost zero. Bad golfers cause enough problems for themselves without obstructions. There is a range from about 6-12 handicap that thinking is a bigger part but a 12 handicapper is expected to drop a shot a 2 out of 3 holes anyway so greenside bunkers (that make the angles) are not big enough problems.


The game has changed, hit the ball straight from the tee as far as you can. Select correct club and hit it as hard as you can at the flag (distance shown in your viewer). Remove green plan from pocket to select slope angles so as to determine how far to the side of the hole to aim.


The game I liked does not really exist any more.

[Matt_Cohn]

How can being below the hole not be an advantage over being above the hole?

Rob,


It's similar to playing downwind vs. into the wind. Playing downhill/wind/grain, misses tend to self-correct. Playing into uphill/wind/grain, misses are exacerbated. Imagine you have a straight downhill putt. If you start it a bit to the right, it's now going very slightly sidehill and will break slightly back to the left. If you have a straight uphill putt and start it a bit to the right, it will actually break slightly to the right, exacerbating your miss. In this scenario, you have to be more precise to hole the uphill putt than the downhill one.


Another small factor is that the ball is rolling more slowly when it reaches the hole on a downhill putt. That means you're more likely to lip in a downhill putt than an uphill putt.


All in all, it's often easier to make a downhill putt.


There are some caveats. It's easier to 3-putt a downhill putt because it's harder to get the speed exactly right. Obviously if you're putting down a slope where you literally can't stop the ball next to the hole, or on a severe slope playing many feet of break, that's harder. If the green is bumpy, that affects downhill putts more because the ball is rolling more slowly.


But the argument isn't that putting downhill is better. It's just, we think putting downhill is much worse than putting uphill, and that's often not the case.

[Mark_Fine]

Do bunkers matter?  Do fast greens matter?  Does water matter?  Does width matter?  The list goes on.  The answer is all relative to who the target audience is.  One thing that matters to all is firmness of the turf but even that is relative.  We do have to stop designing/maintaining courses (at least 99% of them) around a touring pro’s game. 

[JESII]

I love this kind of topic...even though it's a rabbit hole.


My culprit for this? Tour set ups with smooth medium fast and flat greens. makes those 6 footers for par really easy for the guy approaching from the wrong side of the fairway.

First, 6 foot is the 50% miss/make distance for pros.  They are not "really easy." 

Jeff, I believe it's out to 8 feet...which is a 33% improvement in what, 15 years? Other than the stock market is anything else increasing that fast?


My main point in using that metric is that the risk of a miss, when going after a short side pin from the wrong side, is less than it used to be because maintenance practices (on Tour) are that much better. Have you seen the latest move with bunker raking? They do the job with the tines like always then flip the rake over and smooth the sand perfectly.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,


I think you are right.


I agree the metric for missing for a pro is small, but then, what would you expect?  Broadie's stats do show it matters though:


Hit green from 160 yards
"      "       "       FW 2.98 Strokes
"     "        "       Rough 3.23 Strokes
"     "        "       FW Sand Bunker 3.28 Strokes
"     "        "       Recovery from trees, etc. 3.81 Strokes


Rough or sand reduces chances of hitting the green by about 8% at that distance.  Shorter shots are only 4% more likely to miss, longer shots stay about the same from a quick look.


Over 18 approach shots, that would be maybe 1.44 shots per round for a guy who never hit the fw.  Maybe not enough, but then, I would guess those percentages would be higher on PGA West or something.


BTW, since this is nominally still on angles, was going to say, Pete probably made angles the most important off the tee, at least.  Take a normal width fw (i.e.30-35 yards on tour) and angle it 20 degrees off the tee, and a curved tee shot to match the fw angle is pretty important just to hit the fairway.


Of course, while tour pros miss shots within a 10% of intended line, low handicappers are about 12%, mid handicappers 15%, etc.  So, again, angles matter more for everyone else, as noted.  Why talk about tour pros?  Just put them on specifically designed stadium courses if you want higher scores.  If you want them on traditional older courses, accept lower scores.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I made the mistake of giving these clowns the clicks and responses on Twitter before I realized they were repackaging someone else's (Mark Broadie) work.

This isn't Mark's work. It's just data pulled from the ShotLink data. It's not difficult to compile, but it's not Mark's.

I want to see how these numbers change playing from the rough. Absent that it really doesn't help very much. I would think correct angles after missing the fairway are much more important.

I can't share the whole chart with you, but here's are two yardages.

100-124 yards, right hole location:
LR: -0.11
LF: 0.12
CF: 0.17
RF: 0.10
RR: -0.10

175-199 yards, left hole location:
LR: -0.17
LF: 0.08
CF: 0.11
RF: 0.06
RR: -0.17

L = left, F = fairway, R = Right or Rough, etc.

First, 6 foot is the 50% miss/make distance for pros.

8 feet is 50%.

Second, I have been thinking of throwing in a grenade here, a topic with the title "When will Bareski, Fawcett and Broadie replace McKenzie, Tilly and Ross as the experts on strategy?"  It may never happen on golf club architectural nostalgia.com, but I think it has or will happen in the real golf world, starting with pros, and working down to ams after the stats based strategy becomes more widely publicized.

It's already basically happened.

And, thing is… it's really not that complicated. You can learn how to play pretty much any golf hole three ways in a short period of time. Those ways are "highest percentage chance of eagle or birdie," "lowest average score," and "lowest chances of a double or worse."

The middle of those is how roughly the first 54 to 72 holes are played by the majority of PGA Tour players week in and week out, with a small shift toward the first and last as players near the lead get to the back nine (generally speaking - you'll have some players say "damn the torpedoes" Saturday morning and make a nice climb… or flame out).

Scott has a flow chart that basically ends with "smash driver" 90% of the time, after all. The LSW approach is similar but might have a little more psychology to it, too, and with the Tour guys we've worked with it's sometimes just about comfort - sometimes they're just comfortable laying back on some holes, or playing a certain kind of shot, and part of our job is to help them get more comfortable with the optimal strategies, and appreciating that even if it doesn't "work" two out of the first three times, it does in the long term.

It's not that complicated, because again, to a Tour player, and most good players, golf is an aerial game. Bunkers don't matter - they fly the ball over them. Width and angles and thus a big chunk of strategy matter when the ball rolls. Strategy matters more, I would argue, to the 16 handicapper or older player who doesn't have the speed to "fly it and stick it." It matters when you get conditions like we saw during the Presidents Cup - when the ball would roll. Angles matter then.

But most of the time on the Tour or for good players, nah.


P.S. Jeff, I'm not sure it'd be quite the grenade you think. Maybe to the firmly entrenched, but I remember a conversation here within the last few years about what the new info and data says about "strategy" and how it should or might or could potentially affect golf course design/architecture.

[Rob Marshall]

“Scott has a flow chart that basically ends with "smash driver" 90% of the time, after all. The LSW approach is similar but might have a little more psychology to it, too, and with the Tour guys we've worked with it's sometimes just about comfort - sometimes they're just comfortable laying back on some holes, or playing a certain kind of shot, and part of our job is to help them get more comfortable with the optimal strategies, and appreciating that even if it doesn't "work" two out of the first three times, it does in the long term.”




Who do you work with?

[Matt MacIver]

These are the winning scores from the first 9 majors held at this venue: are angles important?
-4
-3
-6
-5
-3
-9
-8
-8
-8

So these are the first 8 winning scores at Augusta. One under each day the opening four years and -2/day the next four. Back then AGNC had wide fairways, no rough and severe greens so (equipment and skill aside), my thinking is angles mattered.

[Sven Nilsen]

It's not that complicated, because again, to a Tour player, and most good players, golf is an aerial game. Bunkers don't matter - they fly the ball over them. Width and angles and thus a big chunk of strategy matter when the ball rolls. Strategy matters more, I would argue, to the 16 handicapper or older player who doesn't have the speed to "fly it and stick it." It matters when you get conditions like we saw during the Presidents Cup - when the ball would roll. Angles matter then.

There's at least one guy out there who takes angles into account.  When Bryson's caddie maps out the course for him, he assigns values to the various features on and surrounding a green.  For example, a particularly penal bunker might be given a -2, while a backstop might receive a +1.  On their approach, they are looking at the total of the values for each possible line.  Its not the determining factor in deciding where to hit it, but it does enter the conversation.  The same idea filters back to the tee, as they're trying to get to the spot that maximizes the highest value approach.


But then again, Bryson might be a little different from the majority of the other pros out there.

[Peter Flory]

I have always found it very disappointing watching live professional golf because they really play very conservatively on their approach shots.  That is why match play is more exciting.  Stroke play tournament players are just trying to avoid going backwards and they are very happy to have a bunch of GIR and then dominate the par 5s with their length. 

It has sort of been said already here, but maybe angles are no longer important because either way they play safe (vs them being able to attack pins from bad angles).

[JESII]

I had an interesting debate on here many years ago with Pat Mucci about Pine Valley.


My position was that the penalty for missing a fairway is so great that it's not worth aiming for the edges for a preferred angle to a particular pin...he felt it was worth the risk for the reward of a great look. Each hole seemingly has several that would be best approached from a preferred part of the fairway but at what risk.


What is the cumulative calculation of having 10 or 12 great looks at the hole in exchange for 2 or 3 chip outs?


How does Broadie (or any of the guys studying the Shotlink data) know where a guy was aiming? They assign a margin of error without actually knowing what zero is...

[Peter Pallotta]

How does Broadie (or any of the guys studying the Shotlink data) know where a guy was aiming? They assign a margin of error without actually knowing what zero is...

Thank you.
Pertinent to the discussion in general, but also personally:
I've been aiming at the OB stakes for years, because the extreme left/right side of the playing corridors often give the best angle.
But my playing companions don't understand my choice, and assume that I just mishit it.
And the Shotlink data has not been kind to me. 

[Thomas Dai]

If we're solely discussing the pro's we see on TV here then it's worth bearing in mind that they are playing 4-round tournaments with most/many competing for their mortgage money and their first objective is to make the 2-round cut. There's a different mindset between this scenario to that of Joe or Jane the Average Amateur who is probably playing a 1-round event or a social knockabout with some friends.
atb


PS - anyone watched the European Tour golf from Emirates GC, Dubai today? There's bitching that the course is too hard and unfair because there are too many doglegs and tee shots are going through the fairways into the relatively grown-up rough on the far side.

[JESII]

How does Broadie (or any of the guys studying the Shotlink data) know where a guy was aiming? They assign a margin of error without actually knowing what zero is...

Thank you.
Pertinent to the discussion in general, but also personally:
I've been aiming at the OB stakes for years, because the extreme left/right side of the playing corridors often give the best angle.
But my playing companions don't understand my choice, and assume that I just mishit it.
And the Shotlink data has not been kind to me.

OK smart guy...


As they say, hook it into trouble...hook it out of trouble...

[Jason Topp]

How does Broadie (or any of the guys studying the Shotlink data) know where a guy was aiming? They assign a margin of error without actually knowing what zero is...

Jim - I do not think they claim to know where someone is aiming.  Instead they use data to calculate how many strokes on average a pro will take to hole out from the position where the ball ends up.   For example if a hole has an average score of 4.0 and the player hits the tee ball to a position where on average it would take 2.8 strokes to hole out, the player would have gained 0.2 strokes.  If, conversely, the tee ball winds up in a spot where it takes on average 3.2 strokes to hole out, the player would have lost 0.2 strokes.  That calculation is done for every shot. 


The system is not perfect - wind, the precise lie the player faces and I am sure other factors make the measurement a rough estimate for any particular shot.  However, the thought is that those factors wind up averaging out with enough data. 


There is an app called golfmetrics that allows you to do the measurements on your own game.  The formulas are very simple - you input distance to the hole and indicate whether you are in the fairway, rough, sand green or in a trouble spot.   Nonetheless, the results seem to accurately reflect the quality of my play when I have used it.

[JESII]

You’re right...my beef is with the guys coaching strategy based on those numbers. Specifically, they ignore the positive mindset derived from playing a hole well in exchange for the idea that you need to make as many birdies as possible and on the good weeks you won’t make many bogies/doubles based on bad strategy.


There’s so much money at the top that a top 5 makes the year for a mid or low level guy.


This strategy likely (hopefully) blows up on good golf courses but I have no evidence...

[Kyle Harris]

You’re right...my beef is with the guys coaching strategy based on those numbers. Specifically, they ignore the positive mindset derived from playing a hole well in exchange for the idea that you need to make as many birdies as possible and on the good weeks you won’t make many bogies/doubles based on bad strategy.


There’s so much money at the top that a top 5 makes the year for a mid or low level guy.


This strategy likely (hopefully) blows up on good golf courses but I have no evidence...

Bingo.


These are descriptive statistics which describe an event as it was. Think of SABRmetrics and WAR with baseball.

Now, how do you use that for predictive things? Ask Billy Beane.

These guys ain't no Billy Beane.

[Jason Topp]

You’re right...my beef is with the guys coaching strategy based on those numbers. Specifically, they ignore the positive mindset derived from playing a hole well in exchange for the idea that you need to make as many birdies as possible and on the good weeks you won’t make many bogies/doubles based on bad strategy.


There’s so much money at the top that a top 5 makes the year for a mid or low level guy.


This strategy likely (hopefully) blows up on good golf courses but I have no evidence...

Bingo.


These are descriptive statistics which describe an event as it was. Think of SABRmetrics and WAR with baseball.

Now, how do you use that for predictive things? Ask Billy Beane.

These guys ain't no Billy Beane.

Jim/Kyle:


I don't understand your arguments.


Jim - Why shouldn't players devise strategies based on this data?  If the goal is to shoot the lowest score, why wouldn't you take into account the likely score and range of potential outcomes based on laying up v. being aggressive?  I think you have to adjust the general numbers for your own game but for most of us, our own game is not going to vary that much.  If the satisfaction of a successful layup paid off so well, wouldn't the numbers reflect that effect?


Kyle - You have made references to flaws in the methodology but I cannot figure out what they are.  Billy Beane did not exactly figure out the playoffs but pretty much every successful baseball team has adopted and refined his approach.


 I am happy to be proven wrong on this topic.  I like the concept of playing for angles.  However, I think an idea should hold up in actual results rather than be based on faith.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

There's at least one guy out there who takes angles into account.  When Bryson's caddie maps out the course for him, he assigns values to the various features on and surrounding a green.  For example, a particularly penal bunker might be given a -2, while a backstop might receive a +1.  On their approach, they are looking at the total of the values for each possible line.  Its not the determining factor in deciding where to hit it, but it does enter the conversation.  The same idea filters back to the tee, as they're trying to get to the spot that maximizes the highest value approach.

But then again, Bryson might be a little different from the majority of the other pros out there.

Bryson also regularly thinks he's much better than he is. He's out there calculating air density and stuff, and then he hits a wedge to 28 feet. It may just be "how his brain works" and that's how he plays his best golf, but just because he's doing that stuff doesn't mean he's deriving any actual benefit from it. The shot pattern with a driver on the PGA Tour is pretty still pretty wide. Narrower (and/or farther) for better drivers, and very wide for some.

So if he does take this back to the tee, it's pretty vague. On approach shots, too, their shot patterns are larger than most would suspect, but there's also more "stuff" to contend with. Slopes, rough, bunkers, water, short-grass/"chipping" areas, etc.

What is the cumulative calculation of having 10 or 12 great looks at the hole in exchange for 2 or 3 chip outs?

Unless again the ball is rolling a ton, there's almost always a net loss of strokes when you're adding what are effectively 20% penalty shots to the equation. That's a HELL of a hurdle to overcome.

How does Broadie (or any of the guys studying the Shotlink data) know where a guy was aiming? They assign a margin of error without actually knowing what zero is...

Yeah, that's one of the issues. If Tiger is aiming pin-high 25 feet right, and he hits it 27-feet pin high, that's a GREAT shot. And often the shots that get close are the pulls or pushes, or over-curves, that the guy gets away with.

I was giving a playing lesson talking about this stuff. Pin is tight front right, with steep slopes away all around the green. I say "I'm gonna aim 25 feet left. If I hit it there, outside shot at birdie, par guaranteed. If I pull it, I'll have to work, but probably par. If I push it, I might be good." I proceed to push it… and hole out. We laughed about it, and the kid jokingly said "great shot" which was exactly correct (the sarcastic tone was the correct part), as it was a "miss," but had it been shown on TV, people would be under the impression that guys hole out from 150 routinely, and are aiming there when they do it.

Anyway, aiming and intent are the next-generation. CHIII might be shown to be a better - albeit more conservative - ball striker than he already is thought to be.

[JESII]

Jason,


There was a video of a guy instructing strategy on the basis of this data. Posted on here about a year ago.


They used a fairly short hole as the example, about 370 if I remember close. It turned a tiny bit to the right with some trouble on the right. The advice was to hit driver 320 aiming in the left rough because that took the right bunker completely out of play and "you" score the same from 50 yards in the rough as you do from 120 in the fairway.


This could be personality, but playing defense on this hole half the time seems like a major mistake in the context of the flow of a round of golf. I suspect these guys can hit their 250 club within 10 yards of the target 90+% of the time. This gives them a sand wedge from the fairway which results in a good look at birdie the vast majority of the time.


Backing into a strategy of blasting driver because the results will not be worse, in aggregate, than the "right play" completely ignores the mental effect of momentum in the game. again, maybe it's personality but not a single player has ever been able to ignore it...and why would you want to?

[Tom_Doak]

This strategy likely (hopefully) blows up on good golf courses but I have no evidence...

Bingo.

These are descriptive statistics which describe an event as it was. Think of SABRmetrics and WAR with baseball.

Now, how do you use that for predictive things? Ask Billy Beane.

Well, unless Brooks Koepka was just yanking my chain, I can tell you he thinks about what side to miss on in major championships, and is not normally aiming for the middle of the fairway off the tee, or aiming for the hole on his approach shots.


As Kyle says, it's different when you are out there doing it.  A bunker DOES matter if it affects your aim point, consciously or subconsciously.  Tom Watson was maybe the first guy who honestly didn't care if he missed his approach in the bunker, and so he never thought about them at all [on American courses], which was a huge advantage.  Does everyone play that way now?


Being able to hit the shot when you need to hit the shot is not just random.  It's got a lot to do with what is going on between your ears.  As Reggie Jackson used to say to the sabermetrics guys, nobody questions "clutch" when Jack Nicklaus hits a clutch shot, so why is baseball different?  [And sure, Jack didn't hit the clutch shot every time he needed to, but his rate of success was probably a bit different than other guys in the last round of a major.]

[Erik J. Barzeski]

They used a fairly short hole as the example, about 370 if I remember close. It turned a tiny bit to the right with some trouble on the right. The advice was to hit driver 320 aiming in the left rough because that took the right bunker completely out of play and "you" score the same from 50 yards in the rough as you do from 120 in the fairway.

This could be personality, but playing defense on this hole half the time seems like a major mistake in the context of the flow of a round of golf.

If I'm "picturing" the same type of hole and the math and all that as what you recall, hitting driver there is not "playing defense." Some of those drives are going to be in the fairway, and some of the 120-yard shots are going to be in the rough. In that example, based on what you've said, the scoring will be lower from 50 than from 120.

I suspect these guys can hit their 250 club within 10 yards of the target 90+% of the time.

They can but generally, no. Expand it to ±15 yards and you're getting pretty close. Shot Zones are pretty large, even on the PGA Tour.

This gives them a sand wedge from the fairway which results in a good look at birdie the vast majority of the time.

Jim are you just not trusting the data here? You said above that players are going to score the same from 50 yards in the rough (about 2.83) versus 120 in the fairway (2.85), which is true, and are also ignoring that not all of the 120 yard shots will be from the fairway (3.08 from the rough), and not all of the 50-yard shots will be from the rough (2.65 from the fairway).

So assuming even 15% of the shots end up differently (I made the 50/120 yard shots both 2.84 so they were dead even):
2.84 * .85 + 2.65 * .15 vs. 2.84 * .85 + 3.08 * .15
2.812 (from 50) vs. 2.876 (from 120)

That's only 0.06 shots, but that is just over a shot a round if they make a similar "mistake" on every hole.

Here are some other bits of data, using the median player from 2019, and from 100-125:
Proximity from fairway: 19'11" (Go figure: PGA Tour average from 20' is 1.87 or so, which added to the shot they hit, gets you 2.87)
GIR Percentage: 75.19% (they miss the green nearly 1/4 of the time, a lot of that's on the fringe, but sometimes it's rough or a bunker)
Fairway Scoring: 2.856 (https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.028.y2019.html)

(It's also important to keep in mind, since some of those stats don't seem to perfectly line up given the 2.85 from the fairway number, that: a) proximity only counts shots on or around the green. If your ball is in a bunker, they don't count it, I don't think, and b) the distances being 100-125 makes the numbers "better" because the average distance of that type of shot would be from 112.5 or so yards, not 120 like in the example.)

Backing into a strategy of blasting driver because the results will not be worse, in aggregate, than the "right play" completely ignores the mental effect of momentum in the game.

If I've read your summary of what the guy (probably Scott) was saying… Hitting driver is the "right play," not something a player would be "backing into" or "playing defensively" to do. Laying up would be the dumb play in most situations.

[JESII]

Erik,


I'll try to digest and respond to the rest, but my "defensive" term was once you've driven it in the left rough (which is where this example had the guy aim, you are playing defensive because of a mediocre or poor lie half the time. The defense was from 50 yards with a shitty lie, no the driver.


I suspect most guys would stand on that tee wanting to make birdie, and in developing a strategy, make birdie more often than any other. My issue is that it will absolutely result in more bogies which are more damaging mentally than a birdie is helpful mentally...on a hole like this.