You really are your own biggest fan, aren't you. Honestly, it's pretty obnoxious.
I think comments like that right there are pretty obnoxious. But I like to stick to the topic, so… I'll do that now.
I suspect both Erik and Molinari are thinking of elite level golfers playing courses that are less than fast and firm while from my perspective, that of an undoubtedly average golfer playing on courses that are usually a good bit firmer than they are looking at, their contention simply doesn't hold water.
The PGA Tour typically plays firmer course setups (particularly at the greens) than the average golfer faces. The data from hundreds of millions of shots doesn't align with what you're saying here.
I don't care to engage him on that level (or at all, really).
And yet…
The manner in which he consistently behaves on this board is simply obnoxious.
Says the guy doing the name-calling.
In the interest of addressing the actual topic of this thread, I will say that the aspect of golf performance that the data-driven experts seem to ignore (or at least not consider enough) is psychology. For logical players, conclusive data should instill confidence and lead to improved performance. In many cases, it does. However, for many of us, something changes when we step over the ball. For some, thoughts race, countless swing thoughts shuffle through their brain. For others, the mind goes blank, causing a momentary loss of any semblance of how to hit the pending shot. As a mid-handicap player for 30+ years, I have proven many times over that I am capable of hitting the necessary shots to score well, but doing so consistently evades me. I work with heavy data and analytics all day every day, so I understand and endorse its potential power, but for that to translate to performance requires effective, flexible instruction as well as a receptive, capable audience. Banging people over the head with data rarely works. I can speak from extensive experience.
I don't see how that really addresses the topic at all.
Some here would tell you to aim for the left-center of the fairway and to challenge the bunker to give yourself the best angle to the green, data would tell you to aim away from the bunker a bit, toward a spot just in the right-center of the fairway perhaps.
Either way, you're just talking about a point to aim at. That's all this is. Psychologically, a player is often more comfortable not aiming close to trouble, and can take comfort in knowing the data says they're making a smarter play.
And the word "consistency" is perhaps the most over-used word said by golfers taking lessons. Literally everyone wants more consistency; it's a given. If you could hit your 7I 150 yards and into a circle 10 feet in diameter (and all of your other clubs comparatively accurately), you'd win every PGA Tour event ever played, despite a (relative) lack of length. You're a mid-handicapper because you're as (in)consistent as you are. Your swing produces a wider variance of shots than a golfer with a lower handicap, in general. You hit some good shots, you hit some bad shots. So do pros… it's just that their bad shots are WAY better than yours, and their good shots are all generally a little bit better, too. Their distribution is a lot narrower.
Nearly everyone playing golf for awhile hits an occasional "pro-level" shot. It doesn't "prove" what you may think it proves; yes, you're capable of it, but it's an exception when you hit it, and it's closer to the rule when a Tour player hits it. It's like saying you won $200 on a scratch-off ticket once and saying "you've proven you're capable of winning money playing the lottery." It doesn't hold up over the long term at your ability level.
Guys-What you have to remember about Erik is that he participates on GCA in an effort to sell you something namely his data driven “Lowest Score Wins” system and not to participate in the frank discussion of golf course architecture.
Yeah, that's not remotely true. If it was, I'd be earning, I don't know, two cents an hour, tops? What you just said is not accurate in the least. But I sense that it's a convenient way for you to ignore some things you don't like.
Hear hear. Big Data Golf dumbs down the game in certain ways because it implies that golfers should play against their instincts even in what they know to be potentially high-stress, high-leverage and high-downside situations. Every single golf shot contains so many variables that could lead to going against the data that stripping the individual golfer of his or her agency can be destructive. The data is by no means useless, but it's nowhere near all-knowing.
Understanding the data is but one factor in a player's decision on where to aim, what type of shot to hit, etc. The players we work with learn these kinds of things. They learn when to perhaps be a bit more aggressive or a bit less. They learn to understand normal variance, and manage expectations. If you think it's a purely formulaic endeavor, without consideration for the player and the situation… you don't really understand what we do.
But, in general, as Edoardo said… angles don't matter. Chasing them is often folly. He said on 99% of golf holes or courses, and I would not go quite that high… but he's also mostly talking about PGA Tour players.
The "Angles Don't Matter" narrative is starting to become extremely exhausting at this point because it relies on the made-up straw-man concept of "chasing angles." Aiming down the right half of a fairway isn't "chasing an angle" so much as it's an attempt to adjust the spray-pattern of shots in such a way that the golfer, with self-knowledge and agency, knows is going to benefit him or her.
Oh boy, no. There are a ton of examples where golfers are encouraged to chase an angle "for a better angle on their approach shot" or whatever. They're not hard to find. They're almost always going to lead to a higher scoring average than not chasing the angle.
"Chasing angles" is not a straw man. Y'all are on a roll with your easy ways to try to ignore something that's inconvenient to your views.
Of course, I agree it is all in the hands of the user. That said, proponents of the system say that you need to be disciplined and NEVER allow your instinct to override the stats, except perhaps when an all or nothing situation in your match makes you. Even Erik says this.
Yep. If you're driving it really well on a given day, you can narrow up your Shot Zone (or poorly, then that may require an adjustment). Or if a wedge shot really suits your eye, we help players understand how they might shift from taking the "straight data" approach in a situation like that.
If you're two outside the cut line with five holes to go, we teach our players how to maximize their chances of making the cut — what are the best opportunities to make birdie in the next five holes (and if they get down to three holes… how to further shift the GamePlan…).
Like I said up above, it's not "100% always follow the data." It is when we're talking generalities, because we can't know the exact situation or the player playing. So it leads to things like Edoardo saying "99% of the holes, angles don't matter." Generalities. There's no other way to have a conversation, reasonably, unfortunately. Unless you get a BUNCH of specifics, and even then, it's just about that ONE thing. That one situation or shot. Change one of the many variables there, and it might change the best option.
If the Angles Don't Matter moniker bothers you, how about "Avoid the hazards first and foremost" as a substitute?
Yup. (Generally…) Penalties are shots lost. Bunkers are worse than the rough, and they're both worse than being in the fairway from the "wrong" side.
It's really not a complicated thing, but neither is "NBA players should take the easy layups or shoot threes. The mid-range jump shot is inefficient." (I'm not a basketball fan, but I think that's at least a half decent summary of the shift in how the game is played these days?) Is that ALWAYS the case? No. But in general, the game of basketball is played differently now. So are MLB games. So are soccer games. So are football games - look at how many teams go for it on fourth down these days. Look at how many teams choose when to go for 2. Etc.
If angles don't matter, does it also mean we stop building them?
No, I gave a bunch of reasons or times when angles matter at the end of my presentation last year.
Just noticed this. As an octogenarian high handicapper, I say that angles matter a lot.
I've always said that they begin to matter when the ball is rolling. You probably aren't flying it and stopping it relatively quickly, so yes, they likely matter more to you than me.