Thought Experiment: How Many Clubs Do You Need?

[Kalen Braley]

So what do you think the median handicap is for the guys who spend $3,000 a year at a Mike Keiser property. Maybe 9-12 at worst. If it is any higher they are spending their winnings from a member/guest.

I love what he does, but how much does the total spent at Mike Keiser courses add to the bottom line of golf globally?

[John Kavanaugh]

You either give to the game or take from it. Once there are more takers than givers the game will die. Who do you think the people who need golf to put food on the table are going to cater to? It's sad I know but it is also a simple fact of life.


I'm really proud how modern technology has made it easier to weed out the sandbagging wealthy 15-18 handicapper. They soon give up playing golf alone when there are so many other reindeer games where they can pay for a partner. Maybe we need a new Twitter hashtag. (#me18) I'd love to read some sandbagging nightmare stories. Cause if your are an 18 and you ain't bagging, you ain't playing.

[George Pazin]

George,


I didn't answer your because I respect you as a person. I had typed out a reply and decided the world had enough negative energy without my opinion. In other words, you can't troll the guy whose picture is in the dictionary.

Feel free to message it to me. I'm a big boy, can handle it. I'd honestly be interested in your response.


I do like your thought that the game is not set up to respond to us cheap ass hacks. I'm a businessman myself, I get that. But if that's the case, id at least like to see more honesty about it on here, if nowhere else. I really don't think the difference between us cheap ass hacks and you privileged players is all that much, in a golf sense anyway (not kidding myself on the other stuff).

[John Kavanaugh]

George,


Remember when you sent $5,000 to get some course built that you would hardly ever see. I'm not wasting my anger on you.

[George Pazin]

Ok. I wish I had a clue as to how to understand or respond to that, but I don't, so have a nice day, John.

[Garland Bayley]

GCA is the one place where HHers seem to be convinced they know more and/or are somehow inherently better than those who actually play the game well.


They know more about strategy, more about architecture, more about the rules, more about how many clubs should be used, more about how far the golf ball should fly, etc. It’s uncanny how much they (think they) know.

And Alister MacKenzie would tell you that playing well has nothing to do with architecting well. Probably most architects on this site would agree.

You seem to mixing up knowing with doing. I don't care how well you play (can do), it says nothing about knowing rules, knowing architecture, knowing how far golf balls can and should fly, etc. And you clearly demonstrate you don't know how many high handicappers play the game.

[Peter Pallotta]

That's not like you, John - tooting your own horn so obliquely. I've complimented you before on putting your money where your mouth is in support of the game/courses. Do you really mean to criticize GP just because, in a golf context, he wasn't born on third base and so can't claim to have hit a triple?
And for what? Because he's been suggesting that he knows his own game (as one individual example of one unique kind of HH) better than someone else does?
 

[Sean_A]

Sean, with all due respect, and I mean that, as I greatly respect your thoughts and opinions, I don't think you really do remember what it was like to shoot a 95. It's really easy to turn a 4 into a 6 with one errant shot. Trust me, I do that all the time. And it's not because I don't know how far I hit my irons.

George

You know not what you say. My last comp I had 23 points!  Believe me, I know what its like to shoot a terrible score.  My re-occuring wrist injury over the past several years has made this all too much a common reality and a real frustration.  Its to the point where I am now laying up to avoid the terrible miss.  It ain't pretty, but it can work. 


But my point is you guys seem to be dismissing the one awful shot per hole causing grief as no big deal.  I think it is a huge deal as you can't score if you aren't in the park.  Putting for par compared to putting for bogey is more than the difference between short games...its 18 shots!  That is massive..then you tack on the putting. 

Ciao

[John Kavanaugh]

That's not like you, John - tooting your own horn so obliquely. I've complimented you before on putting your money where your mouth is in support of the game/courses. Do you really mean to criticize GP just because, in a golf context, he wasn't born on third base and so can't claim to have hit a triple?
And for what? Because he's been suggesting that he knows his own game (as one individual example of one unique kind of HH) better than someone else does?
 

Peter,


I think you missed where I complimented George for sending $5,000 oversees to start a club that was little benefit to him. George is not a taker.

[Garland Bayley]

Brian,

Since you are so good at statistics, and handicap calculations, answer this.
If a golfer were allowed to maintain two handicap records, would it be possible for him to alternate playing the forward tees and posting those scores to one record, and playing the back tees and posting those scores to the other record, and end up with a lower handicap index from playing the back tees than from playing the forward tees?

[George Pazin]

That's not like you, John - tooting your own horn so obliquely. I've complimented you before on putting your money where your mouth is in support of the game/courses. Do you really mean to criticize GP just because, in a golf context, he wasn't born on third base and so can't claim to have hit a triple?
And for what? Because he's been suggesting that he knows his own game (as one individual example of one unique kind of HH) better than someone else does?
 

John and I are ok, we understand our places in the game.

[Garland Bayley]

... At my course, when I stand in the fairway on 18 and the pin is on the front just over a really tough bunker, I have a decision to make, and the decision centers around hitting a 7 iron at the pin, or taking an 8 or 9 and playing away from the hole and then trying to get up and down.  Wind factors in, my lie factors in, how well I'm hitting it factors in, and what's at stake on the various bets factors in.  But if I don't have all three of those clubs, and therefore choices, available strategies are REDUCED, not enhanced.  ...

Your examples like this cause mathematician George Pazin to conclude you are just determining club based on distance. You don't seem to infer what he does. He sees that you don't need an 8 or 9 iron to lay up, so you saying you will use them to lay up leads him to infer that you are simply choosing clubs based on distance. What you write seems to indicate that you don't even have an option of going for the green without the 7 causes him to further infer that you are simply choosing clubs based on distance, since he would be pulling his 6 or longer and hitting a high cut.

Also, the example doesn't seem to support your argument that strategy is reduced, as George can play with his 6 iron all the options presented as requiring you to have the 7, 8, and 9.

[Garland Bayley]

Brian,

Your handicap calculations are significantly off, at least for typical USGA figures. Averaging 90 at my course will get you at least to 20.

To say a high handicapper routinely 3 putts is totally ignorant. Kalen is a high handicapper,  and an excellent putter. He is certainly better than my single digit friend.

Both of your responses are merely anecdotal. 

Hop on the old google machine and read about golf statistics by handicap.  I've read everything I could find over the past 15-20 years on the topic, and I can assure you that over a large sample, 18 handicap players shoot much closer to 95 than 90 on average.  I've also spent most of my 20 year career using statistics daily, so I have a pretty good handle on the numbers and how they work.

The problem with your little dissertation here is that it has nothing to do with what I wrote.

As for the 3 putts statement, my semantics were not nearly precise enough for you, and for that I most heartily apologize.  "Occasionally" is a more apt description than "routinely."  Most high handicappers are not good putters.  You can cite examples to the contrary, but I am speaking again to larger populations of players.

Tour pros occasionally three putt. Low handicappers occasionally three putt. So good to see HH are on the level of those people. However, I am wondering whether your use of high handicappers is a reference to those who shoot relatively high scores, or those who maintain a handicap > 18. It seems to me that anyone that goes to the trouble of maintaining a handicap is not going to three putt that often. Many with handicaps > 18 have putting as the best part of their game. After all, it is the easiest part of the game to master.

[BHoover]

This discussion about HHers reminds me of something a friend of mine once told me, and it rings true:


ESC was invented so that guys who played golf for 20 years could start saying they broke 100.

[George Pazin]

Edit: taking my own advice about lightening up and removed my ahole comment...have a nice day.


Also, sorry I turned this into a HHer hate fest, Tom. Fwiw, I liked the debate between Carl Nichols and Brian Finn about 6 clubs versus 8...

[JMEvensky]

Edit: taking my own advice about lightening up and removed my ahole comment...have a nice day.


Also, sorry I turned this into a HHer hate fest, Tom. Fwiw, I liked the debate between Carl Nichols and Brian Finn about 6 clubs versus 8...

I didn't think your comments were out of line--you're usually a much bigger asshole . All you've done is highlight a huge problem--most lower and higher handicaps have little idea how each actually tries to get the ball in the hole. Each group frequently talks right past the other--and golf courses/clubs suffer.

[John Kavanaugh]

Well maybe we have all learned why despite the advances of equipment and the ball some people are just never going to get better. Obviously a roll back of the ball will do nothing to hurt their scores and may even result in the game being more fun as they stay inside the corridors of play more often. I look forward to the day where we all can compete equally from the same set of tees and put our petty differences behind us.

[Peter Pallotta]

That day is already here, John.
George is probably not nearly as poor a golfer as he pretends, and, given that I've yet to be paired up with even one mid-handicapper who managed to play even close to his (apparent) standard on that day, I tend to think most are not nearly as good as they'd like to believe.
If I played an 8 tomorrow, straight up, from whatever tees he wanted, and either in stroke or match play, I'd put my money on me -- 'cause he's just as likely to shoot an 85 as I am.
In short, friendship and bonhomie are bursting out all over, as we speak -- like flowers in the spring.   

[MCirba]

I now play with a cross between a driver and a brassy, which, like all the best play clubs nowadays, is made with a slight bulge.   I have a driving iron, a light iron, a mashie, a niblick, and a putter - six clubs, only one of them wooden.   If you carry more clubs, you are always in doubt which to take, and while you are musing and trying to determine the right club, you have begun to lose your confidence as well as your concentration.   

[John Kavanaugh]

Of my 14 clubs 5 are wedges. 44, 50, 56, 60 and 64 degs. I feel like I need them all to assure myself a good chance at getting up and down from 115 yds in.

[MCirba]

Of my 14 clubs 5 are wedges. 44, 50, 56, 60 and 64 degs. I feel like I need them all to assure myself a good chance at getting up and down from 115 yds in.

John,

I stole that quote above from an unlikely source in this discussion, C.B. Macdonald, who was in his 70s at the time he wrote it.

I've since embraced the dark side, as well, and my bag currently holds 43, 48, 54, and 60 degree wedges and I still can't hit a damn one of them consistently.    In fact, my plan is to spend much more time practicing short game this year because it's still by far where I throw away the most strokes.

[Tim Martin]

Years ago I dumped the 3 and 5 woods for a 17 degree 4 wood and have carried 13 clubs since. Although I don’t think my level of play has been noticeable as a result my bouts of indecision sure have which has been liberating if nothing else.

[George Pazin]

Well maybe we have all learned why despite the advances of equipment and the ball some people are just never going to get better.

You were correct all those years ago when you said it's a choice.

[Garland Bayley]

Well maybe we have all learned why despite the advances of equipment and the ball some people are just never going to get better. ...

Seriously, did you ever think that a person could buy a game through equipment? If so, I have a bridge to sell you.

[John Kavanaugh]

Garland,


You can buy equipment that makes it easier to control your trajectory and thus lower your score. However you can not improve a golfer who has zero interest in getting better.


Five years ago I took a lesson I went out and shot consecutive rounds of -8 and -6. Scared the shit out of me so I never took a lesson again. I simply am not interested in changing how and why I enjoy the game. Much like you, I suck on my own terms.