Another Distance thread...but now it looks like the R&A is getting serious

[Brian Finn]

Heres a link to the chart.

Using the two best scores chart, his scores were:

2480 to 1
3871 to 1
9180 to 1.

Doing this three rounds out of 4, the probability has gotta be in the hundreds of thousands to 1

http://www.popeofslope.com/sandbagging/odds.html

Sorry, his handicap is totally busted...

Using the first chart, and the info I posted a little earlier, the (longest) odds of him shooting each of those rounds were:

83 (9.6 diff, 1.0 better than index) = 10:1
80 (9.1 diff, 1.5 better than index) = 21:1
80 (7.4 diff, 3.2 better than index) = 43:1

Using the 2 best scores chart, the odds would be 58:1. 

[Peter Pallotta]

J - I was interrupted a few times so it took a while to write that post: when I started the thread was still about the R&A and roll-backs, but by the time I finished it was about sandbagging...so I just hit 'post' anyway.

IMO, top athletes don't sandbag, only actors and CEOs do. They're the real Iagos here...

[John Kavanaugh]

Have any of you ever wondered why you hit such fantastic shots during a scramble? Having a pro at the top of his game as your partner would be no different. There is a huge leap between visualizing a shot and seeing your partner execute it in front of you. Even the pros often feed off each other when one or the other gets hot. It's a vibe that an athlete like LF would know too well.

[Kalen Braley]

JK,


You keep going back to the well by cherry picking your pony...


If its about selectively hand picking top notch athletes, I'll see you Larry Fitzgerald and raise you Charles Barkley....

[Rich Goodale]

WhoTF is Larry Fitzgerald and WhoTF cares who wins the Crosby pro-am.  If it were Jack Lemon I'd care.

[BHoover]

WhoTF is Larry Fitzgerald and WhoTF cares who wins the Crosby pro-am.  If it were Jack Lemon I'd care.

AT&T pays good money for us to not call it the Crosby.

[Mark Pearce]

.

[Rich Goodale]

WhoTF is Larry Fitzgerald and WhoTF cares who wins the Crosby pro-am.  If it were Jack Lemon I'd care.

AT&T pays good money for us to not call it the Crosby.

Brian


WhoTF are us?

[Ian Mackenzie]

WhoTF is Larry Fitzgerald and WhoTF cares who wins the Crosby pro-am.  If it were Jack Lemon I'd care.

NFL pro-footballer, Rich.
One of the good guys in the sport and a regular playing partner of one of my best friends who also plays at Whisper Rock.


Met Jack Lemon once at the Red Carpet Club at LAX around 1996 im guessing. He was dressed in all yellow reading the LA Times.
He just missed the cut again and, after I offered my condolensces, he lit up and we talked golf for 10 minutes.


Then, I shit you not, Walter Matthau waddled over and pretended to rough up Jack Lemon.
They were on their way to Miami to fim a movie.


Priceless.

[John Kavanaugh]

When is the last time any of us played in a two man best ball and got 100% of our handicaps? I believe the USGA has recommendations for these things. I hope but do not expect Digest to print a retraction and an apology.

[Kalen Braley]

John,


You might have better luck trying to sell this, its at least more plausible mathematically....

[John Kavanaugh]

It is better that ten sandbaggers go free than that one innocent man be convicted.

[Matthew Essig]

This thread is so off-track, it's ridiculous.

“There has been a significant move up across all tours,” Slumbers said. “We’re looking at the longest on record average driving distance. It’s caused us as well as our colleagues at the USGA serious concern."
“We had talked for a number of years about slow creep. This is a little bit more than slow creep. It’s actually quite a big jump."
“Our 2002 joint statement of principles put a line in the sand, or purported to put a line in the sand. Our view is when you start to look at this data now, that we have probably crossed that line in the sand and that a serious discussion is now needed.”

We have both rules bodies now not only switching sides on the debate, but saying with "serious concern" that distance is an issue. That is much bigger news about the future of the game than whether Fitzgerald sandbagged.

[John Kavanaugh]

It is not a serious debate when Mike Davis says that he remembers when Jack Nicklaus really caught one he hit it 280. Were you guys even playing in the 70's?

[Cal Seifert]

In 2010 the NCAA forced a bifurcation on men's lacrosse.  Any players above the high school level were now required to play with heads that were wider to make it harder to hold the ball when being checked.  This went into effect as soon as the NCAA realized the way people play the game is changing.  Too bad golf can't follow.  For a game so obsessed with its roots, it's sure funny to see the size of the drivers and technology we endorse now a days.

[jeffwarne]

In 2010 the NCAA forced a bifurcation on men's lacrosse.  Any players above the high school level were now required to play with heads that were wider to make it harder to hold the ball when being checked.  This went into effect as soon as the NCAA realized the way people play the game is changing.  Too bad golf can't follow.  For a game so obsessed with its roots, it's sure funny to see the size of the drivers and technology we endorse now a days.

and the game is growing like wildfire....


I guess it's not as easy to play upon the egos of their consumers

[John Kavanaugh]

It is not a serious debate when Mike Davis says that he remembers when Jack Nicklaus really caught one he hit it 280. Were you guys even playing in the 70's?

Here is a link to the article: http://www.golf.com/tour-news/2018/02/04/usga-ceo-mike-davis-says-increased-distance-bad-game


If we want to invoke change how about not exaggerating the facts. Starting with...Jack was good, really really good. Walter F'ing Hagen hit it 280. Every damn day.

[Jim Nugent]

I wasn't suggesting that Larry sandbagged.  I was wondering how accurately the handicap system captured his golfing ability.  Not all that long ago, he was a mid-single-digit golfer. 

I've been very reluctant to weigh in here, but I thought I would provide some relevant info, along with my own opinions.

Streelman shot -13 for the tournament by making 15 birdies, 2 bogeys, and 55 pars.  That is about as good as a pro partner can do, not only contributing 15 birdies, but also parring virtually every other hole, leaving his erratic amateur partner a lot of leeway.  Basically, LF only needed to contribute on 26 out of 72 holes (36%).

 - As a team, they shot 58 (-14), 60 (-11), 68 (-4), and 60 (-12).
 - Streelman contributed 7, 2, 2, and 4 birdies
 - Leaving LF to make 7, 9, 2, and 8 stroke contributions
 - By my rough math, this means LF shot approximately (depending on how many birdies/doubles+):
          - 83-86 in round 1 (9.6-12.0 diff at spyglass)
          - 80-83 in round 2 (9.1-11.8 diff at MPCC)
          - 88-91 in round 3 (14.3-16.9 diff at PB)
          - 80-83 in round 4 (7.4-10.0 diff at PB)

For a guy that plays 80% or more of his golf from Feb-Aug, who has proven 'potential' to be a low/mid single digit player, but just recently finished his 6 month golf "off-season" I don't see how this is crazy.  It isn't sandbagging, in my opinion.

Brian, I don't know much about handicaps, but I believe you made some mistakes above.  In particular, I think Larry's lowest possible scores (in theory) are way less than you figured. 

First, I read Larry was given a course handicap of 13 for the tournament.  Doesn't that mean he got strokes on 13 holes?  If so, he could have parred all 20 of the holes he got no strokes on.  That leaves 52 holes in the 72-hole tournament. 

The team finished -41, and Kevin finished -13.   So Larry had to contribute -28.  I believe he made one net eagle.  That means he made par (net birdie) on 26 more holes.  Leaving 25 holes (52 - 26 -1).

Kevin made 15 birdies.  If every one was on a stroke hole for Larry, Larry could have parred all those as well. 

That leaves 12 holes where Larry shot above par.  If each was a bogey, he could have averaged 3 over each round.  (Actually a tad less due to the eagle.) 

I doubt it happened that way, but isn't low-to-mid 70s the best-case scenario for Larry's scoring?  Or did I make some mistakes or overlook something?

[Kalen Braley]

jim,


You make a good point.  He got all those par-net- birds on the 13 hardest holes.....cause the ones on the easiest 5 wouldn't have meant anything.  As a mid capper, if you're getting 6-7 pars per round thats good, much less get all of them on the harder holes....


Plus he would have had to time is exactly, to not par one of those holes when his pro was making bird, because those would be for naught as well.  Thats one helluva ham and egg job....that smells beyond fishy...

[Doug Siebert]

Patents granted on the highly engineered balls about year 2000. Patents expiring at the current time and the governing bodies are making noise about doing something about the distance problem. Who'd of thunk?

Hadn't considered that angle before but sadly I think you're right on the money.

[Garland Bayley]

jim,


You make a good point.  He got all those par-net- birds on the 13 hardest holes.....cause the ones on the easiest 5 wouldn't have meant anything.  As a mid capper, if you're getting 6-7 pars per round thats good, much less get all of them on the harder holes....


Plus he would have had to time is exactly, to not par one of those holes when his pro was making bird, because those would be for naught as well.  Thats one helluva ham and egg job....that smells beyond fishy...

1. You have complained about him doing so well on a course set up for PGA tour play. They gave him a 13 handicap using their estimate of the difficulty of the course set up for PGA tour play. Therefore the issue of course set up is hypothetically a non issue.

2. You reference a table that has no bearing on the situation. When you come up with a table for a best ball with a plus handicap tour pro, you will probably see that his score was not out of the ordinary.

3. Your game seems to be to make lots of bogeys but few pars. That is your game, not LF's game. To a certain extent the stroke index for a hole does not make much difference to a strong athlete. Such a player will be hitting far shorter clubs than you as his drives will put him much closer to the hole.

4. You don't seem to have much experience with the format. Four man 2 best ball teams are a common event at clubs. I figure I need to do -6 net myself to help a team win such an event. I do that with enough regularity to see that it would not be that unusual to average -7 for four rounds. As I previously noted, I make far more pars than you when we have played matches, and I make more double bogeys than you.

5. You ignore the fact that he can birdie the easiest hole while his partner pars them.

[Tim Martin]

jim,


You make a good point.  He got all those par-net- birds on the 13 hardest holes.....cause the ones on the easiest 5 wouldn't have meant anything.  As a mid capper, if you're getting 6-7 pars per round thats good, much less get all of them on the harder holes....


Plus he would have had to time is exactly, to not par one of those holes when his pro was making bird, because those would be for naught as well.  Thats one helluva ham and egg job....that smells beyond fishy...

The other thing that makes it a little fishy is the courses are set up to challenge the best players in the game and as a result the amateurs face the same test.

[Jeff Schley]

My club manually adjusts your handicap if you have 2 outstanding rounds defined by -6 net or more.  You get a max of 4 penalty rounds.  1 for -6, 2 for -7, 3 for -8, and 4 for -9.  As someone who shot a net 59 two years ago I dropped like the sandbagger they all said I was.  Of note I have never shot even -1 since then.

Manual adjustments are allowed and needed in some cases, although they are forward penalizing and after the fact.

[Garland Bayley]

One thing that could make golf more fun for me would be to reduce the distance the ball traveled so I could clearly see where it lands off fairway, thereby removing some of the ball searching and lost ball penalties.

[Bob Montle]

Is it sandbagging or just being erratic?  For what it's worth, I'm 68 with an 18.5 handicap, and extremely erratic in how I play.  My best two differentials in my last 20 rounds were -8 and -7.
I wasn't sandbagging - just happened to have a good rhythm and made good contact for those rounds. 

Those of you with low handicaps don't know what it is like to be able to stick 5 irons by the pin one day and then not get the ball off the ground on another.  Many of us non-athletes are like that.  We tend to swing too hard, don't stay stable, and have poor timing.  And struggle.  But some days if we just happen to have the right rhythm and don't think too much we play up to our potential.  But if we are tired or stressed or hyper - we struggle!

You may be consistently good or consistently average or consistently poor.  But some of us are Jeckyl and Hyde when it comes to how we play.  Our bad rounds aren't sandbagging.  It's just having bad swings most days.