Who's Meltdown was worse, Stanley or Levin? - Page 3

Don't forget that Stanley had a seven shot lead entering the backnine, it wasn't just the last hole he played bad. 

His hole back nine was just bad, there was no bad luck or anything. It would have been luck if the ball stayed in the fringe, it wasn't bad luck that the ball dropped.

 

Stanley was on cruise control, looked like the clear winner until deep in his backninen. Levin on the other hand just had a bad day, he never looked good on sunday.

Therefore: My vote goes to Stanley.

Not sure why a shot has to be one of two options:  bad luck or meltdown.  I think there is a 3rd option: a regular poor shot, which might be a miss hit or an error in shot selection. 

 

IMO Stanley's 3rd shot was a poor shot, not bad luck and not a meltdown.

 

His play from shot 5 onwards was worse, and is closer to a meltdown, but I still thnk that is too harsh in the situation immediately following the shock of shot 3. 

 

 

You see a ball that trickled into the water. I see a ball that finished 10+ yards from where it should have ended up. Thats a bad golf shot not luck. If he would have  hit the ball directly in the water would you also consider that a bad luck? Spin is just like distance and direction. It is something the golfer has a decent amount of control over.

 

Quote:

 

After reading through this thread, needing a break from a heavy requirements engineering meeting, I regret ever posting in it.  The question belies a false premise i.e. that there isn't a category mistake committed in asking it.  Then folks fail to realize that, start trying to work their way through what passes for reasoning, pick a side and defend it in spite of the fact that neither actually represents a position that corresponds to reality all because the question was ill-formed.  We may as well be arguing over which is bluer, a circle or a triangle.  Back to the meetings for me...

Asked and answered. I stated had he chunked it into the pond directly, that would be a bad shot. What he hit was not the proper short for the situation that he got overly penalized for.

 

So, is that a meltdown?

 

That's I voted that Levin was the bigger meltdown, as it was over the course of his round.

 

Stanley hit one shot that essentially cost him the tournament due to an unfortunate bad break, luck, goofy roll down a hill or whatever the hell you want to call it. He hit it 15 feet past the pin with too much spin. That's a meltdown?

 

 

 

No, to a high degree of certainty, we do know.

 

 

Yeah, with spin and into a tier with the green sloping towards a shaved bank and water. Nobody here is saying he hit it on the shaved bank, but he did hit it in a place where it was very likely to hit that shaved bank with enough speed to fall into the water.

 

 

Good luck if it hung up on the fringe or on the shaved bank, yes. But absence of good luck is not bad luck. If his ball had stopped, it would have been good luck precisely for the same reason that it not stopping was not BAD luck: because given the way he hit the ball (location, spin, etc.) the ball was likely to end up wet, and so anything which prevented that would be good luck.

 

 

Yep.

 

 

Yep. He hit the shot.

 

Levin had a bad day. Stanley had a massive brain fart.

 

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Oh please enlighten us as to how you 'know' this to a 'high degree of certainty'?  I guess I must have missed it in an interview or something?

 

Actually, that is the EXACT definition of 'bad luck'.  The bad shot was not 'bad luck', but having it land on the green in the one area that would result in it rolling back into the water was.

 

Definition: bad luck - an unfortunate state resulting from unfavorable outcomes

 

Nope, never said it was.
 

The 'penalty' being the same is that they both messed up by the amount that led to them getting into a playoff.

 

 

a) He's a professional golfer with a wedge in his hands.

b) The shot was cleanly struck and hit towards where he was aimed.

c) He did not immediately react and say "pulled it" or gesture in any way to indicate as much.

d) At no point in his post-round press conferences did he say he pulled the shot. In fact, he indicated the opposite on several occasions.

 

Conclusion: he (stupidly) hit the shot he was trying to hit.

 

Again, the only "luck" on the 18th hole or either of the playoff holes was Snedeker's good luck at hitting the TV tower.

 

 

No it isn't. That definition would only apply if his odds of going in the water were random.

 

He hit a shot in such a way that it was highly likely to suck back into the water. Luck (good and bad) speaks to the outliers in situations, not the likely outcomes.

a) oh, I guess pros with wedges always hit within a couple of yards where they are trying to hit it?  FALSE

b) you can't tell where he is 'aimed' or his intentions from a TV shot, plus, you can't tell if it was 'struck cleanly'.  - really, I'm sure you've hit a shot cleanly only for it to come up short and you wonder to yourself, "huh, what happened there?"

c) there are alot of golfers that don't react one way or another

d) please point me to where he 'indicated the opposite'

 

Conclusion - you are making an argument with nothing to back it up - again
 

 

Iacas, do you believe in luck at all? Not enough data behind it? That seems to be the real debate here. Apparently 60% of sandtrappers are willing to chalk things up to luck and move on, and 40% need concrete details to create a series of technical conclusions.

 

If you believe in luck you voted for Levin, if you don't you voted for Stanley.

Amen!

 

Here is Stanley's quote from the press conference:

 

 

 

Him saying "Thought I had a pretty good shot" would indicate (to me at least) that he hit it where he wanted to...which was the wrong place given the shelf and increasing the chance of water on the shot. All Erik is arguing here is that he should have hit the ball to the fat part of the green and just, at worst, three-jacked it in from there.

 

I don't see any luck in this at all.  It was simply a poor decision to aim at the part of the green that brought the most trouble into play.

 

 

 

So how is that a meltdown? As you said, he had a wedge in his hands & hit the shot he wanted to hit. So he went thru his calculations, came to a conclusion on the shot he wanted to hit, then hit it exactly that way, I'm not seeing how that equates to him throwing the tournament away or a meltdown - he didn't fail to execute, he didn't hit some butt-ugly chunk into the water or airmail the green. He landed it, roughly, within feet of where he intended. Now, based on the results, you can say, bad decision. But a meltdown? No.

 

And further, up until that shot he was in total control of the tournament, so there was no oil leaking, no trying to stagger in with the win. He had a huge lead, hit the shot he wanted and it just didn't work out as planned. Unsettled by the outcome he then got over-cautious with his re-hit, hit an indifferent approach putt & gakked the four-footer...there's where the meltdown was if you want to identify one - the four-footer for the win. Cuz 15 minutes earlier he had a 4-shot lead. Reality slapped him in the face & he badly missed the putt. It was similar to what happened to Tom Watson in the 2009 British Open - middle of the fairway on 18, one shot lead, hit the approach he wanted to hit, but the ball bounced over the green, he hit an indifferent putt then badly missed the 6-footer for the outright win.  

 

So I guess that means Tom Watson had a meltdown too, right?

 

Watson's approach into 18 took a severe, unexpected bounce and went through the green.  That was bad luck.

 

Missing the putt was a choke.  He missed a putt that, under different circumstances, would have been nearly automatic.  He was unable to handle the pressure of the moment.  I don't know if his missing one four-footer was a meltdown, but it was definitely a choke.

 

I think a good definition of a meltdown is this:  a player with a comfortable lead who plays multiple shots that are well below what is expected of a professional golfer and loses the lead.  I don't think it matters whether he he hits an easy shot poorly (Watson's putt on 18 at the '09 Open) or hits an unnecessarily risky shot (Mickelson's driver and approach into 18 at Winged Foot in '06), or both. 

 

 

I'm doing no such thing, thanks.

 

a) Kyle said he hit a good shot. Pros aren't so bad with their wedges that they miss by 40 feet, no. Within a couple of yards is a bit too narrow a range but not by a lot.

b) I can, actually. So can a lot of people. And from 100 yards, no, I haven't.

c) I disagree. I see most golfers react to a "poor" shot quickly.

d) Others have done this already, so I won't rehash the topic.

 

The point is that while each piece of evidence (except maybe d) doesn't stand on its own, as a whole, the sum easily overcomes reasonable doubt. Kyle Stanley (stupidly) hit the shot he was trying to hit.

 

 

I think I've been fairly clear in my definition of luck. Luck is when the likely outcome does not occur. Snedeker's ball not bouncing off the cliff because it strikes a TV tower is luck, Stanley's shot rolling back as everyone would expect it to is not luck.

 

Yep. Except that he even had FOUR shots to get down from the fat part of the green. He'd be lying three there. :)

 

 

I feel I've been clear on this. He choked, and as with choking, meltdowns are mental in my book. He mentally vacated the premises and chose a stupid shot. Tin Cup melted down. He chose a stupid shot. He too pulled it off (physically) really well, but it was still a meltdown because the mental side was absent. He didn't think clearly.

 

Disagree all you want, but until we're given a definition and instead asked to rely on our own, I can only answer the question as I see it.

 

I voted for Levin to highlight a point. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has stretches where he/she doesn't have their "A" game. How we learn and overcome from the mistakes to improve our skill/performance is important. Thus, Stanley's meltdown wasn't the worse--he learned from his previous errors and achieved a tour victory in PHX the following week.

To add, Levin was really frazzled--he looked nauseous and clammy. Stanley, even though not physically executing good shots the final day at Torrey Pines, appeared to be more even keeled and mentally fit.