How Much Luck Is Involved...

[iacas]

Luck? A highly improbable event that occurs. That’s easy to define.

[Piz]

I don't have a problem with the label either @DaveP043.  I don't think about it that way but that's just personal preference.  And I'm sure that when most people use the term they aren't referring to some mysterious or capricious force.  Attributing a poor result, or a better than expected one, to luck, could be a coping mechanism: chalk it up to Dame Fortune and carry on.  It makes a better story...especially over a couple cold ones.

[Benit0]

It's all probability, like you have 50% chance to flip a coin and get head. Sure you can fall on head 10 times in a row, but in the long run after 1000 tries you should be near the 50% rate. There is a saying in french that good player make their chances. If you put yourself in a good position and hit your shoot to manage that the miss will not be costly, you probably won't have a lot of bad break or their won't affect you so much. Then again, bad break will always happen once in a while.

[TRUCKER]

21 hours ago, iacas said:

 

The better the golfer, the less luck matters.

Agree. If I made a 15' breaking putt I would probably think there was a "little luck" involved. If you made that same putt, you would have probably "expected" to make it, and "luck" would have never crossed your mind.

[SPJr]

6 hours ago, David in FL said:

Have you ever noticed that people only complain about the bad breaks they get, or the good breaks someone else gets?  

[3jacker]

6 hours ago, David in FL said:

Have you ever noticed that people only complain about the bad breaks they get, or the good breaks someone else gets?  

For sure. For every bad lie I've gotten in the middle of the fairway, I've gotten 50 good ones in in the rough.

[Big Lex]

On 4/19/2019 at 8:12 AM, DaveP043 said:

But what IS luck?  You can get differing results from nearly identical shots, the difference between the shots being so small as to be completely out of control of the player.  Sure, this is a function of randomness, or extremely small-scale variations in conditions, but it gets labelled as luck.  I have no problem with that label, I just try to accept the results of the shot, whether its due to my own influence on the ball, or to something beyond my control.

 

Yes! This is how I think about luck too. 

We don't really know how much "luck" helps or hurts us because there is luck or randomness on every shot. No, if you drive the ball in the center of the fairway, the random variations on the bounce aren't likely to have as dramatic an effect as, say, the direction of a ricochet off a tree. But on the putting green, tiny randomness can have big effects. 

It seems inevitable that, as someone has said, luck _really_ should have zero real effect, because since it is randomness, it should even out over time and show no "preferences." Similarly, the more skill you have, the less chance there is that you will hit a shot where randomness will alter your result in a significant way, better or worse. 

Now, regarding a tournament result, you could argue that luck effects things. If you have 10 players all within, say, 3 strokes of each other, over a 72 hole tournament, their scores probably don't differ significantly from a statistical standpoint. You could imagine that a break here or there would have been enough to make one person the winner and the rest losers. 

Still, I think that's faulty logic, because, well, four rounds is hundreds of shots, and that should be enough where every player's "luck" should have evened out.  

[mellison24]

Luck is definitely involved. If it weren’t, the tour pros would more regularly get holes in one than they do (and it’s already a helluva lot compared to Joe Hacker).

However, it’s a factor that accounts for less than 1% of a shot. The rest is skill level.

As you become less skilled, the more you rely on luck.

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Big Lex said:

Yes! This is how I think about luck too. 

We don't really know how much "luck" helps or hurts us because there is luck or randomness on every shot.

I disagree, and given how I defined "luck" earlier, it's easy to see why.

[Big Lex]

9 hours ago, iacas said:

I disagree, and given how I defined "luck" earlier, it's easy to see why.

By your definition of luck - an extremely likely event that occurs - yes. But I am following the other poster's idea about "luck," that it is a manifestation of randomness which occurs continuously. And I still think we don't know the overall effect of luck on us because - even by your definition - we have selective memory. 

Edited April 25, 2019 by Big Lex

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

By your definition of luck - an extremely likely event that occurs - yes. But I am following the other poster's idea about "luck," that it is a manifestation of randomness which occurs continuously. 

Randomness isn’t luck. Nobody who hits a three foot putt at the middle of the hole with the proper speed that sees it go in the middle even though it hit a bunch of tiny little bumps along the way says “that was lucky.”

Not alone. That’s a completely impractical definition of luck.