Jon Rahm's Dumb Comments About Scratch Golfers

[iacas]

Rahm (68): A scratch wouldn't break 80 - or 90

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“They should allow people, whoever wants to play, to come tomorrow in the same conditions we [played] in,” Rahm said Saturday.

After telling us that a scratch golfer wouldn't break 80, which he then amended to 90, at Muirfield Village, Jon Rahm said this:

Quote

Then he offered this: A group of four scratch club champions, in a scramble, likely wouldn’t break par in the same conditions the Tour players faced Saturday.

Dude.

[pganapathy]

The 80 may well be difficult for a scratch golfer but the 90, definitely achievable.  I don't care what course it is.

[Beastie]

40 minutes ago, pganapathy said:

The 80 may well be difficult for a scratch golfer but the 90, definitely achievable.  I don't care what course it is.

This. If you are not try to shoot under par then a conservative strategy minimises the risk of big numbers. 

[BC-to-MI]

Yeah, I could definitely see 80 being an issue for a scratch golfer between the course conditions and the wind yesterday, but the scramble thing ... no. Beyond just the whole four chances at every putt with the last three guys knowing the line, with four club champion scratch golfers you would essentially eliminate having any big misses off the tee, eliminate being short sided, eliminate all the things that would add up quickly on the scorecard.

[Vinsk]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Rahm (68): A scratch wouldn't break 80 - or 90

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“They should allow people, whoever wants to play, to come tomorrow in the same conditions we...

After telling us that a scratch golfer wouldn't break 80, which he then amended to 90, at Muirfield Village, Jon Rahm said this:

Dude.

Ridiculous. Didn’t hear that. Hell I think me and 3 scratch golfers could scramble a par round.

[Shindig]

I haven't checked in the past few years, but when I was following this more closely,  I think U.S. Open layouts had CRs in the high 70s (with very high slope ratings too).  A scratch player would definitely be able to break 90 there;  Tony Romo did so in 2008 with an 84 that included a stubbed chip. 

Either way, the CRs were definitely not closer to 90 than 80. 

A scramble of scratch golfers, definitely -- especially if the first one hits the green safely on an approach shot, which should allow the others to aim closer to the pin.  I'm not sure what strategy I'd coach such a group to use.

[phillyk]

As a scramble, 4 scratch golfers would shoot around -9 or so.  I've set up ball buster (tip n tuck/super's revenge) at my old course that ran at 74.8 rating.  We set course up longer than rated, placed pins sides of hills (couldn't stop a ball within 20ft on a few greens), and played in wind.  A group or scratch/near scratch shot -7 still.  So place pins in doable positions, no matter the wind, it will be very doable as a scramble.  I hate the idea that somehow pga tour pros are inhuman.  While scratch golfers are still several strokes from the pros, they still can play good golf.

[BeCu]

So I am not currently scratch nor a club champion. So I am just asking question. 😀

 Are there forced carries that require extreme distance shot capabilities at that course/tournament or is it  the normal wind/dried out US Open condition like challenges (course management and some luck needed)? 

I just can't believe that there are not good teaching professionals (at scratch level) and/or club champion top amateurs / average Joe's (again scratch level) that could not break 80. Regarding the scramble part, there has to be many foursomes that could easily break 80 on that course..... Interesting comments to say the least. 

[Shindig]

12 minutes ago, BeCu said:

 Are there forced carries that require extreme distance shot capabilities at that course/tournament or is it  the normal wind/dried out US Open condition like challenges (course management and some luck needed)? 

No, and even if there were, there's often ways around that sort of thing.  One year at Pebble Beach, Tom Watson hit a par-4 by hitting wedge, 3-wood ... in that order.  He didn't think he could make the carry needed from the tee, given the current weather conditions, so he hit to the forward tee box and hit a 3 wood from there. 

[Double Mocha Man]

43 minutes ago, Shindig said:

No, and even if there were, there's often ways around that sort of thing.  One year at Pebble Beach, Tom Watson hit a par-4 by hitting wedge, 3-wood ... in that order.  He didn't think he could make the carry needed from the tee, given the current weather conditions, so he hit to the forward tee box and hit a 3 wood from there. 

#3???  I really can't figure out which par 4 it might have been.

[Shindig]

46 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

#3???  I really can't figure out which par 4 it might have been.

Offhand, neither can I.  It's one of those stories I picked up a while ago, but there was an era where I read a ton of golf books (history, not so much instructional books).  I just thumbed through two of his (Watson's) books a moment ago hoping something would stand out to me as to why he did that.  I'll thumb through other books later in hopes of figuring out who, what hole, and where the story comes from. 

[Double Mocha Man]

39 minutes ago, Shindig said:

Offhand, neither can I.  It's one of those stories I picked up a while ago, but there was an era where I read a ton of golf books (history, not so much instructional books).  I just thumbed through two of his (Watson's) books a moment ago hoping something would stand out to me as to why he did that.  I'll thumb through other books later in hopes of figuring out who, what hole, and where the story comes from. 

I only ask because I've played the course several times, can picture every hole in my mind, but can't think of a par 4  where there's a carry you might want to lay up to in a stiff wind (or other climate condition) with a wedge.

[billchao]

10 hours ago, phillyk said:

I hate the idea that somehow pga tour pros are inhuman.  While scratch golfers are still several strokes from the pros, they still can play good golf.

I agree with this. I think Rahm was stroking his own ego a bit there. Tour golfers are good, but they're not better than scratch golfers with mulligans good.

[Double Mocha Man]

15 minutes ago, billchao said:

I agree with this. I think Rahm was stroking his own ego a bit there. Tour golfers are good, but they're not better than scratch golfers with mulligans good.

That gave me a good chuckle.

[Darkfrog]

11 hours ago, Double Mocha Man said:

  I really can't figure out which par 4 it might have been.

 

10 hours ago, Shindig said:

Offhand, neither can I.

Don’t have the answer either, but I heard about something similar happening at The Players before it was played at TPC Sawgrass. 

[TourSpoon]

The scratch scramble is laughable as they would be well under par. I will take 4 guys at 0.0 with 4 cracks at fairway, greens, chips, putts, etc any day. Just avoiding hazards, bunkers, and rough would be a huge advantage. Now back in the day, I played in a sectional scramble at the PGA National Champion course (aka Bear Trap - Honda Classic). This course has hosted the Ryder Cup, the PGA Championship, and at the time just hosted the Senior PGA so it was running fast. My group of two club pros, an apprentice and a cart rat shot minus double digits from the next to back set of tees (tips were off limits).  We played our asses off for a bunch of twenty somethings and I want to say that we placed 3rd behind 2 groups of seasoned club pros that all had some sort of mini-tour and sectional tournament experience. So, I will take that bet every day of the week plus I would even think they would have nothing less than par on each hole. 

As far as a scratch playing his own ball that is a completely different beast and I could see between 80-90 if the scratch was having a scratch day and was on a steady diet of tournament caliber conditions. 

[p1n9183]

PGA tour scoring average on maybe 75 rating courses is 71. If the average score that day was 73.5 then let's suppose the course rating for that day was around 77.5. 

A scratch player... 0 index averages 2..3 strokes over course index in average. Let say 2.5. 

77.5 of the course rating + 2.5 of the average player give us a score of 80 in average. With this in mind half of the scrach players will shoot 80 or below and half will be 80 or above. I guess that 98/99% of them will be below 90. 

Let's suppose that this course is a lot harder than the scratch player is used to play so let's give 2..3 more stroke to the average score, but at the same time (as Rham said he talk about club champions, they are normally around +4/+2 index) club champions are better than scratch player so we can say that the average still seams ok at 80. Maybe 83 for a scratch player.

75 would be a hard number to beat for a club champion, but not 80 or 90...  

  

 

 

[saevel25]

I am not seeing a scramble of scratch golfers shooting over par. They will have no big #'s. Even if they can barely reach some of the par 4's in two, you have four people hitting short game shots. Even if they average 50% scrambling, I believer their combined chance of getting up and down is 93%. If I remember by statistics correctly. 

I think they could birdie a few par 3's, maybe a few par 4's and half the par 5's. I would say -5 to -7 is a good. 

The slope is 76.9 with a rating of 153 from the tees the pro's play at. The yardage is 7392. By USGA, the course handicap for a scratch golfer is 5. 

 

I am not seeing a scramble of scratch golfers shooting over par. They will have no big #'s. Even if they can barely reach some of the par 4's in two, you have four people hitting short game shots. Even if they average 50% scrambling, I believer their combined chance of getting up and down is 93%. If I remember by statistics correctly. 

I think they could birdie a few par 3's, maybe a few par 4's and half the par 5's. I would say -5 to -7 is a good. 

The slope is 76.9 with a rating of 153 from the tees the pro's play at. The yardage is 7392. By USGA, the course handicap for a scratch golfer is 5.