Strategy on Neshanic Valley Ridge #2

[billchao]

2 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

If any of us on this thread start factoring landing angle as a factor for a 70 vs 120 shot, Imma lose it. 😂 

To be fair I do know people that regularly hit the ball 40’ in the air with a slice so angle does matter for them. I don’t think it’s relevant to the conversation at hand though.

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

If any of us on this thread start factoring landing angle as a factor for a 70 vs 120 shot, Imma lose it. 😂 

I think that he meant the angle of the green and the approach shot, not the descent angle.

[GolfLug]

1 minute ago, iacas said:

I think that he meant the angle of the green and the approach shot, not the descent angle.

Okay, fair then. Sorry @StuM, no disrespect meant. 

[billchao]

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

I think that he meant the angle of the green and the approach shot, not the descent angle.

Yea that’s how I took it. I misread what @GolfLug posted.

[Ty_Webb]

20 hours ago, billchao said:

Here's my SG:A data compared to a 10:

I honestly don't know how to use SG for decision making. That's why I was mostly looking at proximity to hole and green success rate for comparison. I mostly use SG as a way to track my progress.

At a basic level, you can take those strokes gained numbers and if you know what the baseline strokes to hole out is from each distance, you can figure out how many strokes on average you will take to hole out from any given spot on the golf course. Then you can take that shot zone thing from shotscope and put it down there and see what the average is for each club and each target you choose. That's not exactly trivial to do though even with a computer, so the strategy guides (like LSW) use rules of thumb to make those decisions easier for you to make on the fly. Most of the time you'll come up with the optimal strategy and on the odd occasion when you don't, the strategy you come up with will be pretty darn close to optimal.

If you're anything like me, then you'll probably wind up being a little too conservative with both club choice and target. Fear of penalty strokes can make you play suboptimally. Basically it's a bad idea to base your strategy on a shot that might pop up less than 1 in 20 times. If you happen to hit that shot, then today just isn't your day, but the 19 times you don't, you'll be in that much better of a spot.

[iacas]

17 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Basically it's a bad idea to base your strategy on a shot that might pop up less than 1 in 20 times.

Tell me you've not seen Bill play without telling me you've not seen Bill play? 😄 Just teasing @billchao. 😄 

[billchao]

21 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

At a basic level, you can take those strokes gained numbers and if you know what the baseline strokes to hole out is from each distance, you can figure out how many strokes on average you will take to hole out from any given spot on the golf course. Then you can take that shot zone thing from shotscope and put it down there and see what the average is for each club and each target you choose. That's not exactly trivial to do though even with a computer, so the strategy guides (like LSW) use rules of thumb to make those decisions easier for you to make on the fly. Most of the time you'll come up with the optimal strategy and on the odd occasion when you don't, the strategy you come up with will be pretty darn close to optimal.

It seems like too much work for me. I'm actually surprised at myself for spending as much time on this as I already have.

Shot Scope tells me my shots to finish with a 7i is 0.1 better than with my 50 or 55 so I'm just going to go with it.

27 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

If you're anything like me, then you'll probably wind up being a little too conservative with both club choice and target.

Actually, I tend to be the complete opposite. I've never faced a shot I'm convinced I can't hit. It leads to great heroics and complete flops. Conservative for me might just be someone else's normal.

[StuM]

8 hours ago, GolfLug said:

Okay, fair then. Sorry @StuM, no disrespect meant. 

No disrespect felt, but since you did apologize you can disrespect once in the future with no guilt.

[billchao]

Well I did par the hole but full disclosure, I thinned the crap out of the tee shot. It ended up where I was intending to hit it at the very least.

[boogielicious]

3 hours ago, billchao said:

Well I did par the hole but full disclosure, I thinned the crap out of the tee shot. It ended up where I was intending to hit it at the very least.

You would have birdied it if you followed my advice!😜

[billchao]

I misremembered. You can see a piece of the green from the tee:

Bonus picture of #5 for @klineka:

[klineka]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

Bonus picture of #5 for @klineka:

Is that picture from your tee box or the front two tee boxes?

[billchao]

16 minutes ago, klineka said:

Is that picture from your tee box or the front two tee boxes?

My tee box. Didn't have the chance to take a picture from the forward tees.

[klineka]

4 minutes ago, billchao said:

My tee box. Didn't have the chance to take a picture from the forward tees.

Gotcha, was just curious. 

Looks like a fun layout, glad you played well. 

[billchao]

1 minute ago, klineka said:

Gotcha, was just curious. 

Looks like a fun layout, glad you played well. 

It is, and thanks. Neshanic Valley GC is a really nice course. It's in the top 5 on pretty much every list of best public courses in NJ. Ridge is my favorite set of nine and most people don't like it. Meadow is probably the easiest and Lake has a few quirky holes but it's not bad, plus the 9th on Lake is probably my favorite hole on the property.

[DeadMan]

9 hours ago, billchao said:

Well I did par the hole but full disclosure, I thinned the crap out of the tee shot. It ended up where I was intending to hit it at the very least.

Well done! And i would have 100% believed a 200+ 6 iron off the tee. No need to give away your secrets!

[billchao]

6 hours ago, DeadMan said:

Well done! And i would have 100% believed a 200+ 6 iron off the tee. No need to give away your secrets!

Thanks! Incidentally, I hit a 6i off the tee yesterday that was properly struck and was also 200+. Wind may or may not have been involved 😉

[p1n9183]

Last year I made an excel that can easily measure with my own SG data the average score for each club of the tee. Even the difference in score if you aim more left or right with the same club. I like it because it can be tweaked to account for different kind of rough, trees, hazards, greens etc.    

On 4/17/2024 at 6:33 PM, billchao said:

Ridge #5

As an example, On Par 5's that you have fescue on both sides were you can count them as a water hazard (penalty or punch out sideways), unless 3 wood or hybrid lands in a wider area between the fescue you should always hit driver. With a shorter club you are going to hit a couple less balls in the fescue than driver but you are not going to offset the fact that 100% of the shots are going to be played 30 or more yards longer.

Here is a 560 par 5. Driver distance 280 yards total, 3 wood 250, hybrid 220. Distance between fescue is 30 yards (pretty tight). Dispersion for Driver is 62 yards. 56 for 3 wood and 49 for hybrid.

Aiming of course at the middle of the fairway (20 yards wide) with driver you are going to hit 34% of balls on the fescue (17% left/17% right). 48% to the fairway and the rest to the rough. 
The average score is going to be around 5.14. Looking at the result with 3 wood and hybrid you are going to hit less balls in the fescue but because of having longer 2nd shots you are going to score slightly worst. 5.17 and 5.25 respectively. 

 

Things changes when the fescue is taller and you are probably going to loose the ball so changing the penalty of hitting there playing a 3 wood or hybrid gives a better score in the hole. 

Off course 30 yards between penalty hazards is way to small. You normally have 60 or more, in that cases the score is going to be more close to 5 and been the Driver the weapon of choice. 
The point is to see that no matter how tight the hole is, depending on the hole sometimes Driver is the play and sometimes 6 irons is the play. Is easy to see that on easy holes, but holes like this:

On 4/17/2024 at 6:33 PM, billchao said:

Neshanic Valley Ridge #2

 you need to crunch the numbers to find the best strategy.