How Would You Play This Hole? (Hole #10 at TPC Louisiana)

[iacas]

3 hours ago, p1n9183 said:

I run the numbers to get a more accurate estimation... 
Considerations:
Players dispersion (95% of shots)
Driver: 70 yards
3Wood: 60 yards
3Iron: 50 yards.
4Iron: 45 yards. 

Landing Area at blue line (left to right).. 20 yards of bunker and 40 yards of fairway. Tree left and right of that. Ideal aim is 14 yards right of the greenside bunker. 

At Brown: 35 yards of fairway, 5 yards of bunker, 20 yards of fairway. Tree left and right of that. Ideal aim is 10 yards left of the 2nd bunker.

At green:  25 yards of fairway, 10 yards of bunker, 25 yards of fairway. Tree left and right of that. Ideal aim is 3 yards left of the shorter bunker. 

At red: 40 yards of fairway and 20 yards of bunker. Tree left and right of that. Ideal aim is 15 yards left of the big bunker on the right. 

I used SG approach from the PGA tour and normal distribution for dispersion. 

Results: 

Blue: 19% of your shots are going to be in the bunker. 74% on the fairway and 7% in the trees (left + right). Distance to pin 50 yards in average. Spected score from trees is +0.66, 0 from sand and -0.35 from fairway. References: X recovery shot (trees), s = sand, f = fairway.  
Average score= 3.78. 

Brown:
 

Green: 

Red: 

 

In conclusion.. by the numbers.. the best strategy is to play Driver with an average of 3.78. 

Bonus.. let say you are really bad at long bunker shots so insted a 0 score average you putt it out side ways leaveing you a 3rd shot of 50 yards from the fairways.. the numbers changes as follows...

Now been on the bunker is +0.65 shot loose instead of 0. 3.9 average is still almost the best option, only 3 wood with 3.87 is better so unless you are terrible at that distance you should hit Driver.  

We can play further with the numbers but it doesn't change the outcome that much.

[GolfLug]

As one of our shop supervisors would say, "There have been bunch of unsuccessful miscommunication failures today"

[billchao]

9 hours ago, klineka said:

FWIW, PGA Tour it's .05 difference from 60 to 80 in the fairway

I think for a scratch golfer it’s 0.2 strokes different. Definitely not worth flirting with any trouble over.

7 hours ago, GolfLug said:

So I think hitting green from a fairway bunker (especially if it's only 50 yards) is a higher percentage shot (>50-60%), assuming you are not uncharacteristically bad at this shot

A 50 yard bunker shot is jail, V. It’s significantly harder than an 80 yard fairway shot.

[GolfLug]

30 minutes ago, billchao said:

A 50 yard bunker shot is jail, V. It’s significantly harder than an 80 yard fairway shot.

I mean I get it, but it's a mundane/defence hole otherwise. BTW, from that perspective, 3 iron isn't exactly a gimme here. Still brings the bunkers legit into play. With his distance 5 iron/8 iron combo would probably be a high percentage play. 

[p1n9183]

17 hours ago, klineka said:

And again, nope. The fairway is never 40yds wide on the entire hole.

On 6/19/2024 at 4:57 PM, klineka said:

Width to still have a shot at green on this line, 50yds

Used your own information, wasn't able to google earth it in detail, so I eyeballed the best I could, also name "Fairway" the sum of fairway + rough as "Still have shot to the green".  
After doing this for a long time you found out that fairway or rough is almost the same thing for the numbers when you want to compare among hitting a Driver, wood or an Iron off the tee. The scoring averages are going to be a little higher but is not going to make a difference on club selection. 
Exceptions are when the fairway width differ between distances and the rough is really penal. 

Don't worry, I'll re-run the numbers with the exact ones.      

[iacas]

34 minutes ago, p1n9183 said:

After doing this for a long time you found out that fairway or rough is almost the same thing for the numbers when you want to compare among hitting a Driver, wood or an Iron off the tee. The scoring averages are going to be a little higher but is not going to make a difference on club selection.

Yes, it can. The rough is a fifth of a shot different on the PGA Tour (worth about 60+ yards of distance), and similar to a low single digit handicapper.

[p1n9183]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Yes, it can. The rough is a fifth of a shot different on the PGA Tour (worth about 60+ yards of distance), and similar to a low single digit handicapper.

 As I said before, "The scoring averages are going to be a little higher but is not going to make a difference on club selection." 
Also remember that normally FIR is 60%, the other 40% is not always rough (hazard, bunker, trees) so in reality that 1/5 is more like 1/15 or 0.066 a hole or 15 yards.  

I re-run the numbers but with the exact yards and using rough and the numbers just went up a little bit but the decision making remains the same, Driver is the best choice. 

With driver (50 yards from green), from left to righ I considered left of cart path "trees/recovery" because you told us that trees left were tall so I guess if you pull it you are not going to carry them. Rigth of the car path you have 9 yards of rough, 20 yards of greenside bunker, 4 yards of rough, then the 20 yards of fairway, 3 yards of bunker (I considered 20 yards of roll so you are not going to carry the 2nd pot bunker), 18 yards of rough and finally trees/recovery.
You are going to hit this fairway 43% of the times. Rough represent only 27% of your shots. 
Scoring average increased from 3.78 to 3.83. At this distance theres only 0.15 difference between rough and fairway, that's why I tell you is almost negligible for strategy purposes unless rough is really penal.

Here are the rest of the possibilities, also with the exact numbers and rough.

Wood:

   

3iron:

4iron:

 Average score for a PGA pro from 355 is 3.91. For an easy hole like this I guess it could be a little lower. 

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, p1n9183 said:

You are going to hit this fairway 43% of the times.

Uhhhhh…

20 hours ago, klineka said:

There's not 40yds of fairway at the blue line. There's like 19yds.

 

 

 

I’d bet against him hitting it 43% of the time, especially as he would be aiming away from the bunker left.

On 7/1/2024 at 9:37 AM, klineka said:

To follow up on this now that I've played it, hitting something short of the pot bunkers (so 3iron for me from those tees) is absolutely the right choice.

[p1n9183]

30 minutes ago, iacas said:

I’d bet against him hitting it 43% of the time, especially as he would be aiming away from the bunker left.

You get that percentage aiming 9 yards right of the bunker, basically 1 yard away from the center of the fairway, so if he aim more left or rigth than that, yes his FIR is going to be lower.  

[iacas]

50 minutes ago, p1n9183 said:

You get that percentage aiming 9 yards right of the bunker, basically 1 yard away from the center of the fairway, so if he aim more left or rigth than that, yes his FIR is going to be lower.  

As he should. And he’s not hitting this fairway at 43% aiming anywhere with driver.