What Would a Top Tour Pro Shoot on a Typical Public Course?

[caniac6]

My course is a private club, around 6700 from the back tees. Tommy Gainey holds the course record with a 61. My old course was a semi private, 7000 from the backs, Tim Clark shot a 61 in a USGA qualifier. Clark was still in school at NC State. I don't know if either player had ever played either course before.

[Aguirre]

17 hours ago, iacas said:

Nope.

Not rolling and cutting the greens, btw, makes it more difficult to score low. Not easier.

Yeah, that's why they do it on tour. To make it "easier." That's why the majors try and make the greens as firm and fast as possible. So it's easier to score low. You've been making this dumb take for years.

[StuM]

5 hours ago, Aguirre said:

Yeah, that's why they do it on tour. To make it "easier." That's why the majors try and make the greens as firm and fast as possible. So it's easier to score low. You've been making this dumb take for years.

A hard fast green may be more difficult to get a ball to stop on with a low iron but once on the green they will roll more true than bumpy shag carpet.

[boogielicious]

6 hours ago, Aguirre said:

Yeah, that's why they do it on tour. To make it "easier." That's why the majors try and make the greens as firm and fast as possible. So it's easier to score low. You've been making this dumb take for years.

It’s true. Well maintained, smooth, rolled greens have less imperfections than muni greens. The ball rolls truer. The green are firmer on tour, which makes it harder to get the ball to stop, but putting can be more accurate because those little bumps that move the ball aren’t there.

I’ve putted on tour level greens and they aren’t that hard once you get the speed down. And that doesn’t take long.

 

[iacas]

7 hours ago, Aguirre said:

Yeah, that's why they do it on tour. To make it "easier."

Your mistake appears to be thinking that the point of a Tour event isn't to make things "difficult." If that was the goal, they wouldn't play lift, clean, and place nearly as often as they do it. They'd keep the furrowed bunkers that Nicklaus tried a decade or more ago at the Memorial.

The point is uniformity, for the most part. Greens on the PGA Tour are 10.5 to 11, generally. Uniform.

7 hours ago, Aguirre said:

That's why the majors try and make the greens as firm and fast as possible.

Firm isn't what's being discussed.

7 hours ago, Aguirre said:

So it's easier to score low. You've been making this dumb take for years.

It's been studied. It's not a "take" it's a result.

This is particularly true if you're a decent putter — less randomness and smaller strokes = better putting. Faster greens tend to allow for separation in putting. Slower greens narrow separation.

[StuM]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

The point is uniformity, for the most part. Greens on the PGA Tour are 10.5 to 11, generally. Uniform.

Uniformity is what a lot of public courses lack and that hurts as much as the bumpy greens.  I hate it when I am long on one green because it is fast only to get to the next hole and find a slow green and leave it short.

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by StuM
Added then removed 2nd paragraph, wrong post. My bad.

[Ranchhand]

Robert Damron has several course records here in Central Florida.  The courses usually have some type of posting as to the course record.  I don't recall any of them being in the mid to low 50's.  Most if I recall are closer to 60.  A lot of our courses can be played long at close to 7000 yards or longer.

[SG11118]

Most of the PGA Tour courses have a Strokes Gained "Par" between 70.0 and 72.5.  My home course plays to a Strokes Gained "Par" of 70.356 from the tips.  Even though SG is supposed to be the score a pro would be expected to score on a course, on all but the toughest events, it seems like the typical touring PGA pros are beating this "par" by 0.5 to 1.5 strokes per round.  If there was a PGA tour event on my home course, I would expect the average score for the field to be around 69.0-69.5.  I'm sure a statistician could look at a typical score distribution and tell us what the low score for a pro on the week would be, but I would guess it would be low 60s.

[Shorty]

Here is a card from a struggling tour pro in midweek members competition on Wednesday this week.  One of the best courses in Sydney - not super long, but just emphasises how good these guys are. 58 off the stick  - 45 stableford points playing off +4

[iacas]

19 minutes ago, Shorty said:

Here is a card from a struggling tour pro in midweek members competition on Wednesday this week.  One of the best courses in Sydney - not super long, but just emphasises how good these guys are. 58 off the stick  - 45 stableford points playing off +4

You can also find cards where a similar guy shoots 75.

[Shorty]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

You can also find cards where a similar guy shoots 75.

Most definitely! This was obviously a very special round. The fact that this particular professional would struggle to make a cut on the KFT or Challenge Tour probably says it all.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Shorty

[iacas]

Score spoiler:

Spoiler

He is -2 through 7 and -3 through 9 despite not really getting into much trouble, and finishes -7. Fails to set the course record. Plus he hit a shot from a parking lot which may have been OB but he doesn't "think" so. 😄 

Remember, too, this isn't just "a Tour player" this is the current U.S. Open champ and one of the longest Tour players out there.

[Ty_Webb]

I think the answer to this is different depending on the actual specifics. If you ask about a tour player going to play a course then they could shoot pretty much anything, but I'd guess average score would be 67ish. If you had a field of 156 tour players playing four rounds, someone is going to shoot something pretty low. I'd guess someone would shoot around 60 one of the rounds. Possibly under (really going out on a limb there seeing as Bryson himself has shot 58 this year and that was not on a local muni). 

[billchao]

18 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

I think the answer to this is different depending on the actual specifics. If you ask about a tour player going to play a course then they could shoot pretty much anything, but I'd guess average score would be 67ish. If you had a field of 156 tour players playing four rounds, someone is going to shoot something pretty low. I'd guess someone would shoot around 60 one of the rounds. Possibly under (really going out on a limb there seeing as Bryson himself has shot 58 this year and that was not on a local muni). 

Yea it’s just a numbers game. Can a pro tour golfer break the course record at a muni? It’s likely, given enough opportunities. Can that player break the CR in only one opportunity? That’s far less likely.

The CR at my home muni is 62 IIRC, shot by a kid last year who is only a +1.4.

[Carl3]

On 8/29/2024 at 11:36 AM, iacas said:

Score spoiler:

  Reveal hidden contents

He is -2 through 7 and -3 through 9 despite not really getting into much trouble, and finishes -7. Fails to set the course record. Plus he hit a shot from a parking lot which may have been OB but he doesn't "think" so. 😄 

Remember, too, this isn't just "a Tour player" this is the current U.S. Open champ and one of the longest Tour players out there.

Great video. He is an absolute beast. 

In response to the 15 year old OP, I think the top tour professionals are like +8 or +9, so the math should be straight forward. A typical "muni" in my experience tops out at low to mid 6k yardage range that would generate a course rating of a couple strokes below par. They might have slopes of no more that about 120. So a course handicap for a +8 would usually be +10 then. But considering we might shoot a few over our course handicap for an typical round I would expect the +8 to average mid 60's at a typical muni.

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, Carl3 said:

They might have slopes of no more that about 120. So a course handicap for a +8 would usually be +10 then.

Course Handicap = Handicap Index® x (Slope Rating™ / 113) + (Course Rating™ - par)

(8 * 120/113) + (70.4 - 72) = 6.9 -> 7.

And of course that's only 20% of the time they'd beat that, and about 40% they'd be close to that. The other 60% of the time they're above it by a few strokes or more.

[Carl3]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Course Handicap = Handicap Index® x (Slope Rating™ / 113) + (Course Rating™ - par)

(8 * 120/113) + (70.4 - 72) = 6.9 -> 7.

And of course that's only 20% of the time they'd beat that, and about 40% they'd be close to that. The other 60% of the time they're above it by a few strokes or more.

I think that would be correct if it was an 8 HI. A plus 8 would be a 10 according to the USGA calculator:

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, Carl3 said:

I think that would be correct if it was an 8 HI. A plus 8 would be a 10 according to the USGA calculator:

Yeah, brain fart. Should go in as -8 for the formula.

Anyway, that's still only 20% of the time beating that. Predictions are often that they'd average 58 or 61 or something. (Also, Tour players are often not +8.)