Advantages pros have over amateurs

[GolfBear]

First a disclaimer; let me say that I have an absolute appreciation for the skill of even a mediocre PGA/LPGA tour player. This is not meant to detract from their skill level or ability but rather to spoof some of the stuff that us weekend hackers deal with that they don't have to!

Please don't feel the need to defend them or point out how hard they work or how difficult it is just to stay on tour. I fully recognize just how elite they are.

That said, we got into a conversation the other night during my league round about the advantages that tour pros have that your average weekend duffer doesn't. I'm talking about the Budweiser drinking duffer that shows up at the local muni on Saturday for a round with his friends.

We reached a consensus that tournament variables could be responsible for saving a tour pro 3-4 strokes per round if not more. Assuming two courses were set up with the same length & slope, here's what the pros get that we don't:

1. Obscenely well conditioned courses. Most of the horrors that weekend duffers see simply don't exist on tour courses. Some of the courses we frequent wouldn't ever be able to host a tour event because they're simply in too rough shape.

2. Perfectly manicured and consistent greens. Ball marks beware! Tournament greens are obscenely fast but also extremely consistent. Greenskeepers go to great lengths to make sure they're just perfect. I'm not sure my local gk knows what a stimpmeter is!

3. Perfect bunkers. Always filled with fluffy white sand and usually of consistent texture. I wonder how many pros have ever had to hit out of a HUGE heel print during a tour event?

4. No equipment budget. Latest driver, check. Prototype shafts, check. On site adjustments, check. Customized equipment based on course and conditions, check

5. Perfect yardages. Unless you own a GPS or laser rangefinder you're at the mercy of the on course markings. During a round this week we noticed that one of our "on course" markers was off by 12 YARDS!

6. Crowds. Why is this an advantage you might ask? Last week during the Memorial, Tiger bounces three errant drives off of spectators effectively bringing the ball to a dead stop. Our balls continue on their merry way into the nearest bush or into the buckwheat. Ever see a pro blast a drive off a press tent only to be allowed a drop next to the green?

7. Spotters. It's damn near impossible for a pro to lose a golf ball. On any given hole there could be several thousand people watching where your shot goes.

8. Caddies. Not only do they lug your stuff around saving you the fatigue, they give you yardages, help you read greens and act like your slave for 18 holes.

9. Swing coaches, instructors, physical therapists, trainers, psychologists etc. These guys/gals have an army of people backing them up. All for a fee of course!

10. TIME! All they do is practice and play golf. All day, every day, most since they were 7 years old. Next time you watch Phil blast drive into the next county remind yourself that golf is all he does. It'll make you feel better about your game!!!!

Please feel free to add your own "tour advantage"!

[JWL1957]

LOL.. good post. They get to play some great courses as well. It still must be awfully tough to travel as much as they do, and have a fairly stable home life. Having your life under a microscope by the general public must kinda suck as well.

[nuck81]

LOL.. good post. They get to play some great courses as well. It still must be awfully tough to travel as much as they do, and have a fairly stable home life. Having your life under a microscope by the general public must kinda suck as well.

I think the biggest advantage would be #10. They hit balls all day, every day, most with teachers and instructors.

However I will say that the life of a journeyman/low level PGA has to be a stressfull and hard one. Stressing on making cuts, not having the endorsements/freebies that the top guys get. I really feel admire the Nationwide and Mini Tour guys, cause you know they don't have it as easy as it seems...

[GolfBear]

I think the biggest advantage would be #10. They hit balls all day, every day, most with teachers and instructors.

You're absolutely right! If you haven't read John Feinstein's book

A Good Walk Spoiled you absolutely should. It goes into pretty good detail on the less glorious side of the tour. Q school is horrifying and I don't imagine most of us would enjoy living in our car and eating Top Ramen for weeks on end! :)

[max power]

Perfect bunkers is a good point-I've played too many courses where the traps are filled more with dirt than sand.

[tws1098]

great post, I would like to add the teeboxes and fairways to the comment on the greens and sand. Some fairways I have played seem more like my front yard than a golf course fairway and the teeboxes can be pretty horrendous.

[jetsknicks1]

great post, I would like to add the teeboxes and fairways to the comment on the greens and sand. Some fairways I have played seem more like my front yard than a golf course fairway and the teeboxes can be pretty horrendous.

That's a great point about the fairways. I've been to Bay Hill a few times to watch the pros and the fairways are better then some of the greens I play on.

[cody west]

you forget how much harder these courses are. how many of us single didget scratch golfers could never break 80 on bethpage black in normal conditions let alone tournament conditions. how many of us play 500 yard par 4's and 250 yard par 3's on a normal basis. yes they have some advantages but they play so much harder courses then us.

[chilly]

We reached a consensus that tournament variables could be responsible for saving a tour pro 3-4 strokes per round if not more. Assuming two courses were set up with the same length & slope, here's what the pros get that we don't:

He didn't "forget" the type of course they play on, he is assuming the courses are the same setup, just differing conditions.

I'm not sure what the actual score difference would be if they had to play in "muni" conditions, I would expect it to make that big a difference...they way those guys hit it out of nasty rough makes me doubt a fuzzy fairway would really bother them. I do agree that the different types of sand you see on the same course is rough, I just finished a round where I hit out of three distinctly different sands and it definitely impacted my game. I also wonder how much of a length advantage the tightly mowed fairways makes, the rollout they get is insane.

[nuck81]

He didn't "forget" the type of course they play on, he is assuming the courses are the same setup, just differing conditions.

Most pro's would set or come close to a course record every time they played a Muni...

[B-Con]

The best points, IMO:

2. Perfectly manicured and consistent greens. Ball marks beware! Tournament greens are obscenely fast but also extremely consistent. Greenskeepers go to great lengths to make sure they're just perfect. I'm not sure my local gk knows what a stimpmeter is!

Thoroughly agree here. I'm not picky, but I refuse to play courses with bad greens. They don't have to be anywhere close to perfect, but I can't stand lining up a 6ft putt on a level surface that ends 8" left of the hole because it had to bounce over a small mountain range to get there. It removes half the skill of putting and makes half the putting game a crap shoot.

4. No equipment budget. Latest driver, check. Prototype shafts, check. On site adjustments, check. Customized equipment based on course and conditions, check

Compared to a casual golfer who isn't willing to spend a ton of money on golf, this is also true. Sure you don't have to have perfectly tailored equipment to play golf, but a lot of the clubs I chose took price as a primary consideration. For example, how many golfers are willing to re-grip all of their clubs to get nice grips at the right size? I'm guessing a good number of the people on this forum would, but I've talked to a lot of casual golfers who've never even considered it.

5. Perfect yardages. Unless you own a GPS or laser rangefinder you're at the mercy of the on course markings. During a round this week we noticed that one of our "on course" markers was off by 12 YARDS!

My hitting distance isn't very consistent, but it's made worse by the fact that I'm terrible at estimating distance. I'll walk up to my ball, look at the hole, and consider everything from my 8i to my 5i before making a choice. I come up short on a good shot at least 2 or 3 times a game simply because I chose the wrong club. Those 2 or 3 mis-judges alone cost me at least a stroke or two per game.

10. TIME! All they do is practice and play golf. All day, every day, most since they were 7 years old. Next time you watch Phil blast drive into the next county remind yourself that golf is all he does. It'll make you feel better about your game!!!!

The most obvious one, can't leave this one out.

Along the lines of points 4 and 10, I would add: 11. Equipment experimentation. How many players experiment with lots of equipment to find what's best for them? I don't mean go to a demo day and try a couple of the latest drivers, I mean to truly compare one set of perfectly fitted clubs to another set of perfectly fitted clubs. How many players buy a dozen of 10 different ball models and work them over and perform a detailed comparison of what they need from a ball? How many players have practiced over 150 putts per putter on over a dozen putters to find their best combination of putting style and putter? A lack of time, money, and motivation probably account for this, all of which the TOUR players have in abundance.

[Shorty]

You forgot a very significant one, so I'll add it.

11. A positive mindset where they don't look for imaginary excuses to blame their poor play on, or imagine that other golfers have some kind of advantage over them. They do not have the need to imagine that other golfers have a list of at least ten advantages over them which would make them score better. They focus on their own game and do not concern themselves with "what ifs".

Regarding the point about fairways, it is pretty commonly understood that the fairways in tournaments would cause casual players as many problems as the greens do because they are so tight.

[GolfBear]

Most pro's would set or come close to a course record every time they played a Muni...

I don't disagree. Ironically enough our discussion last week was "what would Tiger shoot on our course"? The consensus was that it's entirely possible that he would be between 10 and 15 under par.

I've seen his handicap estimated between +6.7 and +8.0

[senorchipotle]

Most pro's would set or come close to a course record every time they played a Muni...

i don't know about that, at least not at my muni. it's a fairly tough track which has played host to a major tournament in the past.

[nuck81]

i don't know about that, at least not at my muni. it's a fairly tough track which has played host to a major tournament in the past.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but most muni's are designed to not be too hard. Afterall if they were, the casuals wouldn't play them. My local Course has hosted several OVC Conferences Championships, it's a bugger. But there is a really easy nine hole muni near mom's that I prefer simply because it's cheaper and I don't lose as many balls.

[max power]

My hitting distance isn't very consistent, but it's made worse by the fact that I'm terrible at estimating distance. I'll walk up to my ball, look at the hole, and consider everything from my 8i to my 5i before making a choice. I come up short on a good shot at least 2 or 3 times a game simply because I chose the wrong club. Those 2 or 3 mis-judges alone cost me at least a stroke or two per game.

Serious question-don't you walk off the distance from your ball to the nearest marker? I agree it's annoying when the yardage marker isn't perfectly accurate, but I find they are usually within a yard or three to the center of the green.

[deronsizemore]

Most of the guys on tour though, at some point in their life, were playing the same type of crappy courses that we all play each day. The guys on tour didn't just magically get to the tour. They played and succeeded at playing all kinds of different courses growing up without caddies, without galleries, without perfect greens, etc. Of course, a few of the guys were country club babies and grew up playing nothing but the best, but that's not the story for most I would guess.

I play in a couple tournaments each year and the courses aren't even close to being tour quality (I played Valhalla last year and they can't come close). Even in these local tournaments on local municipal courses, guys are going out and shooting sub 70 rounds frequently so I can guarantee you that a tour pro would eat these courses alive. The Kentucky State amateur this year was played at the course I play most often (local muni) and the leader after the first day shot 64.

[Shorty]

Most of the guys on tour though, at some point in their life, were playing the same type of crappy courses that we all play each day. The guys on tour didn't just magically get to the tour. They played and succeeded at playing all kinds of different courses growing up without caddies, without galleries, without perfect greens, etc. Of course, a few of the guys were country club babies and grew up playing nothing but the best, but that's not the story for most I would guess.

100% correct. Perfectly well put.