Pros vs. Ams.....What's the difference?

[mdl]

Quote:

They hit shots a lot of players hit. They just do it way more often.

Everyone knows a few kids who were destined to make it as a professional in whatever sport is big in your neck of the woods. Some make it and others don't. It's not always about talent. You gotta have determination, luck, self confidence, nerves of steel, be clutch when the right people are watching, and more than anything you have to be somewhat coachable. Golf is like baseball in that there are a lot of statistics that seem to be a very good indicator of success.

All I'm saying is there are a lot of "scratch" players (and that's what were talking about, not 10 handicappers who can't break into the 70s let alone the 60s) who have pro skills in all but one or two areas. Sometimes it's important areas like putting or intelligence, but still, a ton of scratch and low index players "can" make the shots the pros make. It's all those "other shots" that add up. The consistency.

Maybe it's just semantics, but I'm not just talking about some sense of physical ability or some level of peak performance hand-eye coordination when I say "talent".  I'm including pretty much everything you list except for luck and maybe coachability.

Anyone who's a serious golfer and athletic enough to hit at least somewhat near tour distances with the irons has hit shots that any pro would be happy with from 200 in.  Certainly almost every scratch player is capable of hitting shots with every club in the bag that any pro would be happy with.

Being capable of hitting those shots is relatively little of what makes up the "talent" that's required to be a pro golfer.  The "talent" is being able to hit those shots (almost) every time, and change between different types of shots and hit them all right (almost) every time.  To me it seems like the consistency, and the mental skills required to maintain that consistency in crunch time, are the vast majority of what separates pro golfers from great amateurs.  That's where the physical talent is demonstrated too.  Cause it requires mental skills to maintain that consistency, but also physical skills.

I think the confusion about how good pro golfers are stems from the fact that, unlike in other sports, you can be a good amateur and be physically capable of all the skills required to succeed professionally.  Almost no one playing in a weekend adult baseball or basketball or football or hockey league is physically capabel of even really coming close to performing the required athletic feats with the speed, strength, etc required at the pro level.  But in golf, there are plenty of amateurs who can swing the club at 113 mph and go out and score 71 some days on a tough par 72 course.  And there are even more who can swing it 110 mph and go shoot 77 on a tough course and can trick themselves into thinking that if only they had the time and money they could train hard and play constantly and stop leaving those 9 strokes on the course and do that under tournament conditions and stress and have the skills to be successful as a pro.

[x129]

I would say the top nationwide players are about the same as the 100-150 pga pros if you go by the following years results. Just trying to remove the course differences and make it all about the golfers.

I am pretty confidant that crowds and nerves are a minor factor in the whole equation of why a scratch guy ins't on tour. Their game is still too weak.  Now if you are talking about a +4 making as pro then I would say nerves and the like matter a heck of  a lot.

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

Hey, no changing the goalposts on me!  My 15-shot argument was the scratch golfer playing on the PGA Tour, not the other way around. The scratch golfer is not used to playing his normal game under such conditions and I'm not just talking about the course. You have to take into account the buzz (nerves, crowds, cameras etc.) surrounding a PGA Tour event, you cannot compare it to a little tournament at your local club.

Just so we are comparing oranges to oranges, I am talking about scratch golfers (proper 0.0 handicappers that average around 74-75 over their last 20 rounds, because there different kinds of 0.0 handicappers!) and PGA Tour pros capable of keeping their tour card.

[TourSpoon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by x129

Those scores would put the pro ~7-8 strokes better than the scratch guy (obviously a lot of assumptions including the one that a guy shooting a course record is doing some where around 1 in 1000 round) which is a about what I said. I am too lazy to do it but it might be more instructional to look at the nationwide tour instead of the PGA. My impression is that they are a bit closer to what the a normal club would be. The top nationwide guys are about the same as midlevel pro (based on results the following year). Most of the course are about a 75 and most tournaments are won around -15 or so (this varies quite a bit ) which again would suggest ~7=8 strokes. Obviously that is a boat load of strokes but it is a lot less than 15.

I think the prevailing thought in this thread is that even Nationwide is close to scratch. Not really, they are a hair from the PGA and miles from scratch. Maybe go down to Golden Bear, Hooters, and mini-mini tour level and you get closer.  Even the guys winning those events are shooting in the 60s on a daily basis from 7000 yards.

Quote:

Pros hit the same shots as a good amateur shot in my experience. I play with a guy that shoots int he low 80s (was low single back when he played a ton in HS but now gets out a couple times a month at best). If you took 100 swings of his and a 100 swings of a pro, the best 5 or so would be indistinguishable without going to slow motion. He is smooth and has enough clubhead speed to get that 7 iron out 180+ (I have seen 200 on the course but I sure as heck didn't notice the exact wind and slope) and you get the whole different sound than the rest of us hackers. The difference is the rest of the shots drop off much quicker where his worst 10 shots are probably are worse than the pros worst 10 shots of the year. It is tempting to say that if he practiced 24/7 he could gain that consistency but that isn't really true. People have limits and as you approach them improvement gets really hard.

You are over simplifying it. Your guy may take 100 shots to hit 5 that are pro quality, but they are not pro quality on demand.  Hitting a high fade to a front right pin with a 7 iron from 185 yards is different than hitting a 7 iron 185 yards.  Hitting that lower draw to skip back to that back left pin is what separates the two. See the pro only has about 32 full shots a round to make his case, anymore and he won't be making any cuts (assuming 2 on par 4s, 1 on par 3s, and 2 on par 5s with partials finishing). You are right about his worst 10 being worse than 10 a pro might hit all year. Pros can and do hit poor shots from time to time, but they rarely compound the errors like us ams do. I also give you credit for the last sentence as people do have limits and improvement becomes monumentally harder the better you get. That is why I maintain that a 10 is closer to scratch than a scratch is to Tour.

[x129]

There pretty much zero difference between a top 25 nationwide pro and a 120-180 pga member. One just played better the previous year.Anyone who thinks differently is nuts. There is also the whole traveling scratch versus club one.  If you play the same course 2x a week for 10 years, you have build up an insane knowledge base for how to play that one course. Of course most amateurs don't have caddies out with them for second opinions (and if you believe the caddies they are worth 3-4 strokes a round ) so maybe it all evens out.

Yes what I said was  a gross simplification(I realize my post made it sound like I was focusing on distance which wasn't my intent. I have played with guys that over power the ball (ex DI football guys) and their shots look nothing like a pga pro of my friend.) that i but we are saying the same thing that it is consistency that matters. Heck it isn't even the 10 worst that kill you. It is those 80  in the middle that aren't up to snuff. A bladed chip is an obvious bad shot. Leaving the chip at 6 ft instead of 3 costs you 1/4 of a shot. In the long run that will catch up with you  From an improvement point of view (not necessary scoring) there is no doubt that 10 is closer to scratch than scratch to pro since improvement gets much harder as you get better.

I think the most controversial part that I have written is that the average guy can not develop the consistency of a pro no matter how much they practice. The reason I find it controversal is that our learning techniques for motor skills are pretty barbaric right now (pretty much just varying amounts of repetition of the action and drills to help that action). Maybe in 10 years we will learn enough about learning to figure out something that will really help. Or maybe not.  It might also turn out that we could all have been PGA pros but we needed to do certain training between the ages of 3-6 to develop those skills and it 12 it is too late (I am not saying you needed to have played golf. Maybe just swing bat 5000 times). No one really knows.

[sean_miller]

I admit to taking issue with the few guys suggesting the pros are playing a different game. They're playing the same game to a higher level. There's a difference. Yeah, I play a different style of golf than a 20 index and the 20's playing a different style than the 36, especially when it comes to their arsenal of shots and the consistency of the execution, but why now it's okay to suggest a scratch golfer is not playing golf?  The double standards are annoying. Beginners rock because they count all their terrible strokes, but a scratch golfer isn't really golfing because he has fewer stock shots on demand than a PGA Tour winner? What a joke.

[Kobey]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

I admit to taking issue with the few guys suggesting the pros are playing a different game. They're playing the same game to a higher level. There's a difference. Yeah, I play a different style of golf than a 20 index and the 20's playing a different style than the 36, especially when it comes to their arsenal of shots and the consistency of the execution, but why now it's okay to suggest a scratch golfer is not playing golf?  The double standards are annoying. Beginners rock because they count all their terrible strokes, but a scratch golfer isn't really golfing because he has fewer stock shots on demand than a PGA Tour winner? What a joke.

Is that what they really meant by a different game?  I just took it as slang meaning they play a lot better.

[The_Pharaoh]

Originally Posted by Kobey

Is that what they really meant by a different game?  I just took it as slang meaning they play a lot better.

Exactly. Obviously it's the same game, I thought it was pretty clear it was a hyperbole.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobey

Is that what they really meant by a different game?  I just took it as slang meaning they play a lot better.

Exactly. Obviously it's the same game, I thought it was pretty clear it was a hyperbole.

Call it a pet peeve. Yes obviously it's the same game yet people keep saying otherwise, and they're not always exaggerating to make a point. Some of them are dead serious. Of course a person playing a sport professionally will most certainly do almost everything better than someone playing that sport recreationally. Duh. Yet some people seem to be convinced that the actual sport the professional is playing is different because he or she is better at it. Perhaps I'm being too literal, but when the same thing is written over and over the same way, one eventually assumes the author actually means what they're saying.

It's not just this thread, or this site, it's golf forums in general.

[zeg]

We all have our pet peeves, so I won't hold that against anyone, but I think it's a fair statement.

It is a different game in the following almost literal sense, which you hinted at. When I go out and play, the "game" is trying to hit enough quality shots to bogey most of the holes, make a few pars, and avoid the 8s. When a pro is out there, those quality shots are practically a given---the "game" involves picking the best targets, the best specific shots, etc. The rules that govern the ball rolling around are identical, but the focus is quite different.

But, mostly, it's hyperbole. A scratch golfer is so unlikely to hold up against a pro, it implies, that he's not even in the game.

[BuckeyeNut]

I can sum up the difference between pros and AMs in 3 words plus 1 smiley:

"Night and Day"

[sacm3bill]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeNut

I can sum up the difference between pros and AMs in 3 words...

I can also do it in 3 words: "Hole. Nutha. Level."

[Shorty]

Originally Posted by TourSpoon

. That is why I maintain that a 10 is closer to scratch than a scratch is to Tour.

It's been said before, but a very famous player once said that 18 is closer to scratch than scratch is to a Tour player. And I agree.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by zeg

We all have our pet peeves, so I won't hold that against anyone, but I think it's a fair statement.

It is a different game in the following almost literal sense, which you hinted at. When I go out and play, the "game" is trying to hit enough quality shots to bogey most of the holes, make a few pars, and avoid the 8s. When a pro is out there, those quality shots are practically a given---the "game" involves picking the best targets, the best specific shots, etc. The rules that govern the ball rolling around are identical, but the focus is quite different.

But, mostly, it's hyperbole. A scratch golfer is so unlikely to hold up against a pro, it implies, that he's not even in the game.

As is the trend in this thread, I'll summarize this in 3 words using "golf" as a verb.

"Pros golf better."

[The_Pharaoh]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

"Pros golf better."

Yes, that much is obvious, but by how much? I said at least 15 shots, Shorty believes that it is more than 18, others have said between 7-9 and then we have a couple of people that think it is "a few shots".

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean_miller

"Pros golf better."

Yes, that much is obvious, but by how much? I said at least 15 shots, Shorty believes that it is more than 18, others have said between 7-9 and then we have a couple of people that think it is "a few shots".

This is all just guessing since it depend on what type of player the scratch player is. Why is he scratch? Is he scratch only at his home course? A good tour caddie helping with reads should be able to get a scratch player around pretty close to their average differential on a tour course assuming the player's index travels well (and it's not in a hurricane). I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that if a scratch player couldn't play well (relatively speaking - not exactly threatening to make the cut - and maybe even finishing dead last) on a PGA Tour course with a PGA Tour level caddie on the bag, then he's a fraud. That is my opinion.

If the caddie could help keep the player's ego in check they should certainly get around in 80 strokes. Not every time, but more often that not. That might be 15+ strokes more than some players and only a handfull more than others.

[BuckeyeNut]

Originally Posted by sacm3bill

I can also do it in 3 words: "Hole. Nutha. Level."

OK...I have to admit that was pretty funny.  hahaha

[iacas]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

Yes, that much is obvious, but by how much? I said at least 15 shots, Shorty believes that it is more than 18, others have said between 7-9 and then we have a couple of people that think it is "a few shots".

Over a legit scratch, I'm going with 8.

PGA Tour scoring averages are still almost 71. Give a legit scratch guy more than, say, four rounds to get a true average and he's not going to average 86. Upper 70s, but not 85-86.

[zipazoid]

I already used my three words to describe the difference -

Scratch ain't sh*t.