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

[zipazoid]

Originally Posted by poser

Alot of people are members of golf courses and don't pay to play other spots.  Whats so weird about that?  People get married wife says you already have a membership why the hell would you play somewhere else..... Buddy of mine is only allowed to play his home course because its like 400 a month members fee.  His wife wouldn't allow him to play anywhere else

I get that. If you shell out thousands to be a member somewhere you obviously want to play most if not all your rounds there.

But the context of what Kobey said was someone choosing not to play somewhere else for the sole purpose of keeping their handicap low . That's some serious navel-gazing & I would recommend therapy for someone that self-centered.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by zipazoid

I get that. If you shell out thousands to be a member somewhere you obviously want to play most if not all your rounds there.

But the context of what Kobey said was someone choosing not to play somewhere else for the sole purpose of keeping their handicap low. That's some serious navel-gazing & I would recommend therapy for someone that self-centered.

Virtually all of the true scratch players I know:

a) play in tournaments, which necessitate that they play more than their home course

b) play against other good players, often by invitation at other clubs (the home courses of the other good players)

c) really, really love the game of golf and so dedicate a good chunk of their time and money to it

There are no doubt some scratch golfers whose game doesn't travel very well. But they're rare and shouldn't be considered part of this discussion.

[sofingaw]

Look at the scores from the 2012 PGA Championship.

http://www.pga.com/pgachampionship/scoring/leaderboard

Some factors to remember.. Tough course. Bad weather at times. And it was a major championship. All players had to deal with these issues, so we'll call these factors square.

19 club pros in the field. All were cut, and therefore all averaged at least one (or many) strokes more than all the pros who made the cut after the fist 2 days.

Some facts:

The low round for a club pro was 74 (1)

The low round for a tour pro was 66 (1)

19 club pros had a total of 17 rounds 80 or over.

72 players above the cut line had 4 rounds 80 or over. (in twice as many days)

13 of the 19 club pros were in the bottom 26 of the 150-ish player field.

And these players are all pros. Not amateurs. Now, not all club pros play at a scratch level, I get that. But if the distinction is this much between professional golfers, I can't see too many amateur scratch players being much nearer the tour pros.

I'm too lazy to do the averages for all in the field, but, looking at it,  it would seem to me that the club pros are at least 5 shots higher on average. If anyone wants to do math, that's cool with me. It'd be interesting to see.

[BuckeyeNut]

Am golfers don't even compare.....

Unless it's 1996 and your name is tiger woods.  You win the US Am.........then go on to win 2 out of 7 events and make the top30 on the money list and qualify for the Tour championship.  LOL...

[LovinItAll]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeNut

Am golfers don't even compare.....

Unless it's 1996 and your name is tiger woods.  You win the US Am.........then go on to win 2 out of 7 events and make the top30 on the money list and qualify for the Tour championship.  LOL...

There are definitely amateurs who could play professionally, but choose not to do so. There are no golfers that are 0-+3 or so that could play professionally even if they wanted to.

In golf, as in many sports, there are players who have the skill set to earn a living on the Tour, but find that kind of life not to their liking. I'm not saying there are thousands of them or anything, but there are a few. There's obviously not aTiger Woods playing a local muni every Saturday morning, but I think you get the idea.