What If Scenario: PGA Tour Becomes an All-Putting Tour or an All-Ballstriking Tour

[iacas]

It'd be similar to NBA games morphing into nothing more than free-throw shooting contests. How many of the current players would remain in such a league? If there were any, you could count them on a couple of fingers.

Reminds me… there was an 80- or 90-year-old guy who would go to the Y near Golf Evolution and just make free throws for an hour or two. Got over 100 in a row regularly.

Granny style, no less.

[Golfingdad]

Heck, long drive competitions are a pretty good analogy too, are they not? I mean, how many tour pros would be able to succeed right now on the long drive circuit? Bubba WAtson perhaps ... And maybe just a couple of others? And driving for distance is way more technical than putting. So why should it be so hard to think that they'd miss out on the putting tour - a skill that is monumentally less difficult for everybody?

[Osmond]

Heck, long drive competitions are a pretty good analogy too, are they not?

I mean, how many tour pros would be able to succeed right now on the long drive circuit? Bubba WAtson perhaps ... And maybe just a couple of others?

And driving for distance is way more technical than putting. So why should it be so hard to think that they'd miss out on the putting tour - a skill that is monumentally less difficult for everybody?

It's not difficult to think, at least for me. I, on the other hand, seem to be one of the few that think the tour pros of today might have a chance at making it. Come to think of it, I'd compare it to soccer/football if the sport was only a penalty shootout from now on. I still think we'd see top footballers play for the best teams, that's how far ahead of everyone else they are at the simple task of kicking a ball a bit more than 10 yards. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see putting, throwing darts, etc. as something so simple that everyone could become good with enough practice. And the nature on Q School also has an effect - naturally it'd be harder for the best putters to make it if the qualifying was as short as 18 holes or something similar. Heck, I might make to the European tour if it was a one hole qualifier.

You mentioned long driving. Do you think Jamie Sadlowski would be in the top 100 in the world, let's say in 2020, if the first prize for each event was 100 million?

[iacas]

It's not difficult to think, at least for me. I, on the other hand, seem to be one of the few that think the tour pros of today might have a chance at making it. Come to think of it, I'd compare it to soccer/football if the sport was only a penalty shootout from now on. I still think we'd see top footballers play for the best teams, that's how far ahead of everyone else they are at the simple task of kicking a ball a bit more than 10 yards. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see putting, throwing darts, etc. as something so simple that everyone could become good with enough practice. And the nature on Q School also has an effect - naturally it'd be harder for the best putters to make it if the qualifying was as short as 18 holes or something similar. Heck, I might make to the European tour if it was a one hole qualifier.

You mentioned long driving. Do you think Jamie Sadlowski would be in the top 100 in the world, let's say in 2020, if the first prize for each event was 100 million?

You keep comparing putting to skills that are several orders of magnitude more athletic.

Putting requires very little speed, which is a huge part in almost every other athletic endeavor (including penalty kicks against a goalkeeper).

You also seriously continue to over-estimate how good current pros are at putting. They're not that great at it. They're some of the best in the world, but the very nature of putting means that you will never find someone who consistently makes putts from 25+ feet.

So essentially, everyone will average very close to two putts. Some guys will get lucky and hole some 30 footers over the Q-School and make it. Some guys will get unlucky and three-putt. The sheer volume of people who would try out and the sheer ease and simplicity of putting (particularly given a year or two to practice it with the promise of millions of dollars) would mean that you're putting ~150 (current PGA Tour players) against millions. Even if it was 100,000, statistically, you're not likely to get many through.

Hell, even if you limited it to JUST players from the Web.com tour, you'd probably lose 45% of the PGA Tour right there.

There's very little "Separation Value®" in putting. That's a term we coined in a book we wrote.

[mvmac]

I still think we'd see top footballers play for the best teams, that's how far ahead of everyone else they are at the simple task of kicking a ball a bit more than 10 yards.

There's much more skill involved in a penalty kick (to do it well) than to be a good putter. Think of how relatively short the putting stroke is and how little body movement is required. It's not a dynamic/ballistic movement and requires very little athletic skill.

[mvmac]

Putting is easy, even for Grandma

[Lihu]

Putting is easy, even for Grandma

Illegal putt, but point taken. . .

[iacas]

PGA Tour players are not the game's best putters.

Right now, on GAME GOLF, I have a cumulative strokes gained putting of 1.4 compared to a scratch golfer. This is over many years, and thus represents a very large sample size of putting on greens that aren't as good, smooth, or true as PGA Tour greens. Plus, I don't have those greens maps/charts they all use.

Generally speaking, the strokes gained between two levels of player are 28%, 39%, 19%, and 14% for Driving, Approach, Short Game, and Putting. If the average difference between a Tour player and a scratch golfer is six strokes (+4 to +6 is the typical handicap index of a PGA Tour player), an average PGA Tour player is gaining about 0.14 * 6 = 0.84 strokes on the scratch player through his putting. That knocks my 1.4 strokes down to 1.4 - 0.84 = 0.56. In other words, and very roughly, I gained 0.56 strokes on the average PGA Tour player.

Where would that put me among PGA Tour players in 2017?

Oh, only… fifth.

And I never really practice my putting. And I putt on bumpier, less well manicured greens without the aid of green charts and maps or a caddie.

PGA Tour players are not the game's best putters.

 

 

 

 

P.S. I'm only illustrating a point here, not putting myself forth as the world's greatest putter, or even a member of the top ten thousand. After all, read the tweet…

[NM Golf]

So yesterday I got into a heated argument with someone at the golf course about short game vs long game importance. We were watching the PB Pro-Am when I said something about TOUR players not being that much better putters than the average human. This guy blew a gasket, told me I didn’t know what I was talking about etc. I even used the tour player long game/ 15 handicap short game vs 15 handicap long game/ Tour player short game argument, and showed him all the data from LSW. (I even went to my car and got the book).

He was having none of it. He's been told his entire life short game and putting are more important and so they are, period. It's absolutely amazing to me how people are lemmings and blindly follow flawed ideology even in the face of factual proof to the opposite. I did open the eyes of a couple other guys at the table, Erik might be getting a couple more orders for LSW.

[klineka]

11 minutes ago, NM Golf said:

I even used the tour player long game/ 15 handicap short game vs 15 handicap long game/ Tour player short game argument

Whenever I talk to people who think short game is more important, I give them the above scenario and I can usually see a light bulb turn on and they start to understand what I'm talking about. 

That guy seems really stubborn and unwilling to change. 

At least you got some others on board!

[iacas]

Just now, klineka said:

Whenever I talk to people who think short game is more important, I give them the above scenario and I can usually see a light bulb turn on and they start to understand what I'm talking about. 

I prefer the lefty/righty situation.

If they're a righty, ask which round they'd score best:

• All full swings lefty, short game and putting righty.
• All full swings righty, short game and putting lefty.

The answer is pretty obvious.

[Phil McGleno]

@MuniGrit will surely disagree.

[Pretzel]

14 minutes ago, iacas said:

I prefer the lefty/righty situation.

If they're a righty, ask which round they'd score best:

• All full swings lefty, short game and putting righty.
• All full swings righty, short game and putting lefty.

The answer is pretty obvious.

That's actually a really good way of explaining the importance so that even the most die-hard short game supporters have a hard time denying it. I'm kind of curious to try both scenarios now and see what my own results are.

[NM Golf]

55 minutes ago, iacas said:

I prefer the lefty/righty situation.

If they're a righty, ask which round they'd score best:

• All full swings lefty, short game and putting righty.
• All full swings righty, short game and putting lefty.

The answer is pretty obvious.

I like this, it isn't going to change his mind, but its easier to explain for sure.

[MuniGrit]

2 hours ago, Phil McGleno said:

@MuniGrit will surely disagree.

Disagree with what?

[Buckeyebowman]

I don't know if this has been mentioned (it probably has), but I didn't care to wade through the previous 3 pages of posts. This reminds me, partially, of Hogan's contention in his later life that the game was tee to green. Putts shouldn't be counted for full strokes. He imagined golf as tee shots and approach shots, closest to the pin wins the hole. No room for putting in this game since Hogan had gotten the yips.

For me, the pro's advantage lies in the fact that they can ram home 4-5-6 foot putts for par with regularity, while those will make me shake like a leaf and fall flat on my face!

[Pretzel]

14 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

For me, the pro's advantage lies in the fact that they can ram home 4-5-6 foot putts for par with regularity, while those will make me shake like a leaf and fall flat on my face!

If you practice 4, 5, and 6 foot putts for several hours you, too, could do the same.

If you practice tee shots, approach shots, and long irons for several hours, you would be unable to even come close to the level of the worst pro on the tour.

[Buckeyebowman]

Uhhhh, no! I can't!