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

[Patch]

My guess would be, assuming the money was the same, it would go to a putting contest. 

Just putting would make it easier for more players to make s living. The short knockers on tour would gain on the long knockers. 

Would speed up play too. Wouldn't need to pay a caddy either. 

[iacas]

38 minutes ago, Patch said:

My guess would be, assuming the money was the same, it would go to a putting contest. 

Just putting would make it easier for more players to make s living. The short knockers on tour would gain on the long knockers. 

Would speed up play too. Wouldn't need to pay a caddy either. 

That doesn't answer the question at all.

[BaconNEggs]

Finally got around reading this thread, as it's totally dead at work this week. And given that it's 5 pages and 4 years old, I don't have much else to add, but I'll throw 2c in anyways.

Putting is really, really easy from a physical skills standpoint. So by that measure, yeah, statistically somewhere around 0 PGA Tour pros make the putting tour.

According to a random CrossFit website, there are 10 physical skills: Endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, & Accuracy

Putting requires mostly just coordination to hit the ball with a square face and path, but beyond that, there's no real physical skills required. You could maybe argue accuracy, but I don't think it's applicable in the context that it was listed, which was more having the ability to control and direct intense forces.

I would bet on a random stranger from the street who has never played golf before to beat your average 20 handicapper in a putting contest as long as they were given a few hours of dedicated coaching and practice from a good teacher. The flip side to that is I think most bad putters could be considerably better with just a few hours of dedicated practice. Bead, read, speed. The most I see people 'practice' is typically 5 minutes on the practice green before a round, and even then they're just knocking a ball around. Will you become a great putter? No, but you might eliminate some of those three putts from 15 feet.

Edited May 31, 2018 by BaconNEggs