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My Experience Caddying in a Monday Qualifier


mvmac
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  • 1 month later...
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Off topic but an instructor we know just had a student (Jared Hack) qualify for the Honda, he shot 64 today.

Mike McLoughlin

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Outstanding. Well have to keep an eye out for him. Any idea where they held the qualifier?

In David's bag....

Driver: Titleist 910 D-3;  9.5* Diamana Kai'li
3-Wood: Titleist 910F;  15* Diamana Kai'li
Hybrids: Titleist 910H 19* and 21* Diamana Kai'li
Irons: Titleist 695cb 5-Pw

Wedges: Scratch 51-11 TNC grind, Vokey SM-5's;  56-14 F grind and 60-11 K grind
Putter: Scotty Cameron Kombi S
Ball: ProV1

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  • Moderator
Outstanding. Well have to keep an eye out for him.

Any idea where they held the qualifier?

Mayacoo Lakes Country Club.

Mike McLoughlin

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  • 1 month later...
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Austin Cook, who's currently tied for the lead, qualified for the Shell by shooting 64 on Monday.

Mike McLoughlin

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Very interesting read, Mvmac. Thanks.

Just the sort of reality check that people don't want to believe because Ian Poulter played off 4 at some point as if that means something.

It's intriguing how Dan McLaughlin is going to be able to bypass all this stuff and just walk onto the tour in a couple of years.

Ninja'd.

Julia

:callaway:  :cobra:    :seemore:  :bushnell:  :clicgear:  :adidas:  :footjoy:

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Wedges: Cobra BiO CELL SW, Fly-Z LW, 64* Callaway PM Grind.
Putter: 48" Odyssey Dart

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Austin Cook, who's currently tied for the lead, qualified for the Shell by shooting 64 on Monday.

as did Kelvin Day, using his $2000 cheque from the web.com event the week before to pay his ticket to houston!

Mark

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  • 1 month later...

For a person like myself who has no background in serious competitive golf (college or higher) and only has experience on public courses, these types of tournaments present a special opportunity to experience a course set up for high level competition.

It was my habit at the start of every season to go through all the local, regional, and national PGA section, USGA, Symetra tour, etc schedules and make a note of were tournaments were scheduled on public courses close to me.

At that point it was usually just as difficult as calling up for a tee time the day of or the day after the tournament. Normally they do not want you there the day of but sometimes with a little talking and demonstrated willingness to cooperate it is definitely possible, although far from common.

The difference between even a few hours lapsing between tournament play and your play can be pretty dramatic. But I still think it is worth the effort even to experience it the next day. The competitors themselves might experience a dramatic difference between morning v.s. the afternoon.

It probably is not for everyone though. I once got to play directly behind the last tournament group then got swept into the tournament itself when there was a playoff happening directly behind me. I think it helps to have a competitive spirit yourself.

A 62 or 64 sounds insane but having experienced some courses during tournaments, those scores sounds proportionally even more insane.

Mike

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For a person like myself who has no background in serious competitive golf (college or higher) and only has experience on public courses, these types of tournaments present a special opportunity to experience a course set up for high level competition.

....

A 62 or 64 sounds insane but having experienced some courses during tournaments, those scores sounds proportionally even more insane.

That's the missing piece of this puzzle that makes "these guys are good" the biggest understatement in sport.

Not just mid to low 60's, but from tournament tees, with tournament rough, greens, pin placements, etc.

Aside question for the OP -- do the qualifier guys get any opportunity to practice on the course or at least walk it to look for landing spots, trouble, so they can plan their shot placement and approaches?

Ping G2 Driver; Titleist 906F2 5W; TM Rescue Mid 3H; Adams Idea Pro 4H; Titleist DTR 3-SW; Callaway Bobby Jones Putter; Ping Hoofer lite

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Aside question for the OP -- do the qualifier guys get any opportunity to practice on the course or at least walk it to look for landing spots, trouble, so they can plan their shot placement and approaches?

Yes they can a practice round the day before but it doesn't always happen because they could be playing in the 4th round of another tournament on Sunday.

  • Upvote 1

Mike McLoughlin

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Cool post Mike.

Matt

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  • 5 weeks later...
I caddied in a Doral Monday qualifier for a friend over a decade ago, and my experience matches yours. My friend wasn't close, but Brad Bryant was in our group- in addition to being a really nice guy, it was fun to see some good golf. IIRC, he played his stock draw almost all the time and hit penetrating short irons. [quote name="mvmac" url="/t/77688/my-experience-caddying-in-a-monday-qualifier/18#post_1067498"] Matt's fade is basically a straight shot. He maybe tried to "fade it" twice. Two approach shots come to mind where the pin was tucked on the right edge of the green. Off the tee the shots were all push draws, he missed two fairways all day. Also when I'm talking about these push draws they are only curving 5 yards or so, shot can still work on a dogleg right. [/quote] [quote name="mvmac" url="/t/77688/my-experience-caddying-in-a-monday-qualifier#post_1067016"][COLOR=333333] [*] Hitting it far is an advantage. [*] If you want to hit it farther without changing your swing, have a positive angle of attack with your driver. Matt hits his driver 10-20 yards longer than his playing partners but swings at about the same speed. Matt wasn't a club to club and a half longer with his irons compared to the other players and you could tell the other players hit down with their driver because of how low they teed it and their initial launch angle. [/quote] [quote name="mvmac" url="/t/77688/my-experience-caddying-in-a-monday-qualifier/36#post_1094579"] Check out this thread  [CONTENTEMBED=/t/44307/hitting-up-or-down-with-the-driver-in-an-inline-pattern layout=inline]​[/CONTENTEMBED]  [/quote] If I am reading it correctly, the thread you referenced suggests hitting the driver on the upswing with a fade using the same swing that would produce a draw when you hit down on the ball with other clubs. The difference being ball position is more forward with the driver so that you hit the ball after the low point when your swing is working back in. Bubba Watson seems to do this as he is known for playing a draw more often with his irons and a fade more often with his driver, but do many other pros do this? Currently, I tend to play a push or straight draw with most clubs and think that I am losing some distance with my driver by hitting down on it. I have experimented with moving the ball up and have hit some nice shots (including a few fades), but don't feel as consistent with it and am more worried about a double cross if I play for a slight fade with the driver.

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  • 11 months later...
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In case you're wondering what it takes to Monday qualify on the Web.com Tour :-)

  • Upvote 1

Mike McLoughlin

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31 minutes ago, mvmac said:

In case you're wondering what it takes to Monday qualify on the Web.com Tour :-)

WOW ......  I'm awed at the four guys who were -8 and two others at -7

Wonder how they feel ...... losing to -11 ???

 

Johnny Rocket - Let's Rock and Roll and play some golf !!!

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  • 9 months later...
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http://www.golfdigest.com/story/these-monday-qualifying-scores-show-how-unreasonably-hard-it-is-to-play-on-the-pga-tour?mbid=social_facebook

Quote

At the Cypresswood Golf Club in Spring, Texas, 34 players shot 67 or better, a group that included Max Homa, Lee McCoy, Andres Romero and Andrew Landry. One slight problem: there were only four spots available, three of which went to Riley Arp -- who fired a 10-under 62 -- and Wesley McClain and Andres Gonzales, who tied for second with 63s. That meant six players that shot 64 -- 64! -- had to go to a playoff. From this sextet, Jason Gore emerged, thanks to a birdie on the first sudden death hole.

 

  • Upvote 2

Mike McLoughlin

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16 minutes ago, mvmac said:

Romero and Gore have won on the tour too. Gone are the days some unknown walks on and qualifies.

Steve

Kill slow play. Allow walking. Reduce ineffective golf instruction. Use environmentally friendly course maintenance.

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26 minutes ago, mvmac said:

And to try and add a little bit of perspective for us handicap golfers here:

  • The course is rated 74.4/136.
  • There were 151 guys who returned a score.
  • The winning score, in terms of handicap differential, was a plus 9.8.
  • Dead last place (3 guys tied for 149th) was a differential of 2.0. 
  • The median (75/76 place) was a plus 3.5. 
  • The average was plus 3.6.

The author of the article summed up the field pretty well too: "And this was a competition for guys who weren't in the field of a middle-tiered event."

Edited by Golfingdad
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Note: This thread is 2579 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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    • Taking your dispersion and distance in consideration I analyzed the 4 posible ways to play the hole, or at least the ones that were listed here. I took the brown grass on the left as fescue were you need to punch out sideways to the fairway and rigth of the car path to be fescue too.  Driver "going for the green"  You have to aim more rigth, to the bunker in order to center your shotzone in between the fescue.  Wood of 240 over the bunkers I already like this one more for you. More room to land between the fescue. Balls in the fescue 11% down from 30% with driver. Improve of score from 4.55 to 4.40. 4 iron 210 yards besides the bunkers.    Also a wide area and your shot zone is better than previous ones. This makes almost the fescue dissapear. You really need to hit a bad one (sometimes shit happens). Because of that and only having 120 yards in this is the best choice so far. Down to 4.32 from 4.40. Finally the 6 Iron 180 yards to avoid all trouble.    Wide area an narrow dispersion for almost been in the fairway all the time. Similar than the previous one but 25 yards farther for the hole to avoid been in the bunkers. Average remains the same, 4.33 to 4.32.  Conclusion is easy. Either your 4iron or 6 iron of the tee are equaly good for you. Glad that you made par!
    • Wish I could have spent 5 minutes in the middle of the morning round to hit some balls at the range. Just did much more of right side through with keeping the shoulders feeling level (not dipping), and I was flushing them. Lol. Maybe too much focus on hands stuff while playing.
    • Last year I made an excel that can easily measure with my own SG data the average score for each club of the tee. Even the difference in score if you aim more left or right with the same club. I like it because it can be tweaked to account for different kind of rough, trees, hazards, greens etc.     As an example, On Par 5's that you have fescue on both sides were you can count them as a water hazard (penalty or punch out sideways), unless 3 wood or hybrid lands in a wider area between the fescue you should always hit driver. With a shorter club you are going to hit a couple less balls in the fescue than driver but you are not going to offset the fact that 100% of the shots are going to be played 30 or more yards longer. Here is a 560 par 5. Driver distance 280 yards total, 3 wood 250, hybrid 220. Distance between fescue is 30 yards (pretty tight). Dispersion for Driver is 62 yards. 56 for 3 wood and 49 for hybrid. Aiming of course at the middle of the fairway (20 yards wide) with driver you are going to hit 34% of balls on the fescue (17% left/17% right). 48% to the fairway and the rest to the rough.  The average score is going to be around 5.14. Looking at the result with 3 wood and hybrid you are going to hit less balls in the fescue but because of having longer 2nd shots you are going to score slightly worst. 5.17 and 5.25 respectively.    Things changes when the fescue is taller and you are probably going to loose the ball so changing the penalty of hitting there playing a 3 wood or hybrid gives a better score in the hole.  Off course 30 yards between penalty hazards is way to small. You normally have 60 or more, in that cases the score is going to be more close to 5 and been the Driver the weapon of choice.  The point is to see that no matter how tight the hole is, depending on the hole sometimes Driver is the play and sometimes 6 irons is the play. Is easy to see that on easy holes, but holes like this:  you need to crunch the numbers to find the best strategy.     
    • Very much so. I think the intimidation factor that a lot of people feel playing against someone who's actually very good is significant. I know that Winged Foot pride themselves on the strength of the club. I think they have something like 40-50 players who are plus something. Club championships there are pretty competitive. Can't imagine Oakmont isn't similar. The more I think about this, the more likely it seems that this club is legit. Winning also breeds confidence and I'm sure the other clubs when they play this one are expecting to lose - that can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
    • Ah ok I misunderstood. But you did bring to light an oversight on my part.
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