Joe vs pro

[VegasRenegade]

"Joe" me is playing my "pro" in a 9 hole match play. My handicap is 20 pro is currently a 3.

The game is I play two best ball including putts. Pro plays two worse ball including putts.

What chance to you give me.  I made the game rules.

[Ernest Jones]

  VegasRenegade said:

"Joe" me is playing my "pro" in a 9 hole match play. My handicap is 20 pro is currently a 3.

The game is I play two best ball including putts. Pro plays two worse ball including putts.

What chance to you give me.  I made the game rules.

I'm guessing that on average the Pro's worst ball is better than the 20's best ball. You'll still have the better shot in some cases, but not enough of them and overall I think you lose.

Best of luck anyway!

[VegasRenegade]

I am hoping that the putting will make the difference. It is pretty hard to make two 5 ft. puts in a row. But I should be able to make one of them. I might also ask for distance though on this course not that big of deal.

[Fourputt]

  Ernest Jones said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by VegasRenegade

"Joe" me is playing my "pro" in a 9 hole match play. My handicap is 20 pro is currently a 3.

The game is I play two best ball including putts. Pro plays two worse ball including putts.

What chance to you give me.  I made the game rules.

I'm guessing that on average the Pro's worst ball is better than the 20's best ball. You'll still have the better shot in some cases, but not enough of them and overall I think you lose.

Best of luck anyway!

I'd go with this, although not all club pros are created equal.  Once in my life, about 6 years ago while I carried a 12 handicap, I beat my head pro straight up for 18 holes, but I was playing way over my head that day.  I was 3 under par through 11 holes, something I'd never done before in my life.  Even after the wheels started to wobble on 12 I still managed to finish with a 4 over par 76 to beat him by 2, so I have to feel that anything is possible.

[rdsandy]

  VegasRenegade said:

"Joe" me is playing my "pro" in a 9 hole match play. My handicap is 20 pro is currently a 3.

The game is I play two best ball including putts. Pro plays two worse ball including putts.

What chance to you give me.  I made the game rules.

You should win.

He has to hole both 20 foot putts for the birdie, you have to make only one 10 footer for par. He put a 190 yds approach to the green to within 5 feet but the other one was slightly fat and landed in the bunker. That's the one he'll be playing. You put your approach shot in the middle of the green on a tough, guarded tucked pin. The second shot is a green light to go for the pin, you have nothing to loose. He poounded a 300 drive center cut, the second 320 yarder just rolls of the fairway and catches a bad lie in the rough, guess which one he's hitting? Etc.

Good luck to the pro, he's going to need it.

[Abu3baid]

  VegasRenegade said:

"Joe" me is playing my "pro" in a 9 hole match play. My handicap is 20 pro is currently a 3.

The game is I play two best ball including putts. Pro plays two worse ball including putts.

What chance to you give me.  I made the game rules.

Is the match play straight up, or is he giving you strokes along with you making up the rules?

I'm going to assume that it is straight up, and the equalizer in this case is you getting to basically take two shots if you want to, but he has to take 2 shots...

Let us look at putting for first.. Basically he will need to make both putts to avoid 2 putting while most likely you will make 2 putts.. so I would think he loses any advantage he really has in putting against you, and I don't think that all of a sudden you start draining things you weren't draining before.  I'll call this even.

Chipping from NGIR his worst shot will most likely not be any different than his best shot for you to actually gain an advantage.. it is possible, that it will help you though.. so I will call this even as well because of the rules set.

Driving & Approach shots.. I think this is where you are at a disadvantage even with the rules set by you.. Most likely he isn't going to pull one or slice one OB, while in your case even if you have two shots you might still end up in the same spot on both tries.  I give the advantage here to the Pro, and you end up losing 6-3.

I think in this case you might be better off just taking the strokes instead of the rules and it will be harder for him to beat you IMO..  but good luck anyway!

[VegasRenegade]

  rdsandy said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by VegasRenegade

"Joe" me is playing my "pro" in a 9 hole match play. My handicap is 20 pro is currently a 3.

The game is I play two best ball including putts. Pro plays two worse ball including putts.

What chance to you give me.  I made the game rules.

You should win.

He has to hole both 20 foot putts for the birdie, you have to make only one 10 footer for par. He put a 190 yds approach to the green to within 5 feet but the other one was slightly fat and landed in the bunker. That's the one he'll be playing. You put your approach shot in the middle of the green on a tough, guarded tucked pin. The second shot is a green light to go for the pin, you have nothing to loose. He poounded a 300 drive center cut, the second 320 yarder just rolls of the fairway and catches a bad lie in the rough, guess which one he's hitting? Etc.

Good luck to the pro, he's going to need it.

Now we're talking strategy I like it.

[CarlSpackler]

You might win a hole. Maybe 2.

[VegasRenegade]

Straight up  we have played with strokes he won 2 of three matches so I am trying a different approach.

"Driving & Approach shots.. I think this is where you are at a disadvantage even with the rules set by you.. Most likely he isn't going to pull one or slice one OB, while in your case even if you have two shots you might still end up in the same spot on both tries" This could be my down fall for sure.

[saevel25]

  VegasRenegade said:

"Joe" me is playing my "pro" in a 9 hole match play. My handicap is 20 pro is currently a 3.

The game is I play two best ball including putts. Pro plays two worse ball including putts.

What chance to you give me.  I made the game rules.

I think of it this way. You are basically a bogey golfer. Basically you are playing a scramble with yourself as the 2nd player.

So if you are a bogey golfer you are probably averaging 0.05 to 1.5% GIR. So even if you have two shots going into the green you still 98% chance of not hitting a GIR.

1% GIR = 99% no GIR. So, 99% * 99% is the odds of missing a green with two opportunities.

Basically you are gaining 1% in GIR. So I would say you would hit maybe 2-3 extra GIR at best. Putting you might gain a better shot. Still, if you end up 20 feet from the pin on average, and lets say you make 10% of them. Then you still only gain an extra 10% in putting. I would think you would gain maybe 4-5 strokes off your handicap playing two best ball.

For a 3 handicap. They are hitting about 8-9 greens. Majority of the time, even with two tee shots they are going to put the ball in play.  Even with worse ball he still gets two shots to hit the green. With 50% GIR, he has 25% of missing the green with both shots. He has 50% of missing with either. He has a 25% chance of hitting the green with both. So with worse ball he will hit the green 25% of the time. Also his recovery ability is better than yours.

I think a 3 handicap would play anywhere from 8 handicap to 12 handicap.

In the end he probably is a better putter, better short game, and still has a 23% better chance of hitting the green. The 3 handicap wins, by 8 strokes or so.

In terms of match play, I'd say he would win by the 12-13th hole.

[CarlSpackler]

I'm assuming you are both playing from the same tees...

[iacas]

I think it's going to be a close match.

I'm disappointed that you're only doing it for 9 holes.

Greg Norman used to play "worst ball" and he'd often shoot in the upper 70s. I think his best score ever was even par or something.

Worst ball is TOUGH.

The pro is a 3. He's only going to hit 4-5 greens himself (out of nine holes) playing one ball. Drop him down to 3 playing worst ball, maybe 2, and THEN realize he has to take his worst PUTTS, too (not a lot of separation there, but enough playing against someone who takes his BEST putt).

FWIW, a guy playing best ball who shoots 90 (a bit better than this guy) is going to shoot about 80 or 81. A guy who shoots 70 (so, better than this 3 handicap pro) is going to shoot 76 or 77 .

[VegasRenegade]

I am thinking I have a decent shot at shooting 40 So will he have enough bad shots to fall to there. I am thinking it may be hard for him to score pars let alone birdies.

Yea I would like to do 18 but time is money.

[Big C]

  iacas said:

I think it's going to be a close match.

I'm disappointed that you're only doing it for 9 holes.

Greg Norman used to play "worst ball" and he'd often shoot in the upper 70s. I think his best score ever was even par or something.

Worst ball is TOUGH.

I'll second this. I played a worst ball by myself about 6 months ago. It was late afternoon, the course was open and it was something I had always wanted to try. The first hole gave me a rude awakening about how difficult it was going to be. After hitting two great pitches from 50 yards, I thought I was sitting pretty with two balls less than 6 feet from the hole and a decent chance at an up & down par. I selected the tougher of the two, a 5 foot sidehill putt with plenty of break. I drained the first putt, but my second one lipped out on the high side and spun out 7 feet down the green. Again, I made the first 7 footer, but pushed my second effort a hair to the right. Double Bogey.......

Even for a decent golfer, bogey is a pretty respectable score in a worst ball format. Par is outstanding. Let's say a 3 handicapper hits 10-12 greens a round. The odds of him doing on any given hole are greater than 50%, but the odds of him doing it twice are less than that. And getting up and down is a long shot for all but the best short games.

I'd peg the 3 capper for a +5 on the front 9. You playing the best of your two balls should shoot somewhere between 3-4 over.

I think you win the match.

[Patch]

I am going with the Pro player, over the Joe player, no matter the situation. I do think "Joe" would get a few licks in along the way. Even 20 hndcp Joe players sometimes make an eagle. I also think Joe might be "slightly"  more competitive against an LPGA pro.

[Big C]

  Patch said:

I am going with the Pro player, over the Joe player, no matter the situation. I do think "Joe" would get a few licks in along the way. Even 20 hndcp Joe players sometimes make an eagle. I also think Joe might be "slightly"  more competitive against an LPGA pro.

Probably a safe rule of thumb in most cases, but I think you are under-estimating how difficult it is to play a worst ball.

Take the word "pro" out of the equation and you're left with a 3 handicapper. A good golfer, no doubt, but still someone who is going to make his fair share of mistakes. A guy who's likely to shoot around a 38 playing his own ball. Give him 38 chances to screw up again and he'll probably oblige on a handful of them.

[Fourputt]

Joe is a worse than bogey golfer.  I think that the one intangible here is how he performs when the pressure is on.  I've played quite a few scrambles over the years, and I see it in myself and others, when you have 3 or 4 other guys to back you up and you still cave - I've been on teams where every player missed a supposedly simple 5 foot putt.  Now you are a bogey golfer and all you have is yourself and two shots to make it good.  As a 20 capper, you have days when you never hit a GIR.  Even at his worst I don't see the pro missing more than 6 GIR's.  His misses mostly won't be that bad and his short game should be pretty good, even on the worst ball.

It's an interesting experiment, but unless the Joe keeps his game together under pressure, I still put my money on the pro.

[VegasRenegade]

  Fourputt said:

Joe is a worse than bogey golfer.  I think that the one intangible here is how he performs when the pressure is on.  I've played quite a few scrambles over the years, and I see it in myself and others, when you have 3 or 4 other guys to back you up and you still cave - I've been on teams where every player missed a supposedly simple 5 foot putt.  Now you are a bogey golfer and all you have is yourself and two shots to make it good.  As a 20 capper, you have days when you never hit a GIR.  Even at his worst I don't see the pro missing more than 6 GIR's.  His misses mostly won't be that bad and his short game should be pretty good, even on the worst ball.

It's an interesting experiment, but unless the Joe keeps his game together under pressure, I still put my money on the pro.

Yep pressure is the key. It is also the reason I play this money game with my pro. To increase my ability to play under pressure.It is also the reason I am a 20. If I play alone no pressure I am more like a 15

Match is next Tuesday