Stubbornness or lack of research?: "Drive for Show, Putt for Dough"

[natureboy]

9 hours ago, Mike Boatright said:

 Take a look at this video this dude has a great swing and could dominate the pga tour with a hybrid of the tee! He hit's his hybrid very straight 340 yards or more.

Don't get me wrong. His skill with a club is very impressive. However, the economic concept of a rational agent implies if he could dominate the PGA tour, he would be already since the financial rewards are far greater than long drive. @Lihu beat me to it.

Pro golf takes both well above average length and accuracy (or at least top notch recovery ability to compensate). Distance is great for scoring, but off line is more costly to scoring than I think you estimate. Tony Finau has above average length for the tour, but is still working his way to the winner's podium on the tour.

Edited March 26, 2016 by natureboy

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Lihu said:

This sums it up for me. Approach shots are left out, but I like the idea.

Maybe "Putt for dough, approach to go low, drive to play." ???

What? C'mon @Lihu.

[Mike Boatright]

11 hours ago, Lihu said:

If he could dominate the tour, he would be dominating the tour. 

Not necessarily sometimes long drive guys get sponsor money and enjoy life as it is vs the pga tour grind. The money is so good on the pga tour that I would think about it if I were him. Just tee of with irons and hybrids and master 9 irons and sw He could hit it 360 with a normal driver on open par 5' and hit in with a 7 iron.

9 hours ago, natureboy said:

Pro golf takes both well above average length and accuracy (or at least top notch recovery ability to compensate). Distance is great for scoring, but off line is more costly to scoring than I think you estimate. Tony Finau has above average length for the tour, but is still working his way to the winner's podium on the tour.

I agree Finau has very good power and it's big advantage. However doesn't it seem that when you have so much power that invetiably you could be the most accurate player? This dude could tee of wit a 4 hybrid swing easy hit it 312 yards and be 88% fairway kinda guy basically the tour leader. I mean what else can you say from there maybe this guy can't chip,maybe?

Edited March 27, 2016 by Mike Boatright

[Dave325]

11 hours ago, Lihu said:

This sums it up for me. Approach shots are left out, but I like the idea.

Maybe "Putt for dough, approach to go low, drive to play." ???

Yep! That could be so true. It's all important. We keep agruing what is more important .... I would submit that it is all important, though the full string is the first step. 

[Lihu]

56 minutes ago, Mike Boatright said:

Not necessarily sometimes long drive guys get sponsor money and enjoy life as it is vs the pga tour grind. The money is so good on the pga tour that I would think about it if I were him. Just tee of with irons and hybrids and master 9 irons and sw He could hit it 360 with a normal driver on open par 5' and hit in with a 7 iron.

Most if not all the tour players can probably blast long drives, and roll a 7i to 200 yards. They're a lot stronger than you seem to think?

They hit really far and put a ton of spin on the ball.

[Mike Boatright]

5 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Most if not all the tour players can probably blast long drives, and roll a 7i to 200 yards. They're a lot stronger than you seem to think?

They hit really far and put a ton of spin on the ball.

Some em but not the majority. Players Like Zach Johnson is a good example he is just a good golfer.  DJ no doubt he could hit his 7 iron 220. 

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, Mike Boatright said:

Some em but not the majority. Players Like Zach Johnson is a good example he is just a good golfer.  DJ no doubt he could hit his 7 iron 220. 

I would say much more than half. Their focus is to play well between 7000-8100 yard courses.

[Buckeyebowman]

OK, I am new here, so I will ask what the heck is LSW? I tried hovering the cursor on it, and it didn't turn into the little hand, so it's not a link.

I do find Player's comments a little off, since he can still hit it 260-270 at his age! Obviously all parts of the game are important. No better example exists than Ben Hogan wanting to eliminate putting from the game late in his life. He wanted to play "fairways and closest to the pin"! He couldn't imagine a 2 foot putt being as "important" as a 280 yard drive!

But I like Hank Haney's comments on distance. His contention is that golf is a distance game, which it is. Long hitters who can keep it in play have always had an advantage. It's like tall guys in basketball. The operative phrase is, of course, keep it in play. Haney maintained that for every 1mph you could increase your clubhead speed, you'd gain 2 yards. So, if you could increase your clubhead speed by 5mph, you would gain 10 yards. If you hit 40 full shots per round, and hit them all 10 yards longer, that's a gain of 400 yards. So, you're shortening the course by 400 yards, which is significant!

And I also laughed when the powers that be started lengthening courses to deal with the long hitters. Specifically Augusta "Tiger proofing" their course. They didn't seem to realize that no matter how long they stretched it out, the long hitters would still have shorter approach shots than their less powerful brethren.

Distance good! Short bad!

[baller7345]

16 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

OK, I am new here, so I will ask what the heck is LSW? I tried hovering the cursor on it, and it didn't turn into the little hand, so it's not a link.

LSW is the acronym  for Lowest Score Wins.  Its a book written by the guy who owns the site.

Lowest Score Wins

[boogielicious]

8 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

OK, I am new here, so I will ask what the heck is LSW? I tried hovering the cursor on it, and it didn't turn into the little hand, so it's not a link.

I do find Player's comments a little off, since he can still hit it 260-270 at his age! Obviously all parts of the game are important. No better example exists than Ben Hogan wanting to eliminate putting from the game late in his life. He wanted to play "fairways and closest to the pin"! He couldn't imagine a 2 foot putt being as "important" as a 280 yard drive!

But I like Hank Haney's comments on distance. His contention is that golf is a distance game, which it is. Long hitters who can keep it in play have always had an advantage. It's like tall guys in basketball. The operative phrase is, of course, keep it in play. Haney maintained that for every 1mph you could increase your clubhead speed, you'd gain 2 yards. So, if you could increase your clubhead speed by 5mph, you would gain 10 yards. If you hit 40 full shots per round, and hit them all 10 yards longer, that's a gain of 400 yards. So, you're shortening the course by 400 yards, which is significant!

And I also laughed when the powers that be started lengthening courses to deal with the long hitters. Specifically Augusta "Tiger proofing" their course. They didn't seem to realize that no matter how long they stretched it out, the long hitters would still have shorter approach shots than their less powerful brethren.

Distance good! Short bad!

 

8 hours ago, baller7345 said:

LSW is the acronym  for Lowest Score Wins.  Its a book written by the guy who owns the site.

Lowest Score Wins

Lowest Score Wins is an excellent book. I highly recommend it. I think it is especially good for players in our handicap range. We have half way decent swings and play OK. But there are gaps in our games that hold us back. Lowest Score Wins teaches us what to focus our practice on and also how to game plan our play to lower our scores. 

Check it out. You will not regret it.

[iacas]

14 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

OK, I am new here, so I will ask what the heck is LSW? I tried hovering the cursor on it, and it didn't turn into the little hand, so it's not a link.

You hover your cursor over it and it appears in a title tag:

14 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

He couldn't imagine a 2 foot putt being as "important" as a 280 yard drive!

A two-foot putt is not as important as a 280-yard drive. Yes, they both count as one stroke, but people don't regularly miss two-footers, yet they almost never hit it 280. Read this:

Note, too, that while we agree with distance being important, when people here talk about "the long game" they're just talking about "the full swing." Not distance solely.

[onthehunt526]

Distance is very important... Putting has some Separation Value, but Approach Shots, and Driving are more important...

You obviously don't want to be in the woods off the tee or bring penalty strokes into the equation... But you always want to advance the ball as far as you can SAFELY. Circumstances could require you to be more aggresive in certain situations, but for the most part, advancing safely is key...

Consistent 300-yard drives down the middle or in a safe location,  will gain you more strokes than making 20% of your 15 footers. Because if your not getting a high percentage of GIR/nGIR you won't score, putting is a relatively simple motion anyway.

[natureboy]

21 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

And I also laughed when the powers that be started lengthening courses to deal with the long hitters. Specifically Augusta "Tiger proofing" their course. They didn't seem to realize that no matter how long they stretched it out, the long hitters would still have shorter approach shots than their less powerful brethren.

'Tiger-Proofing' was a media hype phrase. Augusta was just trying to catch up to the big distance gains for all the field from ~ 1995-2005 due to club and ball tech. The same average lengthening has been going on with courses in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship rotation..

[natureboy]

On 3/27/2016 at 8:38 PM, Mike Boatright said:

Not necessarily sometimes long drive guys get sponsor money and enjoy life as it is vs the pga tour grind. The money is so good on the pga tour that I would think about it if I were him.

Seriously? You're telling me if he could literally 'dominate' on the PGA tour - say win 5 tournaments in a year and take the Fedex bonus that they wouldn't try at least a year of 'the grind' because they are 'all set' with their long drive sponsorship? Have you heard of 'The Fox and the Grapes'? Not to mention the potential endorsement opportunities that would present themselves.

The distance these guys hit is impressive. But even with the accuracy and consistency (very undervalued aspect) of an average PGA player, the average shot dispersion for long drive guy will still be wider than a PGA pro in absolute terms (yards from center of fairway) just from their extra distance. Given that fairways tends to be a certain maximum width, I think that can hurt their scoring more severely than you are accounting for. If the green / around green targets are all huge and they are really good at lag putting and partial wedges it might be eagles and birdies galore.

<why didn't this merge?>

Edited March 28, 2016 by natureboy

[Buckeyebowman]

7 hours ago, iacas said:

You hover your cursor over it and it appears in a title tag:

A two-foot putt is not as important as a 280-yard drive. Yes, they both count as one stroke, but people don't regularly miss two-footers, yet they almost never hit it 280.

I understand. That's why I put the word "important" in quotation marks. Maybe I should have used a different phrase like "count as much as". I read that article a long time ago and can't remember exactly how it was worded.

Lowest Score Wins brought up a distant memory and gave me a little chuckle. When I was first showing an interest in the game my Dad and the next door neighbor would let me tag along when they played. I'd pull my Dad's cart and keep the scorecard. The first time out, after the front nine I proudly informed my Dad that he was winning! He had 43 and Mr. Ross had 39! My Dad just grinned his little grin and told me that in golf, the player with the lowest score wins! Oops!

29 minutes ago, natureboy said:

'Tiger-Proofing' was a media hype phrase. Augusta was just trying to catch up to the big distance gains for all the field from ~ 1995-2005 due to club and ball tech. The same average lengthening has been going on with courses in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship rotation..

Well, a lot of hype was certainly generated around Tiger, and with good reason. We went to the WGC Bridgestone in Akron last year, and I watched guys like Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Bubba hit drives that boggled my mind! I also got to see Nicklaus in his prime and he was certainly long, but a lot of guys are just hitting it stupid distances these days.

[Mike Boatright]

22 minutes ago, natureboy said:

Seriously? You're telling me if he could literally 'dominate' on the PGA tour - say win 5 tournaments in a year and take the Fedex bonus that they wouldn't try at least a year of 'the grind' because they are 'all set' with their long drive sponsorship? Have you heard of 'The Fox and the Grapes'? Not to mention the potential endorsement opportunities that would present themselves.

The distance these guys hit is impressive. But even with the accuracy and consistency (very undervalued aspect) of an average PGA player, the average shot dispersion for long drive guy will still be wider than a PGA pro in absolute terms (yards from center of fairway) just from their extra distance. Given that fairways tends to be a certain maximum width, I think that can hurt their scoring more severely than you are accounting for. If the green / around green targets are all huge and they are really good at lag putting and partial wedges it might be eagles and birdies galore.

<why didn't this merge?>

Well maybe he doesn't want to ask him. You apparently not getting it? I think because he can hit hit 295 yards + with a baby hybrid all day then he could be the most consistent player on the pga tour. in terms of fairways and up there in gir. Who knows with a little training maybe he'd just be another Dustin Johnson.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Mike Boatright

[natureboy]

13 minutes ago, Mike Boatright said:

Well maybe he doesn't want to ask him. You apparently not getting it? I think because he can hit hit 295 yards + with a baby hybrid all day then he could be the most consistent player on the pga tour. in terms of fairways and up there in gir. Who knows with a little training maybe he'd just be another Dustin Johnson.

That's assuming he's as accurate with his hybrid as the average PGA pro with driver. He could hit  a hundred hybrids with a Trackman and easily measure that.

I'm guessing he isn't or he'd be on tour easily doubling his current money. Distance is a bit more important than accuracy for lower scoring, but they both matter. A PGA pro is both much more accurate, consistent, and longer than a scratch player. The average size of the playing field is very relevant to extremely long hitters and scoring.

Edited March 28, 2016 by natureboy

[iacas]

@Buckeyebowman  I just wrote that article a day or two ago so I don't know that you read it a while ago.

13 minutes ago, Mike Boatright said:

Well maybe he doesn't want to ask him. You apparently not getting it? I think because he can hit hit 295 yards + with a baby hybrid all day then he could be the most consistent player on the pga tour. in terms of fairways and up there in gir. Who knows with a little training maybe he'd just be another Dustin Johnson.

If he could be would. It's that simple.