2016 Masters Toonamint Discussion Thread

[Braivo]

Leading The Masters for 7.5 rounds in a row is mentally exhausting. Jordan admitted to transitioning into a "playing not to lose" mindset at some point. This was obvious as he'd get more aggressive when the lead shrunk down. Look at the way he birdied 6,7,8, and 9 and then got tentative on 10 with the lead up to 5. 

They all play the same 72 holes, but Willett was playing with exactly zero pressure for 70 of them, while Spieth was under tremendous pressure every single one. Not to mention he is 22 years old. That kind of pressure is something you have to learn to play under, especially when things aren't going well. He will learn a great deal from this experience.

[iacas]

18 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

I agree with that statement but Spieth, by my definition, didn't have a bad day (7 birdies, 5 on the front 9 in the final round) he had a bad hole.  

He had a bad day. He shot over par with 7 birdies. He bogeyed 10, 11, and his ball striking was off all day. All week, really, except maybe Thursday.

[saevel25]

15 minutes ago, Braivo said:

Leading The Masters for 7.5 rounds in a row is mentally exhausting. Jordan admitted to transitioning into a "playing not to lose" mindset at some point.

You realize he had a full year between last years Masters and this years right? It's not like he had to play 8 straight rounds of golf. 

15 minutes ago, Braivo said:

Look at the way he birdied 6,7,8, and 9 and then got tentative on 10 with the lead up to 5. 

You mean the 3-wood that everyone was taking on 10 because of the wind that day. The fact it's easier to shape the ball from right to left on that hole with a 3-wood. Also, with that hill on 10 you can get driver distance or more with a 3-wood and still have a mid iron into the green. The fact is that Jordan hit his 3-wood to the right on that hole. That started his trend of hitting it right. 

It had nothing to do with being tentative. Why does everyone give that pathetic excuse for a guy who has been battling a right miss for the past few months?

24 minutes ago, Braivo said:

Willett was playing with exactly zero pressure for 70 of them, while Spieth was under tremendous pressure every single one.

Really? Willett knew he was in position to make a run. There is always pressure at the Masters on the final day. Look at Kaufman, he folded from the get go. Same thing could have happened to Willett. 

 

 

[Natural Patrick]

16 minutes ago, iacas said:

He had a bad day. He shot over par with 7 birdies. He bogeyed 10, 11, and his ball striking was off all day. All week, really, except maybe Thursday.

How did your prediction go with it being Fowlers time to win, and Spieth being a non factor?

[ppine]

No one is in contention at the Master's with their C game. They sit on Saturday.

Augusta makes people look bad.

[Big Lex]

Watched his meltdown from my seat on the 13th fairway. Got a lump in my throat. It's tough to watch.

Probably had the most birdies of anyone in the field, but also had a quad, a triple (I think), and many doubles. Eventually you will miss a couple of 8 footers. Really hard to overcome those big errors.

I don't really like or believe in "choking" as a concept. I think it's normal to play (or do any activity...) worse under pressure, although the amount of pressure which you can tolerate before playing worse is highly variable. But everyone does it. Everyone in the last 6-8 groups had an excellent chance, and only one guy shot a great round. Does that mean that that ONE guy is special? No. All are capable of it. It's just more normal to not quite come through than it is to shoot a great round. Getting that great round in the major is the exception. And it was a great, great round by Willet.

Think for a minute, statistically, about the winning scores. Roughly 8-10 guys all within about 5 shots. Out of 280 or so shots, that's less than a 2% separation. It's within some sort of a margin of error, I'm sure. So really, a bunch of them all essentially played equally well, or extremely close to it.

Much was made of Jordan being an unprecedented champion last year, and indeed he had a tremendous year. But when you think about it closely, he has certainly shown that he has nerves and is not some sort of special golf "savant" who fits the romantic ideal of performing his best in the spotlight. Yes, he ran away with the Masters in 2015. But this year, and in 2014, he stumbled under the pressure. He won the 2015 US Open, but stumbled on the 71st hole and needed some very good fortune in the way of his competitor's error on the 72nd to survive. He had a chance to make a playoff at St. Andrews, and famously failed to birdie the easiest hole on the course at the 72nd.

I'm not saying he's weak, or that he chokes, or that he isn't a great golfer. I'm saying he's human. Golf is hard and the winner in a major is often the last man standing, not the one who made the charge.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Big Lex

[ScouseJohnny]

3 hours ago, boogielicious said:

I gather you are not a Ferguson fan! 

To be fair to Sir Alex (which is hard for me, I admit - we probably enjoy differing philosophies on football based (in my case) on partisan, regional variations), the story has a punchline, which the Daily Torygraph, affront to journalism that it is, typically avoided reporting. Apparently Ferguson congratulated Willett and was genuinely delighted by his success. I'm guessing £8,000 is also loose change to the former Man U manager....but he is Scottish, after all, so no doubt it still hurt a bit!

[jamo]

2 hours ago, Braivo said:

Leading The Masters for 7.5 rounds in a row is mentally exhausting. Jordan admitted to transitioning into a "playing not to lose" mindset at some point. This was obvious as he'd get more aggressive when the lead shrunk down. Look at the way he birdied 6,7,8, and 9 and then got tentative on 10 with the lead up to 5. 

They all play the same 72 holes, but Willett was playing with exactly zero pressure for 70 of them, while Spieth was under tremendous pressure every single one. Not to mention he is 22 years old. That kind of pressure is something you have to learn to play under, especially when things aren't going well. He will learn a great deal from this experience.

I don't think hitting a 9-iron on the 12th tee is any harder having led for 7.5 rounds in a row compared to 3.5 rounds. It's not like if he'd been one shot behind on Friday last year it would have made this tournament any easier. To me, that's just a narrative people come up with.

[Gunther]

9 minutes ago, jamo said:

I don't think hitting a 9-iron on the 12th tee is any harder having led for 7.5 rounds in a row compared to 3.5 rounds. It's not like if he'd been one shot behind on Friday last year it would have made this tournament any easier. To me, that's just a narrative people come up with.

Agree, mostly.  He simply did not commit to the shot, something we've all done countless times.  

He and Greller had the plan, 9i draw towards the camera tower.  He sounded committed on camera but in his mind he was thinking, "this is too much club, this is too much club."  So, over the shot he changed his mind and tried to fade it.  I've done it a hundred times and now always try to take the smaller club and crush it.  He should have backed off, grabbed the PW and smoked a draw.

Was it pressure that caused that indecision?  I dunno, that stuff happens all the time.  I tend to think it was the enigma of the 12th hole.

[ScouseJohnny]

10 minutes ago, Gunther said:

Agree, mostly.  He simply did not commit to the shot, something we've all done countless times.  

He and Greller had the plan, 9i draw towards the camera tower.  He sounded committed on camera but in his mind he was thinking, "this is too much club, this is too much club."  So, over the shot he changed his mind and tried to fade it.  I've done it a hundred times and now always try to take the smaller club and crush it.  He should have backed off, grabbed the PW and smoked a draw.

Was it pressure that caused that indecision?  I dunno, that stuff happens all the time.  I tend to think it was the enigma of the 12th hole.

All the more surprising from a man who does not apparently feel the pressure of time on the golf course, makes slow, deliberate, actions over everything he does, and is never shy to walk away after addressing the ball.

Edited April 12, 2016 by ScouseJohnny

[phan52]

http://www.classictvsports.com/2016/04/shot-chart-from-cbs-sunday-masters.html?m=1

 

Interesting chart of the shots that were shown on the Sunday CBS telecast. They showed every shot by Jordan. DJ was second. They didn't start showing all of Willett's shots until hole #13.

[colin007]

15 hours ago, saevel25 said:

 

Willett played a bogey free final round. He deserved to win that tournament. 

willetts sunday round was every bit as good as speefs thursday round.

[saevel25]

7 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

I don't really like or believe in "choking" as a concept. 

Choking does exist. It's all about risk aversion and how a person handles being a front runner.

I wouldn't classify Spieth's performance as a choke. His swing issues just caught him at the worst spot on the course.  

13 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

Think for a minute, statistically, about the winning scores. Roughly 8-10 guys all within about 5 shots. Out of 280 or so shots, that's less than a 2% separation. It's within some sort of a margin of error, I'm sure. So really, a bunch of them all essentially played equally well, or extremely close to it.

I would say the odds of being 5 strokes back and winning are very slim. 

Just to put into perspective how good of a round Willett had. Only 4 players shot a 67 or better for the week. That means his round is in the top 1%. 

Let's Willett won by one stroke. He would have had to shoot a 69. That 69 would still be in the top 5% of all rounds shot that week. Really this was just a perfect storm for Willett to win. He shot one of the best rounds of the tournament. 

If I just take the final round scores. If Spieth shot even par Kaufman would only have a 17% chance of winning the tournament. Only 17% of the field shot 2 under or better on the final day. 

28 minutes ago, Gunther said:

He and Greller had the plan, 9i draw towards the camera tower.  He sounded committed on camera but in his mind he was thinking, "this is too much club, this is too much club."  So, over the shot he changed his mind and tried to fade it.  I've done it a hundred times and now always try to take the smaller club and crush it.  He should have backed off, grabbed the PW and smoked a draw.

Was it pressure that caused that indecision?  I dunno, that stuff happens all the time.  I tend to think it was the enigma of the 12th hole.

"I remember getting over the ball thinking I'm going to go ahead and hit a little cut to the hole, and that's what I did in 2014 and it cost me the tournament then, too," Spieth said. "That was the right club, just the wrong shot. The swing just wasn't quite there to produce the right ball flight. I should have just played a draw on that hole. It was a tough number for me to commit to, but I had the right club."

And

Yeah, I mean just ‑‑ I learned what I learned in 2014.  And it's just stay committed.  12 is a 150‑yard shot and I feel I can bleed it next to the hole, and it's a stock 9‑iron for me.  But that hole for whatever reason just has people's number.  Stay committed behind the bunker.  That's about ‑‑ it was really one swing.

I put it as a mental blip over switching at the last second. At least that is what I get from these comments. It looks like his intent was to hit a small fade. He thought he could pull it off though it was clearly not a shot he liked to hit this week due to his misses right he was suffering from. 

I don't believe he was going to hit a draw to begin with and changed his mind over the ball. He chose a shot that didn't fit well with the miss he's been suffering from. It was a poor selection given you can't miss short right on that hole. 

Just now, colin007 said:

willetts sunday round was every bit as good as speefs thursday round.

Spieth's Thursday round was much better. He averaged 8 strokes better than the field on Thursday. Willett averaged 5.7 strokes better. Just to say how hard Thursday's conditions were. 

 

[turtleback]

23 hours ago, Gunther said:

Disagree.  Spieth's 2, 1, 2 finishes in his 1st 3 would indicate otherwise, as compared to Tiger's 41, MC, 1.  We'll talk again in 9 years, when Jordan completes his 12th.

14 leads at the 54 hole mark of a major - 14 wins.

The most underappreciated stat in golf. IMO.  We'll talk when Jordan matches it.

Which, I guess, means goodbye.  lol

[Big Lex]

3 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

1 hour ago, Big Lex said:

Think for a minute, statistically, about the winning scores. Roughly 8-10 guys all within about 5 shots. Out of 280 or so shots, that's less than a 2% separation. It's within some sort of a margin of error, I'm sure. So really, a bunch of them all essentially played equally well, or extremely close to it.

I would say the odds of being 5 strokes back and winning are very slim. 

I'm not sure what you mean.

What I was getting at is that a difference of less than 2% is probably not statistically significant.

In other words, if one golfer shoots 280 over four days, and another shoots 320, we can be pretty sure the first guy played better that week. When the difference is between 280 and 283 or 285, it's a different story. Statistically speaking....of course the lowest score wins, but when differences are small, there isn't necessarily a perfect correlation between score and how well one played.

[saevel25]

Just now, Big Lex said:

I'm not sure what you mean.

What I was getting at is that a difference of less than 2% is probably not statistically significant.

Willett said he needed to be around -5 to win. He was right if Spieth only bogie'd number 12 instead of quadrupling it they would have tied. Still that round he shot to get to -5 was a top 1% round. 

Even if Spieth dropped to -2, getting to -3 for Willett is a 5% round. 

His odds were really slim to win that tournament. 

[turtleback]

16 hours ago, ppine said:

I think people under estimate Augusta by a lot.  Spieth was leading for 3 1/2 rounds because he played solid golf.  It is easy to forget how narrow the fairways are, how long it is and how impossible some of the greens are. Ask Phil or Ernie.

Any small mistake gets amplified.  No one leads the Masters for 7 1/2 rounds without playing well.   The whole discussion about leading without playing well is ridiculous.

 

Yeah, this.  Those talking about Jordan's sketchy ball-striking seem to have missed the fact that it was windy and everyone was having problems.  Jordan has clearly made it to the big time now that people are calling him out for phantom rules violations and criticizing his play while he built up a 5 stroke lead.

3 hours ago, newtogolf said:

I agree with that statement but Spieth, by my definition, didn't have a bad day (7 birdies, 5 on the front 9 in the final round) he had a bad hole.  

"Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

[newtogolf]

2 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Willett said he needed to be around -5 to win. He was right if Spieth only bogie'd number 12 instead of quadrupling it they would have tied. Still that round he shot to get to -5 was a top 1% round. 

Even if Spieth dropped to -2, getting to -3 for Willett is a 5% round. 

His odds were really slim to win that tournament. 

Score wise you're accurate but you can't predict the outcome changing the results on 12 based on past events.  Jordan likely would have played differently if he were tied for 1st versus down 2 and in 5th heading to 13.