Leave the Flagstick In (and Tend it Too)

[mdl]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

It doesn’t because the capture size of the hole at that width is wider than the flagstick-touching-ball width. (2.18”)

Ah.  Right.  That makes sense.  So I never need to leave the flagstick in

[colin007]

Do you think this putt was going in with the stick out?

 

https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/1662492801010130944?s=20

[boogielicious]

6 hours ago, colin007 said:

Do you think this putt was going in with the stick out?

 

https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/1662492801010130944?s=20

It was moving pretty fast. It may have bounced out after hitting the other side.

[billchao]

37 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

It was moving pretty fast. It may have bounced out after hitting the other side.

I don’t know. It was center of the cup.

Or left center 😜

[Vinsk]

No way that ball doesn’t go in with the flag stick out. That’s just a rare one there.

[iacas]

8 hours ago, colin007 said:

Do you think this putt was going in with the stick out?

https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/1662492801010130944?s=20

No.

[DaveP043]

9 hours ago, colin007 said:

Do you think this putt was going in with the stick out?

 

https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/1662492801010130944?s=20

Maybe it would have gone in.  Maybe it would have hit the back edge and continued rolling 4 or 5 feet past.  What I am completely certain about is that the flagstick slowed the ball and kept it close enough for an easy tap-in.

[Clemsonfan]

When Dave Pelz’ books came out in 1999-2000 I went all in and bought many of his short game tools - O Balls, Elk’s Key, putter and wedge tape, putter clips and his True Roller for showing the true break for a putt.

The True Roller was also great for validating Pelz’ assertion that you should leave the flag in, such as putts from the fringe, and by extension chips and pitches.  The great thing about the True Roller is it had marks on the side so you could replicate putts with the same speed. For putts that were rolling more than 2’ by the hole, my testing dramatically showed that the flagstick clearly helped hole more putts - more so on downhill putts, but clearly better in all cases. 
 

The worst results for me with the flag in were uphill under reads that hit a glancing blow on the flag stick. These could ricochet pretty far, but unimpeded putts usually went by much further. It was a rare event, for me, when the flagstick out was better than the flag stick in the hole. I have read recent studies that say otherwise, but my experience has affirmed that the flag stick should stay in if you get the chance.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Clemsonfan
Word prompt removed the correct word!

[Nail]

What do you guys make of this? @iacas

Flagstick Out!: The science behind why the flagstick should be pulled 99.9 percent of the time | Golf Equipment: Clubs, Balls, Bags | Golf Digest

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If only Davis Thompson has seen this Ph.D. Research before seeing his birdie putt on the 71st hole of the 2023...

 

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, Nail said:

What do you guys make of this? @iacas

Flagstick Out!: The science behind why the flagstick should be pulled 99.9 percent of the time | Golf Equipment: Clubs, Balls, Bags | Golf Digest

---

If only Davis Thompson has seen this Ph.D. Research before seeing his birdie putt on the 71st hole of the 2023...

 

I’ve responded to that article several times.

[Nail]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I’ve responded to that article several times.

I’ve just done a search and I found a lot. Thanks. Sorry for bothering you 👍

[iacas]

31 minutes ago, Nail said:

I’ve just done a search and I found a lot. Thanks. Sorry for bothering you 👍

Wasn't a bother; I was just letting you know that I'd responded a few times already so you could find more thorough responses than I'd give today.

Again, my stance…

• When the ball is going really slowly, the flagstick is irrelevant. The ball barely touches it.
• When the ball is going pretty fast, the flagstick being in helps most of the time the ball hits it.
• When the ball is going to roll only about 3' past the hole or less, the flagstick can only hurt you.
• When the ball is going to miss the hole entirely (which is why that article stinks), who cares?

Thus:

• Take it out when you're certain you're going to control speed to 2 or 3' past the hole.
• Leave it in the rest of the time.

For many people, that break point is about 20-25' or so.

People often mis-judge how fast a ball is rolling, particularly when they're the one who hit the ball as it's rolling away from them.

[Big C]

That Hovland putt had some pace, but sure looked like it was dropping. Impossible to say for sure, but my gut is about 80% confidence that it would have gone it were it not for the flag stick. 

With that said, those are the outlier cases and I think we have all seen more times where it helps than hurts. 

I more or less follow Erik's rule of thumb, and tend to pull it anytime I am within 20 feet. I don't think it really gives me any advantage, but I like the visual of an "open" cup from mid-close range.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Big C said:

That Hovland putt had some pace, but sure looked like it was dropping. Impossible to say for sure, but my gut is about 80% confidence that it would have gone it were it not for the flag stick.

I'm probably at least 80% sure it wasn't.

I ran a bunch of math based on my estimates of how far the ball travels here in 1/30th of a second… and to make it simple the ball is probably going to hit close to the equator, but most of my estimates had it hitting just below the equator.

This is corroborated by how suddenly the ball not only hit the stick but starts to veer sideways:

That ball has not dropped much at all there, and it covered the gap from the left frame to the right frame in 1/30th of a second, including hitting the stick and bouncing away. Also, by the angle it bounces, you can see that it's not hitting anywhere all that close to the center of the stick. The capture speed on a putt missing the center of the stick by over 3/4" is only a little over 4' past the hole (level ground, etc.).

I don't see that ball going only 4' past the hole. Obviously, it decelerates quickly, but at the speeds it's traveling, it's going to go much farther than that, I think.

It may have caught the lip and popped up and sat beside the hole, but it was also far enough offline that even if it caught the point just below the equator, it's going to lip sideways pretty quickly, not pop up in the air with most forward progress stopped.

1 hour ago, Big C said:

I more or less follow Erik's rule of thumb, and tend to pull it anytime I am within 20 feet. I don't think it really gives me any advantage, but I like the visual of an "open" cup from mid-close range.

Yep. This putt was moving, and even if it was going to go in (I'd bet a lot of money it wasn't), this as you said could be one of the rare times when it hurt rather than helped, but as you also say… the odds will still tend to be in your favor over the long haul.

[Big C]

From the camera angle provided, the putt appears to hit the hole around "7 o'clock." But since the putt was bending gently to the right, I think that camera angle was deceiving. Were the camera angle rotated so that it was directly on the line the ball was rolling when it hit the flag, I think it would be entering the cup much closer to 6:15 or so. Not dead-center, but pretty darn close. 

From my perspective, everything about that putt had the "look" of a putt that was dropping until it rattled out. 

[iacas]

33 minutes ago, Big C said:

From the camera angle provided, the putt appears to hit the hole around "7 o'clock." But since the putt was bending gently to the right, I think that camera angle was deceiving. Were the camera angle rotated so that it was directly on the line the ball was rolling when it hit the flag, I think it would be entering the cup much closer to 6:15 or so. Not dead-center, but pretty darn close. 

The angle (on a clock) doesn't matter. It's how far off-center it is. An hour hand at 6:15 still goes through the center of the clock.

It missed the center by 3/4" or more. The angle through the centers of the stick and club were probably 30°+ offline from the direction it was traveling. That's why the rebound was so much sideways.

[ChetlovesMer]

1 hour ago, Big C said:

From the camera angle provided, the putt appears to hit the hole around "7 o'clock." But since the putt was bending gently to the right, I think that camera angle was deceiving. Were the camera angle rotated so that it was directly on the line the ball was rolling when it hit the flag, I think it would be entering the cup much closer to 6:15 or so. Not dead-center, but pretty darn close. 

From my perspective, everything about that putt had the "look" of a putt that was dropping until it rattled out. 

It's funny how once this rule changed we all forgot how many putts "looked" like they were going in and didn't. Way back when we didn't have an option to leave the flag in there were tons of times people said "How did that not go in?!?!?!" 

Now-a-days, because we have the option, everyone just blames the flag stick. "Should have taken the flag stick out". 

Of course if we knew when the flagstick was going to help us we'd leave it in for all of those. If we knew when the flag was going to hurt us, we'd take it out for all of those. BUT WE DON'T! 

If I had a nickel for every time a guy hit a putt during the tournament I play or the league I'm in that hit the flagstick going roughly 250 miles per hour and didn't go in and then said "That would have dropped if the flagstick wasn't there!" I'd be able to buy my own GEARs system and set it up in the basement. 

The flagstick will help you every once in a great while and hurt you every once in an even greater while. But more often than not, a putt that doesn't quite go in with the flagstick, would also not quite go in without the flagstick. 👍

[iacas]

1 hour ago, ChetlovesMer said:

I'd be able to buy my own GEARs system and set it up in the basement. 

That's a tall ceiling for a basement, rich boy.