What Would a PGA Tour Player Shoot at Your Home Course?

[RandallT]

4 hours ago, dove694 said:

Not sure why you feel the need to try and make people feel stupid? What's the attitude all about?

I've been around a bit, and I'll say that as long as people stick with arguments that are based on logic, data, and common sense that Erik truly enjoys the back and forth of debate. Challenging opinions and looking at things in a new light is valued here- even if it's done in a somewhat rough and tumble style at times. Erik doesn't really like "yes men," and he wants vigorous debate, or where's the fun?

With that said, I've noticed Erik will take a particular interest in arguments that come at a problem from the direction of "conventional wisdom," (or people who get into odd tangents). Maybe the conventional wisdom is right, maybe it's wrong, but he wants people to think for themselves and make sure they're not just parroting blindly what they've heard.  So he will test you. Vigorously. As long as you bring to the table good arguments and you address any direct issues that come back at you, you'll be just fine here. It's the guys who become jerks where WW3 happens. 

From what I've seen in this thread, you're just fine. The thing about your friend is anecdotal, of course, as was the Graeme McDowell- but that's ok, because it is a data point. It's all part of the argument and is part of your experience in formulating your opinion. Just be prepared for lots of facts and data to be thrown back- Erik has a ton of that in his arsenal. 

 

[Chilli Dipper]

4 hours ago, dove694 said:

I still say the average Tour player would shoot in the low 60's at my course. Here's the scorecard of it, and Nick Taylor's scores from the 2006 Provincial Tournament. He was only a junior at the time and hadn't played for the University of Washington yet. Safe to say his handicap has improved a little bit since then  and he still shot 68 twice and under difficult tournament conditions! No way he'd shoot that now. 
 

Nick Taylor   Round: 4 Position: 1 Score: -11 Strokes: 277

Tip: Click on a hole number to compare Nick’s score to the field.

Hole	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Out	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	In	Total
Yards	363	381	374	191	496	406	524	197	401	3333	530	197	424	487	559	166	393	428	286	3470	6803
Handicap	16	4	14	18	10	2	12	8	6		11	15	3	1	7	13	9	5	17
Par	4	4	4	3	5	4	5	3	4	36	5	3	4	4	5	3	4	4	4	36	72
Round 1	5	3	4	3	4	4	4	3	4	34	4	3	4	4	5	3	3	3	5	34	68
Round 2	4	3	4	3	4	3	6	3	5	35	5	3	4	4	5	3	4	4	4	36	71
Round 3	4	4	3	2	5	4	4	3	4	33	4	3	3	4	6	3	4	4	4	35	68
Round 4	4	3	4	3	5	3	5	3	4	34	5	3	4	4	5	3	4	4	4	36	70

Key:   Eagle   Birdie   Bogey   Dbl Bogey

That's making the fallacy of taking the outlier, and presenting it as the norm. Nick Taylor was the top junior golfer in Canada at that time, and in a couple years would be ranked as the top amateur golfer in the world. At age 18, he entered his provincial open, and shot two rounds of 68 en route to winning the tournament. Is Nick Taylor a better player now than he was then? Sure, but he was already a burgeoning world-class amateur then. He's not so much better now that he would routinely shoot five or six strokes less than his best competitive round as an 18-year-old.

Also, I would be surprised if a state or provincial open warrants any special considerations to the host course beyond the conditions for everyday play.

[iacas]

5 hours ago, dove694 said:

Not sure why you feel the need to try and make people feel stupid? What's the attitude all about?

There is no attitude. It's all something you're reading in to the text that's not there.

Stick to the topic and defend your positions and we'll do just fine. I'm also, on a few topics, fairly well informed and fairly well educated. So I have a strong sense of what the facts may be. I tend to avoid or dislike uninformed speculation.

5 hours ago, dove694 said:

Because you seem to think that nobody else has any valid arguments

Let's avoid hyperbole. I agreed with @natureboy's assessment of about 67, and it matched up with what Dave told me in our discussion. It matched up too with what I've seen from PGA Tour and Web.com guys playing random courses as well as guys trying to Monday qualify (which is not done on the tournament course, just a nearby course).

5 hours ago, dove694 said:

No way he'd shoot that now.

It's also one data point, so if it's okay with you, I'm giving it the weight of one more data point. He shot 68 twice, but he averaged 69.25. Did he win? Finish in the top half? It's clearly also not a course he was seeing for the first time. What was the course rating?

Look, guys, going from an 18 handicap to a 9 is significantly easier than going from a 9 to a 0. But that level keeps increasing: going from a 0 to a +1 is tougher than going from a 1 to a 0, and right on down the line. It's not linear, and so while I appreciate how darn good PGA Tour players are, at the end of the day, the limiting factor is still that the hole is really small, and if you give anyone a 360-yard hole, they're probably going to make a 4. Not 18 of them, but the average will be 4.

360 yards = 6480, and if a PGA Tour pro scores 3.92, that's only a score of 70.56. Now, that's on a PGA Tour setup, which often has a course rating of about 75 or 76… but you have to balance that against a few things:

• That 75 or 76 CR is not based on a course playing only 6480 yards.
• That 75 or 76 CR is based on thicker rough, faster greens, etc. But also on better conditions: consistent bunkers and fairways and greens, decent lies around the greens, etc.

If you think those two things balance out, you again conclude that a PGA Tour player shoots about 4 or 5 below the course rating.

What few people are publishing here are their course's course ratings. I've played three courses in the last few days, and each has a course rating above 73, despite not being super long. (One will actually host the Web.com tour in July). Oh, that course, btw… the low score each day would be around 66, typically. The average would be 70 or so. And they weren't seen the course for the first time.

1 hour ago, RandallT said:

I've been around a bit, and I'll say that as long as people stick with arguments that are based on logic, data, and common sense that Erik truly enjoys the back and forth of debate. Challenging opinions and looking at things in a new light is valued here- even if it's done in a somewhat rough and tumble style at times. Erik doesn't really like "yes men," and he wants vigorous debate, or where's the fun?

Yes, come at the discussion with facts. Don't come at me with stuff like:

On May 24, 2016 at 9:10 PM, dove694 said:

Put a wedge in their hands and it's almost automatic. 6600 yards = lots of wedges.

I can - and usually will unless someone else beats me to it - turn to statistics on things like that.

1 hour ago, RandallT said:

With that said, I've noticed Erik will take a particular interest in arguments that come at a problem from the direction of "conventional wisdom," (or people who get into odd tangents). Maybe the conventional wisdom is right, maybe it's wrong, but he wants people to think for themselves and make sure they're not just parroting blindly what they've heard.  So he will test you. Vigorously. As long as you bring to the table good arguments and you address any direct issues that come back at you, you'll be just fine here. It's the guys who become jerks where WW3 happens.

Conventional wisdom is dumb.

And look, I have a shit ton of respect for PGA Tour players. But at the end of the day, Golf is Hard® because the hole is still tiny. Imagine an 1800-yard course with 18 100-yard holes, but you start everyone by pretending they're hitting their second shot so par is still 72. They'd have to average 2.5 shots - or 3.5 with the added stroke (well below what they'd actually average) to shoot even a 63. (According to Broadie they take about 2.8 strokes from the fairway from 100 yards). (2.8 + 1) * 18 = 68.4. (But that's with holes measuring, on average, about 385 yards or so = 6900 yards.)

Nothing's coming up that presents a case for a mid-level PGA Tour pro shooting 63 (or 59) on a course from the back tees seeing it for the first time.

The only arguments that I can see with some validity for lowering the number below about 67 are:

• Psychological pressure. All the stats are from tournament rounds, of course, so maybe guys playing for nothing do better? I have a few reasons why I don't think this one applies very much, but it's not really a "knowable" or "measurable" thing, so maybe?
• Course conditions. Maybe it's not really a wash. Maybe most public courses - or at least the one many people are picturing in their minds - are soft and maybe this accounts for more "good" scoring than I can attribute. Again, I doubt it - I think for every partial stroke saved by a soft green, they lose a partial shot with some other weird condition somewhere.

That's it. Now, I didn't give it much thought, so maybe there's more, but PGA Tour players are good, but they're not otherworldly. Yes, they can birdie a 380-yard hole fairly often.

(Consider the second hole at Colonial. It's 387 yards and relatively open. The average on the hole right now is 3.817. Played 18 times, that's a score of ~68.7).

1 hour ago, RandallT said:

From what I've seen in this thread, you're just fine. The thing about your friend is anecdotal, of course, as was the Graeme McDowell- but that's ok, because it is a data point. It's all part of the argument and is part of your experience in formulating your opinion. Just be prepared for lots of facts and data to be thrown back- Erik has a ton of that in his arsenal.

Indeed.

Anecdotal evidence has its place, but it is just what you said: one data point. It pales in comparison to the thousands of data points.

Here's one nobody's really mentioned yet: the average PGA Tour player is about a +4 to +5. This has remained relatively steady for the past decade (I'm sure it's likely dropped a little, but about or less than a tenth of a stroke). Remember, too, that these are their best 10 out of 20 scores, and they're on courses they've seen before. That too backs up the idea of players shooting about 4 or 5 below the course rating (slope actually works "for" these players: a +4 index might get 5 strokes because the slope is 137 or something).

42 minutes ago, Chilli Dipper said:

That's making the fallacy of taking the outlier, and presenting it as the norm. Nick Taylor was the top junior golfer in Canada at that time, and in a couple years would be ranked as the top amateur golfer in the world. At age 18, he entered his provincial open, and shot two rounds of 68 en route to winning the tournament. Is Nick Taylor a better player now than he was then? Sure, but he was already a burgeoning world-class amateur then. He's not so much better now that he would routinely shoot five or six strokes less than his best competitive round as an 18-year-old.

Yeah.

It's not like there were six shots a round separating Nick at the time from an average PGA Tour player.

[Chilli Dipper]

Furthermore, let's say that the provincial open is played at your home course again next year. It just happens that Nick Taylor has come home to take a break from tour life for a few weeks, and decides to enter the tournament on a whim, because it gives him a low-key opportunity to keep his game sharp. What are the odds that he would shoot 32-under for the tournament, averaging a 64 for every round?

[dove694]

@iacas

Fair enough, you just seemed to be cutting down my points a bit. Guess I was reading too much into it.

The course rating is 71.7/131(as I've mentioned before) and was playing tougher that week than I've ever seen it. They grew the rough out and got the greens rolling ridiculously fast so a -11 total was actually pretty good even by elite amateur standards. He won by a few shots.

You are right, it wasn't his first time seeing the course. We also played the High School AAA tournament there that year, and he shot 72-65 in that if my memory serves me correctly. But we played the Blue Tees that week (6540 yards, 70.8/128) and it wasnt set up particularly difficult. I believe that was his first time seeing the course. A few years prior we hosted the AA High School Tournament and Adam Hadwin's team competed. We were the defending champions playing on our home course and had 4/5 players returning so we were feeling pretty confident. We shot rounds of 305-299. Hadwin's team beat us by 25 shots. Roger Sloan (Web.com Tour winner) also competed that week, as did Habs goalie Carey Price. I don't remember what Hadwin and Sloan (and Price for that matter lol) shot, but it wasn't better than 68-70. My team mate shot that and won the low individual. 

Being at a high elevation, the course plays quite a bit shorter than the yardage. #1 and 2, for example, saw a handful of players drive the green that week and they play 360 and 380 yards respectively. I also know of a guy who plays the European Tour that had a 60 degree wedge into #13 one day (487 yards, slightly downhill). So I would imagine Tour players of better than average length would find my course quite short. 

On May 28, 2016 at 9:26 AM, Chilli Dipper said:

Furthermore, let's say that the provincial open is played at your home course again next year. It just happens that Nick Taylor has come home to take a break from tour life for a few weeks, and decides to enter the tournament on a whim, because it gives him a low-key opportunity to keep his game sharp. What are the odds that he would shoot 32-under for the tournament, averaging a 64 for every round?

The odds of him shooting -32 would be slim, but not impossible. Those guys absolutely demolish a handful of the easier courses (ie. Kapalua, the old rotation for the Las Vegas Invitational, the old rotation for the Bob Hope, TPC Scottsdale before they toughened it up,  North Course at Torrey, etc.) and scores of ~ -30 haven't been terribly uncommon at some events. But I think the PGA Tour and the Web.Com Tour seem to be trying to get away from insanely low numbers and are moving tournaments away from some of the old venues that can't keep up with how far  they hit the ball now, and renovating other courses to beef them up. I recall the Tour players voted to eliminate the TPC Stadium course at PGA West in the late 80's from tournanent play because they thought it was "too hard" and this year when they used it again it seemed to be quite playable for them. In fact, they seemed to have no issues making their way around the course at all. That speaks to the quality and depth of the fields nowadays.  That being said - no, I wouldn't expect a -32 total. But it definitely wouldn't shock me either. 

On a side note, I would be really interested to see this type of experiment revisited. This thread has fuelled some great speculation and debate, so thank you guys for playing along!

And also, "speculation" is what the thread is all about! Sure, I'm placing the Tour guys on a pedestal but they DESERVE it. Yes "Golf is Hard", but those guys are GOOD. Low 60s are very much a possibility in any tournament they tee it up in, let alone on a public course that was designed with the average golfer in mind. Let's give credit where credit is due! If all the players from 75-125 on the money list decided to go out and play a new course (of "moderate difficulty" for amateurs) every week for the next 2 months, course records would be getting smashed all over the place. They might shoot the odd 70 or 72, but you darn well bet there would be a lot of 63's and 64's in there too. Regardless of poor course conditions, lack of course knowledge or anything like that, they are gonna make birdies in droves and they are going to go low!

[caniac6]

Tim Clark shot a 61 in a US Open qualifier at my course. I believe he was still at NC State when it occurred.

[Chilli Dipper]

5 hours ago, dove694 said:

The odds of him shooting -32 would be slim, but not impossible. Those guys absolutely demolish a handful of the easier courses (ie. Kapalua, the old rotation for the Las Vegas Invitational, the old rotation for the Bob Hope, TPC Scottsdale before they toughened it up,  North Course at Torrey, etc.) and scores of ~ -30 haven't been terribly uncommon at some events. But I think the PGA Tour and the Web.Com Tour seem to be trying to get away from insanely low numbers and are moving tournaments away from some of the old venues that can't keep up with how far  they hit the ball now, and renovating other courses to beef them up. I recall the Tour players voted to eliminate the TPC Stadium course at PGA West in the late 80's from tournanent play because they thought it was "too hard" and this year when they used it again it seemed to be quite playable for them. In fact, they seemed to have no issues making their way around the course at all. That speaks to the quality and depth of the fields nowadays.  That being said - no, I wouldn't expect a -32 total. But it definitely wouldn't shock me either.

Remember, though, that whatever the Bob Hope is called these days is still a pro-am. The PGA West stadium course can probably play harder than it did that week, but the D-list celebrities and car dealership owners wouldn't finish their rounds in under six hours otherwise.

[iacas]

@dove694, you're talking about the winning scores. The averages are, obviously, higher.

10 hours ago, dove694 said:

Low 60s are very much a possibility in any tournament they tee it up in, let alone on a public course that was designed with the average golfer in mind. Let's give credit where credit is due! If all the players from 75-125 on the money list decided to go out and play a new course (of "moderate difficulty" for amateurs) every week for the next 2 months, course records would be getting smashed all over the place. They might shoot the odd 70 or 72, but you darn well bet there would be a lot of 63's and 64's in there too. Regardless of poor course conditions, lack of course knowledge or anything like that, they are gonna make birdies in droves and they are going to go low!

And 63 and 71 average out to… 67.

Nobody is saying they couldn't shoot 63. Just that it's not as likely as many seem to believe.

[Lihu]

Reflecting upon this a bit, 67 would be 7.6 strokes better than the gold tee course rating on my longer home course. It seems like the statistics don't support averaging 67 if PGA Tour pros are about a +4?

[natureboy]

On 5/27/2016 at 3:51 PM, Golfingdad said:

Also overstated IMO.  Most of us play on courses with at least decent grooming.  The amount of times my ball is knocked off line by a deformity in a green is probably similar to the amount of times I've ended up in a sand filled divot.

At the very least, not all of our home courses have poor, bumpy greens. It's going to depend on the specific course.

On 5/27/2016 at 10:42 PM, RandallT said:

They succeed because they consistently go relatively low. They rise up because they play well often, in multiple tournaments, across a long span of time. I think they separate themselves from non-pros because of consistency, rather than shockingly low scores on easier setups.

I think that's largely true, but I'd be curious to see how the field scoring distribution changes in shape as the field score average decreases significantly (course gets much easier than tour average). That info I think is publicly available.

I don't have a ton of data collected, but it appears to me that as tee length decreases, the relative length of par 5's and par 4's decrease at a faster rate than the par 3s (and the par 5s possibly a hair more than the par 4 rate). See if this is true for your home courses.

So if that applies broadly then it's possible that the pros would more consistently score birdies / eagles on the 5's and a few more birdies than expected on the shorter par 4's as the CR drops and the course gets shorter. This effect may already be at least partly embodied in the slope rating, but not necessarily because pros have a considerably length edge on typical scratch players.

17 hours ago, dove694 said:

I recall the Tour players voted to eliminate the TPC Stadium course at PGA West in the late 80's from tournanent play because they thought it was "too hard" and this year when they used it again it seemed to be quite playable for them. In fact, they seemed to have no issues making their way around the course at all. That speaks to the quality and depth of the fields nowadays.

Or more likely IMO, the degree to which new tech has affected their perspective on the course.

17 hours ago, dove694 said:

 On a side note, I would be really interested to see this type of experiment revisited. This thread has fuelled some great speculation and debate, so thank you guys for playing along!

5 hours ago, Lihu said:

Reflecting upon this a bit, 67 would be 7.6 strokes better than the gold tee course rating on my longer home course. It seems like the statistics don't support averaging 67 if PGA Tour pros are about a +4?

Most of us have been saying the CR matters more than 'par'. So on your course, the expected average for the field would be about 69.3 and the most likely single score would be 69. On an easier course the average would be lower, but the most frequently expected score might be a stroke or two below the average if the distribution skews as the course gets easier and the pros 'bunch up' against the real world limits of high 50's scoring.

17 hours ago, dove694 said:

If all the players from 75-125 on the money list decided to go out and play a new course (of "moderate difficulty" for amateurs) every week for the next 2 months, course records would be getting smashed all over the place.

That's an interesting point. I expect most of them are members somewhere / have a home course. How many of them hold the course record there?

[Buckeyebowman]

On 5/25/2016 at 8:43 AM, djfajt71 said:

I voted for 65-70.  My course isn't super long, about 7085 from the tips, but a lot of the holes are pretty narrow.  The rough isn't overly high or thick but the greens are pretty quick and are a little smaller than average.  It rates out at 74.6/144.  I'm sure if it hosted a tour event, they could trick it out a little more to toughen it up. 

I can appreciate the idea, but the OP said your home course, which I took to mean the course as you play it. I don't mean from the tees you play, pros are used to heading for the very back of the farthest tee box no matter where they play. I mean without tricking up the course.

That is why I said earlier that if you took a pro to a ratty muni, with clover and broadleaf weeds for fairways, and slow bumpy greens, you'd probably drive him crazier than taking him to a nice, but not tour level, country club!

The difference between a tour pro, and a big shot local amateur is light years! The amateur may shoot lights out at his home course, and other courses with which he is familiar, while a tour pro is expected to be a + whatever HI wherever they tee it up.

[dove694]

@natureboy

Here is probably the best clue as to how many Tour players own course records at their respective clubs. There are plenty of examples of low scores (60-65) shot in "noncompetitive" rounds by some familiar names. It's an interesting read - check it out!

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/100-greatest-course-records

(PS. I hope the Natureboy moniker means you are actually Ric Flair enjoying retirement from wrestling by trolling golf forums on the internet! ?)

 

[iacas]

@dove694, you seem to keep confusing what would they shoot with what could they shoot. One speaks to likelihood the other to possibility.

Many of those are their home courses too, no?

[No Mulligans]

Last weekends tournament was at the Colonial Country Club with a course rating of 75.1/138 and the Friday cut was +1.  That's probably an average round for a Tour Pro on that course in those conditions.  

4 less than the course rating (par 70 course for the tournament).

1 hour ago, dove694 said:

@natureboy

Here is probably the best clue as to how many Tour players own course records at their respective clubs. There are plenty of examples of low scores (60-65) shot in "noncompetitive" rounds by some familiar names. It's an interesting read - check it out!

I think the best clue is how they are actually scoring in tournaments vs. the course rating.  Plenty of data on that and you can just look at the cut line.  Maybe the course conditions are a bit tougher, but those guys are good.  I'd guess a couple of strokes tougher per round on average for a tour pro. (?)

[dove694]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

@dove694, you seem to keep confusing what would they shoot with what could they shoot. One speaks to likelihood the other to possibility.

Many of those are their home courses too, no?

Just saying! I simply thought this article was interesting. I know that Gozzer Ranch is not by any means an easy course, and Pat Perez and Andrew Magee shot 60 and 62 there respectively. I know it's not their home course. I read in the newspaper that Dustin Johnson "sniffed a 59 but settled for a 61" there as well after the US Open at Chambers Bay, although I would imagine he plays there at least semi-frequently since his father in law (a fella named Wayne Gretzky) has a house on the course. 

I understand the difference between what they CAN shoot and what they WOULD shoot, I just happen to think it would be lower than what you think they would. Guess we need to organize a foursome with you and I and a couple touring professionals to settle the debate. You book the tee time and I'll bring the beer ?

[Lihu]

4 minutes ago, dove694 said:

Just saying! I simply thought this article was interesting. I know that Gozzer Ranch is not by any means an easy course, and Pat Perez and Andrew Magee shot 60 and 62 there respectively. I know it's not their home course. I read in the newspaper that Dustin Johnson "sniffed a 59 but settled for a 61" there as well after the US Open at Chambers Bay, although I would imagine he plays there at least semi-frequently since his father in law (a fella named Wayne Gretzky) has a house on the course. 

I understand the difference between what they CAN shoot and what they WOULD shoot, I just happen to think it would be lower than what you think they would. Guess we need to organize a foursome with you and I and a couple touring professionals to settle the debate. You book the tee time and I'll bring the beer ?

The issue is what would they (Pat and Andrew) normally shoot and not on a particular great course setting record day?

[iacas]

20 minutes ago, dove694 said:

I understand the difference between what they CAN shoot and what they WOULD shoot, I just happen to think it would be lower than what you think they would. Guess we need to organize a foursome with you and I and a couple touring professionals to settle the debate. You book the tee time and I'll bring the beer ?

I've played with Tour pros. I also don't give much weight to those experiences, as they are but one data point (as I've mentioned before).

We aren't discussing the lowest scores they could shoot, and Dustin Johnson is also not a "middle of the pack" PGA Tour player.

[natureboy]

3 hours ago, Lihu said:

The issue is what would they (Pat and Andrew) normally shoot and not on a particular great course setting record day?

Not necessarily given @dove694 's original post. He didn't use the word 'normally'. So if we use the PGA adjusted scoring distribution as a model for the average player (who does not actually exist) and plunk that on any particular course on any particular day the score that they make should relate to that scoring distribution and the course rating.

However, all the likely scores within the probability distribution are in play until that single round is finished and a score is recorded. It's a little like the position of the electron. It has a probabilistic location and all possibilities are in play for the precise location until the wave function is collapsed with a measurement. Some individual outcomes are just more likely than others.