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

[colin007]

2 hours ago, natureboy said:

Well that's good to know. Surprising since it's mostly on the Pine Barrens, yes?

I have also encountered the hard pan bunker on more than a few courses but never a fist-sized rock. Kids screwing around with golfers, or your playing partners?

It's not really as sandy as you'd think...The area on the south side of Central Ave is much sandier and is the classic pine hills sand spot. 

No kids, just big rocks that get exposed with erosion.

[iacas]

I asked five PGA Tour instructors. Their answers were all 68 (3) or 67 (2). One of the first changed his answer to the latter after giving it more thought.

They cited the greens and conditions as being worth 1-3 shots.

Just one more (or five) data points. Give it whatever weight you will.

[natureboy]

3 hours ago, colin007 said:

It's not really as sandy as you'd think...The area on the south side of Central Ave is much sandier and is the classic pine hills sand spot. 

No kids, just big rocks that get exposed with erosion.

 

Spoiler

Glacial till, I guess.

 

2 hours ago, iacas said:

I asked five PGA Tour instructors. Their answers were all 68 (3) or 67 (2). One of the first changed his answer to the latter after giving it more thought.

They cited the greens and conditions as being worth 1-3 shots.

Just one more (or five) data points. Give it whatever weight you will.

It's worth taking into account. What were their base course ratings?

[Lihu]

12 minutes ago, natureboy said:

 

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Glacial till, I guess.

 

It's worth taking into account. What were their base course ratings?

Probably 72/125 type course.

Getting 4 or 5 birdies the typical round is pretty good! Plus, more to offset any bogey, and par the rest.

[stealthhwk]

Great topic!!! One Ive been ponderring lately. My home course has some easy holes but most are long, lots of water and theyd be miffed cus theres so much trouble on the short par 4s theres no way even a tour pro could go for the green off the tee. I voted 65-70 although I suspect the most likely number an average pro would post first time out might be a 67 or  68.

[natureboy]

On 5/27/2016 at 8:07 PM, natureboy said:

So relative to a Course Rating (slope should not matter to a pro), and assuming a standard normal distribution, 95% of the scores should range between -6.7 and -3.9 below the rating. 

 

This numbers above and chart were a good start, but the study involved was really looking at the variability of the field average vs par. The field as a whole is extremely consistent. By aggregating the individual scoring variability of many players it 'never has a bad day'. Therefore this chart has too narrow a distribution of scores and the likelihood of the mode (most frequent result) score was too high and the peak of the distribution too high.

So I took a look at a bunch of tournaments in 2015 and came up with the distribution below for all adjusted scores relative to the CR. It is much more realistic in the spread of scores and the probability for the most frequently expected score. It is skewed slightly to the right, meaning that the average score is a bit higher than the most likely score (mode). It looks from the chart that the most likely score is about 1 shot under the average. Shooting 2 under the expected average of ~ 5 below the course rating appears about as likely as 1 over.

FYI, for this sample of many scores, the better half average was between 7 and 8 strokes under the rating.

The next chart looks at multi-tournament scores throughout 2015 for about 8 players whose scoring average brackets the field average. They were within about 4 ranks above and below rank 92 on the scoring list. The distribution looks even flatter / less narrow than the scores for the full field above, but like the full field score distribution it is also skewed right so that the most frequently expected score is lower than the average. About 3 below the average of ~ 5.3 under the CR seems about as likely as one over.

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

The trick is that you said it yourself: as you make courses easier, you tighten up the dispersion, right? There's less separation. So as courses get lower CRs, say down around 70, pros might be shooting fewer than 5 strokes under that, theoretically. We might project an average just over 65, perhaps, for a CR of 70.

I think because the low value of a 'perfect' round as a lower bound allows quite a bit of room below par, the bunching may not happen as much around the mode as we were thinking. It would still likely be rare, but a very low course rating may increase the odds appreciably for low 60's and maybe even the rare high 50's round for pros..

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

My gut still tells me that shooting that extremely low even on easy courses is very hard. I think pro's don't necessarily succeed because they go incredibly low. 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. Just my gut. Maybe that makes no sense. 

If you double a lottery-like probability it's still a super-rare event, but low 60s rounds still have a real likelihood for pros with a high average course rating.

Say for a lower course rating (~70) you double (or some other % increase) all the probabilities below the mode (steepen the slope of the probability curve as the mode moves toward the lower bound of 'perfect'). Some of the more likely low 60's plus less likely high 50's numbers on that same probability curve may rise to more realistic likelihoods (more so for the higher scores in the 61-64 range which will be just below the mode).

If you look at the low score end of the mode in the distributions above you will see how steeply the probability falls off as expected score drops. If you take the low end of a 'perfect round' as a fixed point then you get an idea of how pushing the mode down toward it will squish the existing probability area and increase the likelihood of the possible scores between 'perfect' and the mode (with a low CR) and put the mode closer to the low 60's.

On 5/22/2016 at 4:59 AM, dove694 said:

My question is what do you think an "average" Tour player would shoot at your course? I'm not talking Jason Day or Jordan Spieth. I mean a guy like Kevin Stadler, Darren Stiles, Cameron Beckman, Alex Prugh, Steven Bowditch, Andres Gonzales, etc. who has had some good finishes (even the odd win) but isn't considered a "star" by any stretch.

I thought about this and decided that the 'field average' was not really the right measure for the 'average' player.

I took two different looks at 'average' in the charts above. One is considering the full field (every player) distribution of adjusted scores relative to the course rating (at least more realistically inconsistent than the field average), and the other looks at about 8 players grouped around the average score (~ scoring rank 92) and grouped their scores to make an amalgam 'average' player that probably best represents a player in the 'middle of the pack'.

Basically, my take is that evidence for two different looks at an 'average' player supports a most likely one-round score somewhere between 6 and 8 strokes below the course rating. That's assuming conditions similar to tour whatever effect differences (plus and minus) those may have on the average tour player. To me, the toughest one is playing the course blind. Per your OP, would they get a yardage book from the range shot. Would they have a caddie or playing partner with course knowledge?

[iacas]

20 hours ago, natureboy said:

Basically, my take is that evidence for two different looks at an 'average' player supports a most likely one-round score somewhere between 6 and 8 strokes below the course rating. That's assuming conditions similar to tour whatever effect differences (plus and minus) those may have on the average tour player.

The course conditions are going to add strokes, overall. The better the course, the less likely this is to occur… but then more likely he higher the course rating, too. Which is why 66-67 is a pretty good estimate, from all I've seen.

[natureboy]

5 hours ago, iacas said:

The course conditions are going to add strokes, overall. The better the course, the less likely this is to occur… but then more likely he higher the course rating, too. Which is why 66-67 is a pretty good estimate, from all I've seen.

For courses rated 73 or more I'd tend to agree.

For courses rated 71 or lower, the distribution of 2015 PGA scores indicates 60% of scores would be below 66 with a peak around 64 or 63 for the middle of the pack pros.

That distribution is for courses where the par-5 go for green attempt rate is ~ 49%, hit success rate ~ 22%, and birdie or better result ~ 43%. I'd expect both the going for it rate, the success rate, proximity, and the birdie rate to all increase for a PGA pro on a lower rated, shorter course. The slower greens would make them easier to two-putt, and possibly allow more aggressive putts for eagle with less danger of a 3-putt.

I know some of this scoring potential is already built into a lower rating, but pros definitely have a significant length and accuracy edge on the typical scratch player. Taking greater advantage of the 'extra' 2-3 strokes available on par-5s might alone offset a possible disadvantage due to bumpy, slower greens.

All you need for a 64 vs a 67 is 2 more birdies or one eagle with one less bogey. Aren't the shorter, easier tracks on tour that tend to be 'birdie fests' more an indication of how the average tour player would tend to perform on our home courses than the tour average?

Being closer to the pin on average on a lower rated course vs their tour tracks means they are going to have more short putts. Your expectation is for them to get faked out on a large share of those extra birdie opportunities and 2-putt because they can't adjust to the slower speed where the putts will break less than the tour average?

Also, didn't you below discount the likely impact of bumpiness due to aerated greens...not that I expect a middle of the field PGA pro to be lagging from long distance a lot on a shorter course, but maybe a few holes.

Quote

 

Ditto <responding to "probably not that far from normal, if at all.  I voted "about the same".>

A putt I might have missed might go in and vice versa.

And long putting (lag putting) is much easier because they're slower.

I too suspect a lot of people will say otherwise.

 

Quoted from this thread discussing green conditions that are both slower and bumpier than normal:

 

[iacas]

6 hours ago, natureboy said:

For courses rated 73 or more I'd tend to agree.

For courses rated 71 or lower, the distribution of 2015 PGA scores indicates 60% of scores would be below 66 with a peak around 64 or 63 for the middle of the pack pros.

That works if you assume the sub-71 rated courses have PGA Tour conditions. They often do not.

And, frankly, I don't really care about a course rated 70.6 from the back tees. Particularly given your incorrect assumptions about the green speeds.

As for the thread (you linked to a thread, not a post), that speaks to my mentality. You can't go into a round of golf thinking "awww, crap." Look at the poll results. I miss more 3 to 10 foot putts than I otherwise would when they're aerated. Bad greens penalize good putters.

[dennyjones]

My course "The Captain's Club at Woodfield" plays 73.3/133 from the tips.  Because of the layout, there are only about 8 holes where a pro could "rip it".   I believe most pros would cut about 7 strokes.  

 

[Buckeyebowman]

This topic has been on my mind so I decided to revisit. The first thing I realized was that the thread title had some how morphed, in my mind, to "What COULD an average PGA pro shoot" etc. That's a pig with a different snout!

For my home course I decided to take Mill Creek Park, 36 holes of Donald Ross golf, built in the late '20's. A nice course, decent conditioning, but not on a par with tour conditions. It was built as a public course, not a country club, so it's "good enough for who it's for", if you take my meaning. Both courses are around 6,600 from the tips, and there are really no forced carries even though there are plenty of bunkers.

I figure an average tour pro who played this place regularly would just slaughter it! But, if it was his first time here, I now figure mid to upper 60's.

[tdiii]

I'm thinking in the 50s. . .

 

http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/louis-oosthuizen-recalls-time-he-shot-57-his-home-course

 

 

[iacas]

7 hours ago, tdiii said:

I'm thinking in the 50s. . .

Is your home course a par-63?

That course is < 6500 yards and is rated a 71 (par 72). It's his home course, and that's his lowest score ever, AND he's not an average PGA Tour player.

[tdiii]

11 hours ago, iacas said:

Is your home course a par-63?

That course is < 6500 yards and is rated a 71 (par 72). It's his home course, and that's his lowest score ever, AND he's not an average PGA Tour player.

Sheesh.  Mostly written tongue in cheek!

[iacas]

40 minutes ago, tdiii said:

Sheesh.  Mostly written tongue in cheek!

Fair enough! Use a smiley!  

[natureboy]

On 5/27/2016 at 1:24 PM, dove694 said:

I think the chances of them shooting 63 or 64 on my personal home course is pretty high, and that's what the thread is about!

If your home course is 7400 yards with a rating of 74.5 and a slope of 144, then yeah they are probably going to shoot over 70, but in my case (relatively easy course, 3000+ foot elevation, good conditions, etc) I just don't see them shooting in the high 60s or worse. 

What's your home course rating from the tips?

On 5/31/2016 at 1:39 AM, natureboy said:

So while 55 is humanly achievable it's super rare and likely represents the lower limit of any possible likelihood.

So there's a lot of room to go below even a low course rating or par of 70. I don't think the expected scores would get too squished and the distribution would still likely be normal in shape.

@RandallT I think the first point remains valid as the 'perfect' and 'near-perfect' rounds represent a real world constraint. That doesn't mean all low rounds are unlikely. Just that as the skill level of pros is applied on an easier course, their expected scores on the low end tend to 'bunch up' against the low end 'perfect' limits. If a .00036 probability of a 60 doubles, it's still only .00072, but the already somewhat likely 63's and 64's will increase into much more likely range as probability of the high scores drops and the probabilities push in from the high end.

The latter point, though, was off target according to the data. There's a fair bit of room and low 60's scores appear to be a bit sticky. I ran scores for one of the easier regular PGA tracks across several years of tournaments for both the full field and for an amalgam of 'middle of the pack' players around rank 92 on the scoring list for that year.

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The thing that is probably unrealistic is how narrow the range of expected scores is. The field is extremely consistent, but I think a single individual player (whose average score is the same as the field) will have a score variance significantly larger than the field.

It turned out that for the 'easy track', the full field scoring distribution was closer to 'normal' in shape and had a slightly larger standard deviation than the 'amalgam' of the middle of the pack players. The amalgam is slightly more right-skewed with a 'steeper climb' up the low side face and a taller peak. The likely reason IMO is because the full field data includes players with consistently lower and higher scores. 

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I think the mode likely stays the same while the distribution flattens / spreads out more into the tails with a little more probability to both go low and high and less certainty of shooting within a stroke or two of the mode / most likely score.

The reverse seems to have occurred for the middle of the pack players for both higher rated courses and lower. By excluding the high and low end performers present in the full field data, the distribution narrowed slightly and the probabilities for the most likely scores increased.

 

 

 

  

 

 

On 6/5/2016 at 9:37 AM, iacas said:

That works if you assume the sub-71 rated courses have PGA Tour conditions. They often do not.

You expect the basic course conditions are going to disrupt the pro's long game and short game that significantly?

Pros get up and down at a higher clip than scratch golfers despite playing on longer courses with harder to hold greens. Pros are pitching / chipping / recovering  successfully from farther away on average inflating their average proximity according to the distance baseline.

Put that same skill level on a shorter than average course and you'd expect their long shot proximity to improve as well as their up an down %, because their misses will be closer on avg. Long game plus short game is like 80%-85% of the contribution to scoring. Putting typically contributes only 15%-20%.

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And, frankly, I don't really care about a course rated 70.6 from the back tees.

But a high course rating wasn't stipulated by the OP. See his quoted post at the top. I think it's very relevant to the OP question and the poll given where the bulk of golfers play.

I pulled about 11 municipal and public access courses from the USGA course rating database just in my area where the tips are rated below 70.5 . Some were below 69.

Edited June 10, 2016 by natureboy

[iacas]

18 hours ago, natureboy said:

You expect the basic course conditions are going to disrupt the pro's long game and short game that significantly?

A few strokes here and there? Yes, absolutely. Putting alone might be two strokes, which when we're talking about a 64 that bumps up to a 66, becomes somewhat significant.

Then you could easily find one other shot out there where the lie is bad, sitting in a small bare spot, or the rough is terrible, or it hits some hardpan and scoots… or whatever.

Half a shot here, a quarter shot there… pretty soon you're back up to 66, 67 pretty easily.

[Braivo]

21 hours ago, iacas said:

A few strokes here and there? Yes, absolutely. Putting alone might be two strokes, which when we're talking about a 64 that bumps up to a 66, becomes somewhat significant.

Then you could easily find one other shot out there where the lie is bad, sitting in a small bare spot, or the rough is terrible, or it hits some hardpan and scoots… or whatever.

Half a shot here, a quarter shot there… pretty soon you're back up to 66, 67 pretty easily.

When I was growing up my Dad would always tell me that the pros hit off much nicer lies and truer greens than the munis we were playing. He meant that as a pick-me-up type of statement but there was truth to it from the opposite perspective, I always felt the pros would see some lost shots due to slow, inconsistent greens and poorly mowed fairways. 

Most of the courses I play have a good deal of hardpan in the areas around the greens from poor watering and lots of cart traffic, I don't see pros chipping from that type of stuff too often. I could easily see how they would lose 3-4 shots in a round on my local course.