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

[RH31]

Sean O'Hair shot 67 at my home course. My guess is they tricked up the pin locations.

I would say an average your pro would shoot in the low 60s after 3 or 4 trips around.

[mvmac]

60-65. My home course is only 6,600 yards from the back tees, the rough isn't that bad and there isn't that much trouble off the tee.

[MasonAsher2014]

I don't think that the scores would be as low as you think they would be. Remember the courses the pros play are more open than the average course and the greens are much, much bigger. 

[bones75]

I can only speak for muni's in Northern Califonia where I used to live.  there are ~15 munis within 1 hour driving distance from SF.  Avg course stats (from my memory only) from the tips are ~6700/71.5/120 yards/rating/slope. 

I think a tour player playing at a tournament level of focus (i.e. not a practice round), w/ warm-up to the green and bunker conditions, would shoot in the low 60's on average.  rationale:

   - Par 5's - even from tips, they're (almost) all reachable and most of them would have a long-iron or less in. On more than a few dogleg 5's in the area, they could have wedges/short irons as a 2nd shot into the green (buncha 500 yard par 5's w big doglegs in my area... how often will a tour pro eagle when they have a PW as their 2nd into a par 5?).

   - Course not setup for tour-level club yardages - I don't think they would need to hit driver except for the par 5's.  There are many, many par 4's that are reachable for pro's, some even with an iron (a lot of 300 yard par 4's w/ a 100 yard dogleg for example).

   - Approach shots: Greens are furry, slow and sticky as hell, i.e. not 14 on the stimp. They can pin seek almost every hole. When it rains and the greens are soft on tour events, it's a shooting gallery for them.  Imagine that on a course where they have a 60 degree into most par 4's (if they didn't already drive the green).

   - There's less danger for many (most?) missed shots, even accounting for potentially more bad lies on munis. Most the muni's in the area have these sections where holes are lined up like sardines in a can, with nothing but rough and a few trees (and i do mean few) between them. Take that along w/ the muni-level rough vs PGA-level rough, and there's far, far less penalty for missing the fairway.

For the most part: pin-seeking green conditions, par 4's that are iron/wedge at most, very reachable par 5's, and less penalties for missed shots.  Low 60's easy?

Edited May 24, 2016 by bones75

[dove694]

18 hours ago, Tee2Trees said:

Home course is Bridges in Madison, WI and it is pretty challenging from the tips.  It is built on marshland with numerous ponds and tall foliage so fairway misses can be extremely penal.  A few of the par 4's are cupcakes but then there are a couple that measure 450+ yds.  Two of the par 5's are 590 yds and two of the par 3s are 190 yds.  Hole #10 gives the player an option of a 250 yd carry into a medium-width fairway with OB on both sides, or a 210 yd layup that leaves 190 yd to the green.  I think anyone can be tested at this course, pro or otherwise.

Lengthy and difficult Par 3's are probably the best defense a course has against PGA calibre players, IMO. Even more so than a tight 450+ yard Par 4. If they are going to make bogeys it would probably be on one of these holes. Unless they spray a drive into a hazard or 3 putt or simply get careless. Making Par (or less) on a long Par 3 is tough for anyone, be it a bogey golfer or the #1 player in the world.

17 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

 

EDIT:  To be honest, if there were a PGA tournament there, and I was involved in setting it up, the first thing I'd do is switch the 1st hole and 13th hole to blue tees and call them par 4's.  Stroke average would go down by a tiny fraction of a stroke but "to par" scores at the end of the tournament would come up by 8, thus making our course look a little bit more respectable. 

Good point! I think most courses that were built without the pro's in mind (and even some that were) would have to convert a Par 5 or two into a Par 4. Seeing the odd 520 yard Par 4 (and numerous right around the 500 mark) the Tour is something that never fails to baffle me - just goes to show how far they hit it. 

[dove694]

10 hours ago, natureboy said:

While I definitely agree that PGA setups - esp. Majors - are tougher than everyday course setups there are a few pluses that pros get in tournaments that may slighty offset some of the difficulty that they would be less likely to find on our typical home courses:

• perfectly manicured bunkers with great sand
• very well groomed and consistent greens
• generally level tee boxes
• relatively few lost balls that aren't in water hazards (due to spectators, tv crews, & marshalls) unless the course is heavily treed or has heavy brush
• rough trampled by spectators allowing cleaner contact on some shots that would otherwise be deep rough
• galleries acting as backstops behind or to the side of greens

Compared to the raw difficulty of the courses the pros face, these aren't much, but it's possible they affect their games slightly.

Really interesting response. I never thought of it that way. It would be nearly impossible to lose a ball on Tour with so many eyes on all the shots. We've all lost a ball in the rough before, and that's a "luxury" those guys don't have to deal with. Pristine conditions also would make it simpler for them. In fact, it's probably easier to navigate greens that run 12+ on the stimp than really slow greens once you get used to them. Great answer

13 hours ago, No Mulligans said:

I guess Torrey Pines is as much of a home course as I have as I do play there and it's only about 6 miles from my house.

Even par on the south about 3 under on the north in tournament conditions.  Maybe 3 strokes better in everyday conditions given they play from the back tees.

The North Course is a breeze for those guys. In fact, I'm surprised they still use it for the Farmers even after renovations. But when the average Joe plays it, I'm sure it would be viewed as quite challenging. I can't speak from experience though since I've never played it. My dad did years ago when he was a low single digit handicap and he still seemed to think it was pretty tough.

[dove694]

5 hours ago, MasonAsher2014 said:

I don't think that the scores would be as low as you think they would be. Remember the courses the pros play are more open than the average course and the greens are much, much bigger. 

That's not necessarily true. Harbor Town (which has been mentioned in this thread a few times) is very narrow and has tiny greens. Same with Easy Lake where they have the Tour Championship, except the greens are slightly bigger. Augusta is very tight in places and so is Oak Hill. Shaughnessy, Hamilton and St. Georges are all part of the Canadian Open rotation and are very narrow with smallish greens. Also, I think the undulating nature of the greens has more effect on the pro's score than the sheer size. I definitely see where you are coming from though and appreciate what you are saying.

[natureboy]

8 hours ago, dove694 said:

it's probably easier to navigate greens that run 12+ on the stimp than really slow greens once you get used to them.

I was really saying that the smoothness / consistency of the greens (few imperfections / bumps / foreign matter) make them easier to putt than a less-well manicured course (at the same stimp). I do think higher stimp itself adds difficulty due to magnification of normal distance control errors.

[MasonAsher2014]

8 hours ago, dove694 said:

That's not necessarily true. Harbor Town (which has been mentioned in this thread a few times) is very narrow and has tiny greens. Same with Easy Lake where they have the Tour Championship, except the greens are slightly bigger. Augusta is very tight in places and so is Oak Hill. Shaughnessy, Hamilton and St. Georges are all part of the Canadian Open rotation and are very narrow with smallish greens. Also, I think the undulating nature of the greens has more effect on the pro's score than the sheer size. I definitely see where you are coming from though and appreciate what you are saying.

I agree. This topic actually came up in a conversation with the pro at the course I work at and some members. They were drunkenly talking about how many strokes they would have to give Mickelson if he came and played the course. One guy said 18, but the pro brought up the fact that even though it's a short course (6700) that it was more narrow than the ones they play regularly and the greens are smaller. I agree that some courses on tour are narrow, but most are not. I also agree that undulating greens have a huge effect. So my prediction is that a pro, playing an average course in America (6700-6900 from tips) with average sized greens with some undulations, and some tree lined holes are only going to shoot no more than -5. Now if they play the course over and over I can see them getting it down to -10 or so but anything lower than that would be outliers. 

[DaveP043]

The course record at my home club is 63, shot by a then- teenage member who had a HI of +1 or +2 at the time.  He played pretty much every day, so that was his best score out of over 100 attempts.  With some practice, I'd expect an average tour pro could beat that by a few strokes, but if we're talking first time around, I'd be surprised.  The primary reason is the severe elevation changes on many of the holes, and some pretty tricky wind conditions.  I think club selection the first time around would be problematic.  Having said that, the course is only about 6800 yards from the back tees, so every par 5 would be easily reachable, and several of the par 4's would be reachable.  If a touring pro had a few practice rounds, I wouldn't be surprised to see scores approaching 60.

[Archie Bunker]

While not long (around 6700), my course weaves through a condo development, with OB or woods on every hole. Listed as "One of Americas' 50 Toughest Courses" in a Golf Digest article several years ago. Fast, tough greens and crazy bounces on several holes. Most pros would not have any fun. Accuracy and luck are what they would need. Best score shot by a long-time member was 68. 

[bkuehn1952]

Leslie Park Golf Course - Ann Arbor, MI  6,608 yards / 72.5(130)

I would expect a Tour pro to reach all the par 5's in two  Long hitting amateurs can do it.  So three birdies and an eagle - minus 5 so far.

The par 3 holes are not long by Tour standards (150-196 yards).  Maybe 2 birdies.  Minus 7 at this point.

Two of the par 4's are possibly drivable without a huge risk.  Two more birdies.  Minus 9 at this point.

Of the remaining 8 par 4 holes, the Tour Pro is going to be hitting wedge for an approach.  Maybe 2 to 4 more birdies.

So -11 to -13 or 61 to 59 as a score.  Has a marginal day, maybe "only" 65 or 66.  

[Golfingdad]

35 minutes ago, Archie Bunker said:

While not long (around 6700), my course weaves through a condo development, with OB or woods on every hole. Listed as "One of Americas' 50 Toughest Courses" in a Golf Digest article several years ago. Fast, tough greens and crazy bounces on several holes. Most pros would not have any fun. Accuracy and luck are what they would need. Best score shot by a long-time member was 68. 

By comparison, PGA West Stadium course is usually near the top of that very same list.  It also weaves through a condo development, with OB on nearly every hole, has fast, tough greens, and crazy bounces (it's a Dye course, after all) but it's actually 7,300 yards long.  (76.1/150)

The pros didn't have much trouble with it in January and many of them seemed to have quite a lot of fun.  During a Sunday tournament round, there were a couple of 65's and 66's and many 67's and 68's.  (Average score, top to bottom, looked to be around 70)

[No Mulligans]

I think one way of looking at this would be course ratings and how tour pros do vs. course ratings.

The example I'm familiar with; Torrey Pines South has a rating of 78.1 and the average scores are around 72.8 (third round 2015, the weather was good)  

So does it make sense to just figure that the Tour Pros are going to hit about 5 strokes lower than the rating in tournament conditions, maybe 3 better than that in regular conditions.  So just figure 8 lower than the course rating for an average score.

18 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

By comparison, PGA West Stadium course is usually near the top of that very same list.  It also weaves through a condo development, with OB on nearly every hole, has fast, tough greens, and crazy bounces (it's a Dye course, after all) but it's actually 7,300 yards long.  (76.1/150)

The pros didn't have much trouble with it in January and many of them seemed to have quite a lot of fun.  During a Sunday tournament round, there were a couple of 65's and 66's and many 67's and 68's.  (Average score, top to bottom, looked to be around 70)

PGA west course rating is 75.8.  So 8 less than that is a 68.  8 less than rating works pretty well for that course too, considering that it will play easier than tournament conditions.

[newtogolf]

I said 60-65 but most of that depends on their driving accuracy.  If they keep it near the fairway, should be low 60's or maybe below 60, if not, it's going to be a bigger number as we have a lot of trees and OB.  I also am not sure how the pro's would handle our sand traps, they aren't as consistent as they are on the tour courses.  

[Lihu]

On 5/22/2016 at 7:58 AM, Shindig said:

My home course used to host the L.A. Open, but the course was set up differently then.  Either way, it's par-71, but the three par-5s are short by TOUR standards;  Zach Johnson and Corey Pavin would have no trouble reaching them in two.  Then again, one year in that event, Arnold Palmer took a 12 on the par-5 18th hole. 

Here's my longer home course, and your future one I would guess?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasadena_Open

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookside_Golf_Course

Quote

Brookside Golf Course is a multi-course golf facility located in Pasadena, California. The facility offers two courses, the longer C.W. Koiner Course (Course #1) and the shorter E.O. Nay Course (Course #2), divided by the Arroyo Seco. It was designed by architect William P. Bell. In addition to the two courses, the complex features a restaurant, banquet facilities, meeting rooms, pro shop, two practice putting greens, a chipping area, a practice bunker, and a driving range. The course served as home to the Los Angeles Open in 1968, won by Billy Casper.

Billy Caspar:

35

Jan 28, 1968

Los Angeles Open

−10 (70-67-68-69=274)

3 strokes

Arnold Palmer

[SLAMGolf]

I was watching Graham McDowell on the range at Austin Country Club during the WGC Dell Match Play event this year and saw him flat out top a couple of shots due to some technical issues and lack of concentration.  A few others were wedge shots with not quite enough spin.  When he went out to play, his performance and concentration were pretty impressive, and he struck the ball pretty decently.  I play with a lot of good plus handicaps who are fit guys with great swings and the big difference I notice between them and tour pros is the ability to ramp up the performance when the situation demands.  Most people don't have whatever talent that is attributed to.  So are we just talking about taking a tour player out of that environment, sans caddie and event and sticking them on our home course?  I honestly wouldn't expect scores much lower than mid-60s because, what's the point to them?  Where's the glory to reward deep performance?  Plus, you can hit great putts all day long and the under-repaired pitch marks and generally poor agronomy make you miss. 

[freshmanUTA]

Depends who. My true home course was TPC Scottsdale back in AZ bc my dad had nice connections, so I'd say 65-80 honestly. Depends who and when.