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

[kpaulhus]

The assistant pro at my course shot 62 with 9 birdies. It is the current course record. 

I would expect a 59 watch from a 4 some of PGA Tour players because we have 3 par 4's that are sub 360 yards and 2 of the 4 par 5's are reachable in 2.

[Lihu]

7 minutes ago, kpaulhus said:

The assistant pro at my course shot 62 with 9 birdies. It is the current course record. 

I would expect a 59 watch from a 4 some of PGA Tour players because we have 3 par 4's that are sub 360 yards and 2 of the 4 par 5's are reachable in 2.

Are they really reachable 360 yard par 4s? Some are pretty tricky. . .if you can reach 360. Seems like the average PGA pro might not?

[freshmanUTA]

25 minutes ago, freshmanUTA said:

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.

65-70***

[Golfingdad]

29 minutes ago, freshmanUTA said:

65-70***

Actually, your first "prediction" was closer to accurate.  Low score at the Waste Management Open this year was a 64 and the high score was an 83.  (There was also an 81)

[JonMA1]

Even though the tips seem unbelievably hard to me, I think PGA pros would be looking at breaking 60. The toughest part of my course is keeping the ball in the fairway or rough - lots of dense woods and hitting around trees. At 6700 yards, it's shorter than they're used to so they could play hybrid or woods all day long and still reach greens with a mid iron at worse. Although some of the greens are small, they're easy for even someone like me to hold with a mid iron (when I hit them). I think they'd have birdie chances all day long.

It would be more interesting to see what an LPGA or near-scratch male player would shoot from the tips.

[iacas]

Unless your course is ridiculously easy, people are really over-estimating how good a PGA Tour player is to think that they'd shoot 62 or less the first time they see the course.

At the end of the day, the hole is still hundreds of yards away from each tee. Shooting 62 or 59 is ****ing difficult.

Consider if every hole was a 225-yard par three. Even par (PGA Tour scoring average for par threes is always really close to 3.0, and that's on an average of about 190-yard par threes) would be 54. And that's a course that's barely 4000 yards.

Never mind that the greens and conditions are sure to add a few shots. Not 10, but not 0, either.

Especially if they haven't seen the course before.

[natureboy]

9 minutes ago, iacas said:

Especially if they haven't seen the course before.

I didn't see that caveat in the OP when I first posted. I was also thinking of it like it would be their home course in which case I'd expect their average score to be several strokes under the rating. Any individual single score has a much wider expected variance.

So one under par for each of the 5's (they are short), slightly under par for the 4's and about par for the 3's would probably be more expected. Without a caddy or someone else with local knowledge, that's likely to add some strokes to their expected putting at least - less birdies.

Edited May 25, 2016 by natureboy

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, natureboy said:

I didn't see that caveat in the OP when I first posted.

Yup.

On May 22, 2016 at 4:59 AM, dove694 said:

Hypothetically and for the sake of the thread: they would play the back tees (obviously) but the course wouldn't be set up any differently than it would be for day-to-day play (ie. no crazy "Ironman" pin positions, rough isn't grown out any differently, greens aren't sped up...), weather wouldn't be a factor and it would be (in all likelihood) on their first time playing the course.  

[Tod]

My home course is 73.4/134/6,943 yds at the tips. I suspect most pros would be able to break 72 the first time around, but not much better than that generally. Apart from the aforementioned difference in the manicured greens and bunkers, pros are also used to manicured fairways. Ours are not. Plus, our bunkers are miserable experiences of generally hard-packed sand - rarely is there any fluff. Deep woods and OB every hole, usually on both sides. 

Now, I'm not complaining, I like my home course a lot, but it is what it is.

[dove694]

23 minutes ago, iacas said:

Unless your course is ridiculously easy, people are really over-estimating how good a PGA Tour player is to think that they'd shoot 62 or less the first time they see the course.

At the end of the day, the hole is still hundreds of yards away from each tee. Shooting 62 or 59 is ****ing difficult.

Consider if every hole was a 225-yard par three. Even par (PGA Tour scoring average for par threes is always really close to 3.0, and that's on an average of about 190-yard par threes) would be 54. And that's a course that's barely 4000 yards.

Never mind that the greens and conditions are sure to add a few shots. Not 10, but not 0, either.

Especially if they haven't seen the course before.

I think you are underestimating their ability tbh. Put a wedge in their hands and it's almost automatic. 6600 yards = lots of wedges.

[Hardspoon]

I think a lot of people are overestimating the affect that course conditioning would have.  I agree there might be some difficulty with the greens, but I don't think that poor bunker conditions or poor fairways would really have that much of a negative impact.

On the flip side, I think a lot of people are underestimating the importance of it being the first time these guys have seen the course...I think that would have a much bigger impact than the conditions.  They're used to having greens/hazards/layups mapped out meticulously.

4 minutes ago, dove694 said:

I think you are underestimating their ability tbh. Put a wedge in their hands and it's almost automatic. 6600 yards = lots of wedges.

If by "automatic", you mean "likely to make birdie"...not really.  More often than not, from 100 yards out in the fairway, the average PGA tour player is not getting down in two.

[iacas]

11 minutes ago, dove694 said:

I think you are underestimating their ability tbh. Put a wedge in their hands and it's almost automatic. 6600 yards = lots of wedges.

No, it isn't.

http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.074.html

Scroll to the middle of that chart. It shows the proximity that PGA Tour players hit their shots - from the fairway - and only 100-125 yards away.

The median? 20'10".

PGA Tour player average (on nearly perfect greens, mind you) from 20'10": about 1.88 putts.

 

12 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

I think a lot of people are overestimating the affect that course conditioning would have.  I agree there might be some difficulty with the greens, but I don't think that poor bunker conditions or poor fairways would really have that much of a negative impact.

It's worth anywhere between 1-3 shots, IMO.

[Hardspoon]

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

It's worth anywhere between 1-3 shots, IMO.

I'd say more like 0.75 - 2.75. 

Even when I first read it, I thought that Washington Post article with Steve Marino over-exaggerated that point for dramatic affect.

[natureboy]

40 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yup.

I was also thinking that they were playing from my regular tees with a different rating. From the tips that would add a few shots.

The rating is still a shot below par and with the slightly better accuracy at a distance for a pro, vs scratch plus relatively better scrambling skill (on a shorter than average course - closer misses). I would think they could expect 6 birdies and no bogies relative to the scratch's one birdie no bogies.

The expected single round would be much closer to 65 and possibly above than the long term average I was originally thinking of for the regular tees, though.

And it would depend tremendously on the individual player's skill set. An incredibly consistent long game player like Furyk I would expect to play really well without knowing the course or someone with an accurate long game like his who was also an outstanding green reader and putter.

Edited May 25, 2016 by natureboy

[Shindig]

5 hours ago, Lihu said:

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

Billy Caspar:

35

Jan 28, 1968

Los Angeles Open

−10 (70-67-68-69=274)

3 strokes

Arnold Palmer

I've actually never played the course yet.  But it's about to become the closest course to me.  I don't plan on leaving my current club, but I think it's okay to join another one.

 

Still, good to see I can easily add a course to my list of courses I've played that have hosted PGA Tour events.

[JonMA1]

It's likely I am overestimating their ability and underestimating how hard it is to shoot 12 under. Having never seen a PGA player play a round of golf, or play on a course set up for an event, I have very little reference.

But I read so much about how difficult the greens are on the PGA tour. I've yet to play a green where I worry about a putt running off it - unless I just make a really stupid mistake. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what people mean by fast greens.

Also, when you guys cite statistics, those are taken strictly from competition, correct? Would it be safe to assume a practice round might have a bit less pressure. I'm not sure of the numbers, but didn't Tiger Woods shoot a practice round in the low 60's playing worst ball last year and then go out and play poorly during competition? Granted, I believe the practice round was on his home course. But if the story is true, that seems pretty ****ing difficult.

In any event, I don't think my course (73/138, 6670 yds) would offer much of a challenge to a PGA pro who can hit a hybrid 250 yards to a spot on the fairway a high percentage of the time, followed by a wedge or 9 iron to a soft green that's very easy to read. I also believe 160 yard par 3's onto equally soft greens would be something he could handle with relative ease.

Maybe not 12 under easy, but easy.

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, JonMA1 said:

It's likely I am overestimating their ability and underestimating how hard it is to shoot 12 under. Having never seen a PGA player play a round of golf, or play on a course set up for an event, I have very little reference.

Remember, except for the top guys in the OWGR, you're seeing the players that are playing best that week on TV coverage.

There are some ugly shots being hit out there. ("Ugly" being relative.)

[RandallT]

For what it's worth, last season a bunch of us here ran nearly 30 rounds of ours against Mark Broadie's data, and across all of those courses, the pros averaged 3 under par for the middle tees. (technically, we averaged +22 for those rounds, and we average 25 strokes lost per round, hence -3 conclusion).

So I think a place to start is roughly -3 for an average white tees that we bogey golfers play.  The question said back tees, so they would shoot worse than -3.

But then the bidding starts for specific course conditions: easy greens, wide fairways, thin rough, less protected green, etc. So maybe they claw their way back down closer to -3 if conditions are easy.

While I think many pros could go low- and some very low- I think if we could magically take the median performance on a typical muni that we play, we're not looking at low 60s unless the course is really, really easy. I'd guess upper 60s is closer, by the numbers.

@iacas posted Broadie's chart here-->