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

[Buckeyebowman]

17 hours ago, dove694 said:

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.

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. 

You got it exactly right. A lot of the older country clubs on the rota, like Baltusrol or Winged Foot,  magically morph from par 72 to par 70 when the pros show up. These courses were built for a membership, and usually included a couple of birdieable par 5's. In fact, I think one of the courses I mentioned above "borrows" a couple of holes from their adjacent course, to complete the tournament course.

And I'm not absolutely sure, but I think the short par 5 to long par 4 conversion even happened at Bethpage Black. I'll have to check.

[natureboy]

4 minutes ago, RandallT said:

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).

+22 to par or the course rating? I' not sure a 'middle tee' average score to par for comparison is quite right. Wouldn't you want to relate the individual average scores to par to the total distance of the tees played / difficulty of the course? Every shot RTP is not equal on diferent courses.

That doesn't sound right as a long term average. I would expect the pros to shoot below the course rating as a multi-round average which is a different (more predictable) beastie than a single round expected score.

[RandallT]

Just now, natureboy said:

+22 to par or the course rating?

We were collectively +22 to par for those 30 rounds. We mostly played middle tees, I think. That's just the way the numbers worked out. We averaged 25 strokes lost, using that chart for starting distances for each hole.

[natureboy]

14 minutes ago, RandallT said:

We were collectively +22 to par for those 30 rounds. We mostly played middle tees, I think. That's just the way the numbers worked out. We averaged 25 strokes lost, using that chart for starting distances for each hole.

But I think the correct way to apply the SG baseline comparison is to look at the difference in your strokes to what the pros would shoot on that course. If the course rating is the average score for scratch and pros are better than scratch (for a multi-round average) and the rating does not often equal par...

The way I'd interpret that result is that the pros would likely shoot 3 under par for those courses. You quite possibly averaged 25 over the course rating. What were the ratings of the courses / tees you played?

Edited May 25, 2016 by natureboy

[freshmanUTA]

5 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

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)

Well the course isn't in tournament conditions year round so to be fair the greens and such are easier, used lightly, but I see your point.

[RandallT]

3 minutes ago, natureboy said:

But I think the correct way to apply the SG baseline comparison is to look at the difference in your strokes to what the pros would shoot on that course. If the course rating is the average score for scratch and pros are better than scratch (for a multi-round average)...

You could have averaged 25 over the differential with the course rating? What were the ratings of the courses you played?

Yah, you're right, it's not adding up too well. My course rating is 70.5 (I think), so I'd have to dig into why those numbers seem way off. I don't wanna derail this thread with my stupid calculations, but I just wanted to chime in with what the summary was after aggregating all of our rounds last season. There are TONS of caveats with using that benchmark data on our typical courses, so perhaps it's not even worth the derail.

For my home course, I'd estimate pros could shoot mid to upper 60's pretty easily. Even though by Brodie's chart, to get 0.0 strokes gained, you need to shoot 68.4. Course rating 70.5, or close to that.

 

[natureboy]

17 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Yah, you're right, it's not adding up too well. My course rating is 70.5 (I think), so I'd have to dig into why those numbers seem way off. I don't wanna derail this thread with my stupid calculations, but I just wanted to chime in with what the summary was after aggregating all of our rounds last season. There are TONS of caveats with using that benchmark data on our typical courses, so perhaps it's not even worth the derail.

For my home course, I'd estimate pros could shoot mid to upper 60's pretty easily. Even though by Brodie's chart, to get 0.0 strokes gained, you need to shoot 68.4. Course rating 70.5, or close to that.

There's 2 stokes there. Others in the group may have had ratings further below par to average out your 2?

With that calculation my course rates as a 68.7 strokes from the tips. Only ~ 1.5 below the rating.

I'd personally expect pros to have a long-term average that was at least several strokes better than the average scratch score. Is this possibly where Broadie's chart not taking accuracy into account comes up a little short vs. his full-blown strokes gained method?

But re. the OT average score is usually lower than expected single round score except maybe for the pros whose scoring distribution may be skewed slightly toward the low side?

[iacas]

14 minutes ago, natureboy said:

There's 2 stokes there. Others in the group may have had ratings further below par to average out your 2?

With that calculation my course rates as a 68.7 strokes from the tips. Only ~ 1.5 below the rating.

I'd personally expect pros to have a long-term average that was at least several strokes better than the average scratch score. Is this possibly where Broadie's chart not taking accuracy into account comes up a little short vs. his full-blown strokes gained method?

But re. the OT average score is usually lower than expected single round score except maybe for the pros whose scoring distribution may be skewed slightly toward the low side?

And my course rates 74.4 from the tips. Despite the fact that the tips are just under 7000 yards.

People's courses have different ratings. There are some tough tracks out there. Oakmont members might be able to legitimately answer "73."

[shanksalot]

 My course is 7100 yards relatively short for a professional. Rating is 74.8 slope 142. For a pro not a real hard course. It is a RTJ jr designed course but I would think something in the low 60's. 

[natureboy]

10 minutes ago, iacas said:

And my course rates 74.4 from the tips. Despite the fact that the tips are just under 7000 yards.

People's courses have different ratings. There are some tough tracks out there. Oakmont members might be able to legitimately answer "73."

What I'm saying is that from a strictly distance standard using Broadie's numbers hole by hole the expected score from each tee on my course sums to 68.7. This was the method Randy used to get his expected pro score 2 under the rating. His is a harder rated course by rating, but the average pro score would score lower relative to scratch on his course than my course?

68.7 is only 1.5 strokes better than the average scratch score. That does not compute for me at all given the known difference in average skill between the average PGA pro and the average scratch player. I don't care how hard earned those extra strokes are, the gap is too narrow. 2 strokes on a 'typical course' is the gap between scratch and a 2 HCP.

Edited May 25, 2016 by natureboy

[iacas]

23 minutes ago, natureboy said:

68.7 is only 1.5 strokes better than the average scratch score. That does not compute for me at all given the known difference in average skill between the average PGA pro and the average scratch player. I don't care how hard earned those extra strokes are, the gap is too narrow. 2 strokes on a 'typical course' is the gap between scratch and a 2 HCP.

How do you know what the average scratch player's score is? It's not the course rating.

[natureboy]

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

How do you know what the average scratch player's score is? It's not the course rating.

This isn't true? And when I was saying scratch, I specifically meant zero HCP.

Quote

USGA Course Rating:  A USGA Course Rating is the evaluation of the playing difficulty of a course for scratch golfers under normal course and weather conditions. It is expressed as the number of strokes taken to one decimal place (72.5), and is based on yardage and other obstacles to the extent that they affect the scoring difficulty of the scratch golfer. 

 

Edited May 25, 2016 by natureboy

[Lihu]

7 minutes ago, natureboy said:

This isn't true?:

Quote

USGA Course Rating:  A USGA Course Rating is the evaluation of the playing difficulty of a course for scratch golfers under normal course and weather conditions. It is expressed as the number of strokes taken to one decimal place (72.5), and is based on yardage and other obstacles to the extent that they affect the scoring difficulty of the scratch golfer. 

 

I think he's saying average score. That is different than handicap score taking the 10 best scores and averaging those to the CR.

[Buckeyebowman]

10 minutes ago, iacas said:

How do you know what the average scratch player's score is? It's not the course rating.

Exactly! This is all speculation! The pros haven't played these courses, so we have no freakin' idea! This is all speculation about what we "think" a middling tour pro might do! Let's not overthink it/

Edited May 25, 2016 by Buckeyebowman

[Lihu]

3 hours ago, Shindig said:

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.

In 1968, but it's not an easy course. Even the shorter one is not a "pushover". We'll have fun playing them together soon. . .

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, Lihu said:

I think he's saying average score. That is different than handicap score taking the 10 best scores and averaging those to the CR.

If you're talking individual players I agree with your point and I've also pointed out the difference between expected individual scores and an individual's expected multi-round average score, which is a similar kind of distinction.

If you are talking average of the average scores for a large group of players grouped by HCP there will be an average score - central limit theorem. It will be less accurate for certain individuals depending on playing style and skills (long but wild  for example)

Edited May 25, 2016 by natureboy

[dove694]

6 hours ago, Hardspoon said:

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.

That's a valid point. But if you take a straight-away, straightforward 365 yard Par 4, they would probably have a "pitch" shot into the green and that's where those guys are deadly. A little knock down half-wedge that skips twice and checks is right in a Tour player's wheelhouse. 

 

Also, you said a Tour player would also shoot 54 on a 4000 yard course full of 225 Par 3's. I think that's lowballing it. They would probably be higher than that if such a course existed. But it's on the Par 4's and 5's that a player makes up their shots. I'd suspect that their scoring average wouldn't vary greatly on a 220+ yard Par 3 and a 280-330 yard Par 4. Maybe only a half a shot or less.

I'm not disagreeing with ya - just saying!

[paininthenuts]

Blimeeee, that's a hard one. I recon under 70, but only just. It is a par 74, and quite long, albeit it's not very hazardous. Our pro who plays off of scratch never pars it herself.