Rangefinders on the PGA Tour?

[mchepp]

53 minutes ago, Piz said:

No one is saying that distance measuring devices are a sign of spiritual and moral decay.  Some of us enjoy guessing; it is the way we were introduced to the game.  It doesn't bother me what anyone does as long as they do it in a timely fashion.  The pace of play, on any given occasion, is not determined by the majority.  It is dependent on the pace established by the slowest group.  Slow players are already poor at managing their time.  Giving them something else to do will not help.  Hopefully I'm wrong.

I don't think allowing professionals to use lasers in any way hurts those like yourself who chose not to use one. If a pro doesn't want to use one, he can choose not too. 

[Piz]

I do not think that allowing professionals to use lasers hurts people, like myself, who choose not to use them.  I do believe that people struggling to break 100 would be better off spending time sorting out their swing than they would be determining what precise distance they were from a distant object.  Golf is better, in my opinion, when played at an appropriate pace.  That pace varies; but it does have parameters.

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, Piz said:

I do not think that allowing professionals to use lasers hurts people, like myself, who choose not to use them.  I do believe that people struggling to break 100 would be better off spending time sorting out their swing than they would be determining what precise distance they were from a distant object.  Golf is better, in my opinion, when played at an appropriate pace.  That pace varies; but it does have parameters.

The topic is not about people trying to break 100.

So why are you talking about them?

[Papa Steve 55]

To those in the know, how often during a Tour round does a player hit a bad shot because of inaccurate distance info? I would have to guess its very, very rare. And would explain the caddy unemployment rate.

I voted no just for the TV reasons, but I suppose its no less compelling than watching them look it up on the books or even worse, pace it off.Might have to rethink the no vote....

Edited July 29, 2016 by Papa Steve 55

[Piz]

Because whatever affects the least among us affects us all.  People who play too slowly are not stupid or inconsiderate...they have simply been conditioned differently.  The paraphernalia is part and parcel to that conditioning.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Piz said:

Because whatever affects the least among us affects us all.  People who play too slowly are not stupid or inconsiderate...they have simply been conditioned differently.  The paraphernalia is part and parcel to that conditioning.

We aren't discussing that.

We are discussing PGA Tour players in this thread.

[ghalfaire]

I said yes.  I believe they already have the information so it wouldn't change anything.  Maybe save some shoe leather.

 

[Lastpick]

I say yes to the rangefinder.  I think that it will level the competitive advantage that some pros have over others.  Not every tour pro has their own caddie.  One other little tidbit is that the pros don't get an accurate pin placement sheet before each round.  Was it not at the PGA this year that the first groups on one day of competition was sent out with the wrong sheets.  They played for a few holes before the mistake was corrected and this mistake did cost some players some strokes.  A rangefinder would have pointed out this mistake on the first hole by the first group.

One thing that the range finder would take away from the game is when a pro hits a wayward shot into another fairway, they could get an accurate distance, where under present conditions, there is  a lot of guessing in some instances.  

Edited August 3, 2016 by Lastpick

[DaveP043]

12 minutes ago, Lastpick said:

One thing that the range finder would take away from the game is when a pro hits a wayward shot into another fairway, they could get an accurate distance, where under present conditions, there is  a lot of guessing in some instances.  

I think that when a pro hits a drive that wayward that he might just deserve to have some uncertainty.

But I really don't have an objection to pros using rangefinders.  For those rare wayward shots it does have some potential to actually speed up play a little.  Other than that, I think the impact on pace would be pretty minimal.  My only objection would be based on the visual, it just looks "non-traditional", and as an old curmudgeon I kind of prefer traditional-looking stuff. 

[DaveP043]

I was googling some stuff about distance measuring stuff, and I stumbled across this:

http://www.usga.org/articles/2014/02/usga-to-allow-distancemeasuring-devices-in-its-amateur-championships-for-2014-21474865844.html

After some of the talk about the potential for slower play if the pros were to use lasers, the last paragraph might be interesting to some:

Quote

The decision to allow the use of distance-measuring devices follows a recent study of such technologies during the 2013 USGA Women’s State Team and U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur championships as part of the Association’s broad initiative to identify the causes and solutions to slow play in the game. From the data collected at these championships, USGA researchers found no evidence that DMDs had a negative impact on pace of play and will continue to monitor the use of DMDs in the larger pool of amateur events to further study their effect on pace of play.

 

[TourSpoon]

I was in the no camp because of the TV image, but changed my mind after the PGA Championship. The reasoning was the same as watching "preferred lies" (lift, clean, and place). Did anyone notice that we never really saw the pros when they picked up or placed (maybe twice)? That is because it's not essential to the coverage and most likely would be the case in using a range finder. 

For most caddies, it would be quicker than doing the pacing. I just hope they don't want to do both. 

[DaveP043]

8 minutes ago, TourSpoon said:

For most caddies, it would be quicker than doing the pacing. I just hope they don't want to do both. 

I'd still expect them to do both.  I can't imagine a pro saying, in essence, "I have enough information, I don't want to know anything else".  All of their other measurements, front of green, carry over a bunker, distance to a ridge or slope, all of that stuff will still be important, and probably won't be measurable with the laser.

[BamaWade]

I'm ambivalent re: tour competition round use, and not passionate either way.  But...wouldn't it seem to take some of the skill work from the caddies?  I.e., leveling the playing field a bit re: the advantage of having a skilled, experienced caddie as part of the "team" that we hear guys talk about these days?  Not completely, but it'd surely have some equalizing effect, narrowing the gaps and making the skilled, experienced caddie less of a commodity.

Don't get me wrong - I love the individual component of (non-team) golf, but at the tour level, I enjoy the team concept of player/caddie and how that dynamic affects the results.  Throw in competition-round DMDs, and I think we'll see a few more dads, brothers, girlfriends, etc., on the bag instead of more expensive, senior loopers.

(Hmmm..."DMDs"?  Can one find these in Iraq??)

BamaWade

[Golfingdad]

13 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

I'd still expect them to do both.  I can't imagine a pro saying, in essence, "I have enough information, I don't want to know anything else".  All of their other measurements, front of green, carry over a bunker, distance to a ridge or slope, all of that stuff will still be important, and probably won't be measurable with the laser.

I've said in this thread before that I think the same thing.  So many of the pros are so careful that I see it as just being an extra check on their numbers.  However, I disagree with the last part somewhat.  It's all doable with the laser and the yardage book without needing to pace.  As far as I know, what they do now on a typical approach is pace as required to get their front of the green measurement and all others are based from that (plus or minus) in the yardage book and on the pin sheet.  Now they would just be able to work backwards from the lasered number at the pin to the front of the green, then from that to all of the other features.  The laser wouldn't or couldn't replace the yardage book and analysis, but it could replace the pacing  part ... if - big if - the players allowed it.

[DaveP043]

3 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

I've said in this thread before that I think the same thing.  So many of the pros are so careful that I see it as just being an extra check on their numbers.  However, I disagree with the last part somewhat.  It's all doable with the laser and the yardage book without needing to pace.  As far as I know, what they do now on a typical approach is pace as required to get their front of the green measurement and all others are based from that (plus or minus) in the yardage book and on the pin sheet.  Now they would just be able to work backwards from the lasered number at the pin to the front of the green, then from that to all of the other features.  The laser wouldn't or couldn't replace the yardage book and analysis, but it could replace the pacing  part ... if - big if - the players allowed it.

I thought about that same thing, use the pin as the "zero" and work forward or back from there for the other features.  But the front is still the reference location in most yardage books, so you'd get a pin distance, subtract from the daily pin sheet to get the front, then add to get to green features.  And you'll be assuming that the pin sheet is right, and is measured to the same reference place you have in your yardage book.  By pacing and laser-ing, you can check one against the other (we're engineers, don't you like to cross-check independent measurements?), and I'd bet that's what most would end up doing.

[Golfingdad]

42 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

I thought about that same thing, use the pin as the "zero" and work forward or back from there for the other features.  But the front is still the reference location in most yardage books, so you'd get a pin distance, subtract from the daily pin sheet to get the front, then add to get to green features.  And you'll be assuming that the pin sheet is right, and is measured to the same reference place you have in your yardage book.  By pacing and laser-ing, you can check one against the other (we're engineers, don't you like to cross-check independent measurements?), and I'd bet that's what most would end up doing.

I do not disagree.  I imagine that if you forced the players to tell you what the "weakest link" was in all of their information, it would be the yardage on the pin sheet.  After all, it's the only one that they haven't had a chance to study and verify ahead of time.  As it is now, if that number is off, then the only number of theirs that would be wrong would be the number to the pin.  If they eschewed pacing in favor of only lasering and working backwards, and the pin sheet is off, then that means EVERY number for that shot is off as well.

I was basically just saying that I believe that all of the stuff is measurable ... even though we both agree that the players probably wouldn't trust it by itself.

[iacas]

4 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I thought about that same thing, use the pin as the "zero" and work forward or back from there for the other features.  But the front is still the reference location in most yardage books, so you'd get a pin distance, subtract from the daily pin sheet to get the front, then add to get to green features.  And you'll be assuming that the pin sheet is right, and is measured to the same reference place you have in your yardage book.  By pacing and laser-ing, you can check one against the other (we're engineers, don't you like to cross-check independent measurements?), and I'd bet that's what most would end up doing.

I really don't think most would do both pacing and lasering.

I think most would laser the flag and do the math from there. It's not difficult, either: if the pin is back left over a bunker, it might be 177 with the flag 25 on. That's 152 front, and the bunker on that side is into the green 8 yards, so it's 160 carry to a hole 177, with 183 going long.

Done.

And the caddies all know exactly where the PGA Tour considers the "front" of the green. It'll be the same spot every time.

[Lastpick]

It does appear to me that the only group that is ever put on the clock is the final group.  Probably because they have the most on the line, but also because they don't have any one from behind pushing them.  But I could be totally wrong again.