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What Would a 20.1 (see post #95) Index Shoot at a Local U.S. Open Qualifier Site?


kpaulhus
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21 minutes ago, Groundhog34 said:

The problem the 20 is going to have on a PGA course…

That's not the topic, though.

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3 hours ago, Alx said:

Really depends on how your game is built.

With a very good long game and terrible putting/short game I think you can do fairly well on any course. 

If you cant drive well past 200 youre going to have issues on any long course even without forced carries.

I guess this depends on how good  a "very good long game" is and how you define "fairly well". If you're describing one who can hit it long and stay in bounds all round, only to pile up shots when they get in close, you may be right. But I don't know how common it is for someone to be that good at keeping the ball in bounds with the long clubs while sucking at the short game.

One the other hand, don't you think there are some good players (10 HC) who lack the power but because they excel at everything else, could play just above bogey golf on 7,000 yards (without the forced carries as you said)?

I'm not saying I know this to be true @Alx. Just my thoughts.

Jon

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21 hours ago, iacas said:

There aren't 4-5 carts following guys in local qualifying.

True, but how would you emulate  an honest match then?

It should be as impressive as playing your first qualifyer ever. Thats not the same as just a round with friends from the tips.

Edited by MacDutch
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29 minutes ago, MacDutch said:

True, but how would you emulate  an honest match then?

Simply bet enough money on the outcome!

- John

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45 minutes ago, MacDutch said:

True, but how would you emulate  an honest match then?

Play as close to the same conditions as possible. There's virtually nobody out there watching local qualifying. Anything other than that is artificial, contrived.

A true 20.1 should break 127 pretty easily.

Let's say the course is a stiff test for a local qualifier at 75.5/145 course. 127 is about a 40 differential. That means, to have a 50/50 chance of shooting 127… the 20.1 golfer would have to have an average differential of 40.

That's just not realistic. Your handicap is your best 10 of your last 20, so to have an AVERAGE differential of 40, they'd have to have 10 rounds that average 20.1, and the other 10 rounds would have to average 60! 60! For every round in those 10 under 60… another round would have to be above a 60.

And that's just for the guy to have a 50/50 chance of not breaking 127.

Yeah, the pressure of the "bet" may add a few strokes here and there. Though, if he's good under pressure, he may play better. The latter is less likely, but hell… even 18 strokes less - a 109 - is a 26 differential. He probably doesn't average more than a few above that that for his 10 WORST scores.

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Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
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I think it depends on a couple factors. First, forced carries. If he has a forced carry off the tee or into a green that he simply cannot carry he doesn't have a chance. 

Second, his iron and wedge play. If he is able to hit the ball reasonably accurately with reasonable contact (by this I mean not blocking it off the planet or chunking every other shot) with some of his mid to short irons and has the discipline to hit them on every shot I think he has a very good chance at breaking 127. It's much harder to hit the ball way offline with a 6 iron than with a driver and the course length isn't that big of a deal because he has so many shots to give he doesn't need to even try to reach them in regulation. This means that trouble isn't in play in the same manner as his tee shots would often be in areas that the course designer didn't put as much trouble due to it not being a normal landing spot for a better golfer playing from those tees. 

 

I think if these two conditions are met the golfer will break 127 fairly often provided they do not have some extremely poor play around the greens (taking 5 shots to get out of a bunker bad/can't hit clean chip shots with any regularity at all). My (purely anecdotal) experience with worse players is that often the game is made so much harder because they are so inaccurate off the tee. It's tough to play smart golf when you have little to no idea where your tee shot is going and it often ends up behind a tree, out of bounds or in the woods. From there you are forced to hit tricky recovery shots rather than more straight forward shots out of the fairway and it only compounds the problem because their mechanics aren't particularly great. Often when you get to some of the shorter irons they are able to make contact that is good enough consistently with good enough direction as well. 

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I've seen a lot of comments regarding the forced carry issue.  With the sole goal of breaking 127, couldn't he just lay up to the red tees/ closest area to the hazard and proceed from there?  If I'm him, Im hitting wedge / my most consistent club to as many safe spots as I can.  

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2 minutes ago, DannyMac said:

I've seen a lot of comments regarding the forced carry issue.  With the sole goal of breaking 127, couldn't he just lay up to the red tees/ closest area to the hazard and proceed from there?  If I'm him, Im hitting wedge / my most consistent club to as many safe spots as I can.  

A good strategy if all he wanted to do is break 127. However some set ups make it difficult to lay up from the tips. Often the hazard is in front or almost surrounding the tips. Laying up would give him the best chance at avoiding a huge number.  

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10 minutes ago, Groundhog34 said:

A good strategy if all he wanted to do is break 127. However some set ups make it difficult to lay up from the tips. Often the hazard is in front or almost surrounding the tips. Laying up would give him the best chance at avoiding a huge number.  

I was commenting on the original poster's bet, with the only goal of breaking 127.  I do agree that some back tees would make this strategy a little difficult, especially if there is a "chute" of trees on either side, but I still think a LEGIT 20.1 would be able to break the 127 barrier following a very conservative strategy.

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FWIW, at the risk of embarrassing myself, here are the drives from my last three rounds:

Capture.PNG

Admittedly, these are total distances, but it's been wet so I'm not getting crazy roll-out on any of these (except that 289-yarder...haha).

I'd be curious for someone to take a stab at the actual forced carry distances on one of these courses (@Pretzel?), since it's the thing that a lot of people are harping on.  If it's just one hole with a 240-yard carry, I'll happily wedge it to the red tees, but that's not going to work as a strategy if this is something that happens repeatedly.

Something to keep in mind...there's nothing wrong with driving short of a fairway and playing from the rough.  I'm talking about true forced carries over a hazard.

- John

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7 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

FWIW, at the risk of embarrassing myself, here are the drives from my last three rounds:

Capture.PNG

Admittedly, these are total distances, but it's been wet so I'm not getting crazy roll-out on any of these (except that 289-yarder...haha).

I'd be curious for someone to take a stab at the actual forced carry distances on one of these courses (@Pretzel?), since it's the thing that a lot of people are harping on.  If it's just one hole with a 240-yard carry, I'll happily wedge it to the red tees, but that's not going to work as a strategy if this is something that happens repeatedly.

Something to keep in mind...there's nothing wrong with driving short of a fairway and playing from the rough.  I'm talking about true forced carries over a hazard.

Yes, true forced carries from the tee are pretty rare in most cases. I think I've only played a few holes that had actual forced carries and even those were short enough that I don't think you'd typically have any issues with them. I think the worst ones are the long par 3s that require 200+ to hit the green, but those can be a problem for people of just about any handicap.

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I would say a 127 is doable but highly unlikely. I'm a HH and played Torrey Pines South a few years ago. Its not exactly the toughest course, but still quite a challenge. Ended up with a 130ish round. Its not the distance so much as its the rough. If you land there after a 200+ yard drive, you might as well add an additional 3-4 strokes just to get to the green even on their Par 4's. Also, the greens were so fast and the contours were not easy to predict. Gives you a new respect for how the Pro's make it look so easy.

Edited by Rough Wanderer
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27 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

FWIW, at the risk of embarrassing myself, here are the drives from my last three rounds:

Capture.PNG

Admittedly, these are total distances, but it's been wet so I'm not getting crazy roll-out on any of these (except that 289-yarder...haha).

I'd be curious for someone to take a stab at the actual forced carry distances on one of these courses (@Pretzel?), since it's the thing that a lot of people are harping on.  If it's just one hole with a 240-yard carry, I'll happily wedge it to the red tees, but that's not going to work as a strategy if this is something that happens repeatedly.

Something to keep in mind...there's nothing wrong with driving short of a fairway and playing from the rough.  I'm talking about true forced carries over a hazard.

I've played at least two courses that had qualifiers this year, Classic Club in Palm Desert - @tristanhilton85's home course, played it with @mvmac and @DaveP043 - and La Costa.  Neither of those courses have any forced carries.  Classic does have a couple of holes where you can choose to carry a certain amount of a hazard to your advantage (like #8) , but nothing that it actually forced.

I think people are over-selling (or maybe over-buying? ;)) the forced carry thing.  IMO, they're not common.

Edited by Golfingdad
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2 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

I think people are over-selling (or maybe over-buying? ;)) the forced carry thing.  IMO, they're not common.

My home course has marsh or a wide ravine running across 6 of the 9 holes, 4 of which are in front of the tee boxes (no real room/advantage laying up). Some of us get like 200 yards of carry on our drives and one of those 4 has about that much marsh.

Even on holes that don't require a good drive, playing from the tips can mean carrying water to a tight green or fairway with a long iron or wood off the tee instead of a mid or short iron. Not saying that's anything special for better players, only that it adds a little extra challenge to those of us less skilled when we know we have to hit our distances with those longer clubs.

All I'm saying is carrying those hazards isn't as much of a concern when playing from the forward or middle tees.

That said, looking over the other courses I play, you're right, most are not that bad.

Jon

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Just to update you guys, the member guest tournament starts tomorrow and man they got the greens rolling fast. When I get back from my trip in 2 weeks I am going to get this round on the books so we can see what the true test is. 

Btw, here is a snapshot of my buddies scores. Granted, he hasn't hit a full 20 rounds yet, and he does pick up instead of taking an 8 or whatever he is allowed, so his index probably a bit lower than it should be. 

IMG_0059.PNG

Kyle Paulhus

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I still remember my first couple of rounds playing strokeplay from the backtees on my home course. Because I went down to under hcp 15 I had to play in cat1 group, before that I only played Stableford from the medal tees.

First couple of times 100+ scores as a hcp 14. I even got so fed up with this strokeplay, I picked up a couple of times. It took me two handfull of rounds to get used to it.

later I played as a single digit player twice a strokeplay tournament on a nice but to me unknown course and scored both times 103. This year I will play it for the third time, to break that record.

Strokeplay, no esc will get into his head. I would bet on it.

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10 hours ago, Hardspoon said:

I'd be curious for someone to take a stab at the actual forced carry distances on one of these courses (@Pretzel?), since it's the thing that a lot of people are harping on.  If it's just one hole with a 240-yard carry, I'll happily wedge it to the red tees, but that's not going to work as a strategy if this is something that happens repeatedly.

On the course I played there wasn't any sort of 240 yard forced carry over water that I can think of. Looking over the course I played on google maps the longest forced carry of the day was 205 yards on the 18th hole over a ravine. Even on that hole though, you could hit a half wedge to the front of the ladies tees and need only 135 to carry it to the fairway. 

That said, your mileage may vary depending on what course you played.

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