Golf's Mental Game Aspect

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I don’t know shades or grey.

You have the LSW badge, so you should.

10 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Nor do I think it’s particularly relevant what it’s complexion is.

It matters for the reasons brought up on page two - it's something you can get right almost every time forever after being taught it. And don't confuse an execution mistake with a GamePlanning mistake.

10 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Why would you write an entire book about something you teach kids in 30 minutes?

Oy.

a) 1/3 of the book is about "GamePlanning."
b) Of that 1/3, the bulk is overcoming a bunch of stupid stuff that people think is correct or have been told is correct for years. Kids don't have these hang-ups. They don't think that "laying up to a comfortable yardage" makes any sense. So we don't have to teach them to overcome those hang-ups, those old maxims.

10 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I wonder how Phil feels knowing that it’s taken him 40-odd years to learn what you teach kids in 30 minutes.

Phil has had a wonderfully successful career, and often makes great game planning decisions, and always has. He's made some dumb ones too, but that hasn't been "the mental game" since page two.

10 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

If only he could have been more sensible with his strategies, perhaps he’d have won 10 majors. 

Far more often, he didn't win because he didn't play as well as he needed to.

5 minutes ago, golfonly said:

Just because he teaches the basics, there is much more to it than he is letting on, especially at the highest level.  Their strategy is going to be much more complex am done difficult than his personal style of teaching.  Unless there are some tour pros he has taugh/coached that I’m not aware of.

I have, yes. Several. And… no, it's not much more difficult. In fact, for a PGA Tour player, it's often much simpler because they're better. They have less to account for, higher odds of pulling off certain shots, etc.

[golfonly]

Just now, iacas said:

 

I have, yes. Several. And… no, it's not much more difficult. In fact, for a PGA Tour player, it's often much simpler because they're better. They have less to account for, higher odds of pulling off certain shots, etc.

Please share the ones you have coached on strategy  so we can see how they have done in this aspect of the game.  I’m not aware of any tour pros in record with your coaching, so knowing that may provide some insight.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, golfonly said:

Please share the ones you have coached on strategy so we can see how they have done in this aspect of the game.  I’m not aware of any tour pros in record with your coaching, so knowing that may provide some insight.

I value the NDAs I've signed.

Time for you to start posting in other topics, dude. You're headed down a road that won't end well. Demanding that I list the pros with whom I've worked on strategy is not the topic of this discussion. This is your only warning.

[golfonly]

Just now, iacas said:

I value the NDAs I've signed.

Time for you to start posting in other topics, dude. You're headed down a road that won't end well. Demanding that I list the pros with whom I've worked on strategy is not the topic of this discussion. This is your only warning.

Fair enough, but you brought it up.  I’m actually glad to hear that privacy is important to you as it didn’t seem like it was.  If you can’t provide that’s fine, but I can’t accept your word on it either.  I still contend that their strategy decisions are much more difficult than your 30 min teaching to kids. 

[iacas]

1 minute ago, golfonly said:

Fair enough, but you brought it up.

I did not.

You did, with "Unless there are some tour pros he has taugh/coached that I’m not aware of." or @Ty_Webb did by bringing up the book, which again, was handled on page two.

1 minute ago, golfonly said:

If you can’t provide that’s fine, but I can’t accept your word on it either.

I don't care.

1 minute ago, golfonly said:

I still contend that their strategy decisions are much more difficult than your 30 min teaching to kids. 

Good for you.

Back on topic.

[billchao]

4 hours ago, golfonly said:

I read and ask you what you meant.  You failed to explain.

Jack's quote is crap. His greatest gift in golf was the ability to hit towering long irons that land softly with great precision. But he's not going to come out and say he won all those majors by being the best ballstriker of his time because that comes off as bragging and can rub people the wrong way.

Everyone on tour has enough mental game to win tournaments. They've all won tournaments in their lives.

Your mental and emotional state will obviously affect performance. How much it affects is debatable. Some people have actual yips, but for most people blaming the mental game for their failings is just a crutch.

Like I said, I compartmentalize very well. Good and bad shots don't affect me mentally when I'm playing. I don't even think about them because all I care about is what I have to do on the next one. I still hit bad shots. It has nothing to do with my mental game.

[Ty_Webb]

On ‎5‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 10:08 PM, iacas said:

It matters for the reasons brought up on page two - it's something you can get right almost every time forever after being taught it. And don't confuse an execution mistake with a GamePlanning mistake.

Let's suppose that I have 160 yards to the middle of the green. There is water right of the green and the flag is cut over on the right. I know that my target here should be the middle of the green. So I aim it there, but my last thought as I take the club back is "oh, but the flag is over there, I should hit a cut", so I try to stop my hands fully releasing. I wind up hitting a weak cut and splash. That's quite different from aiming at the middle of the green, being committed to that, intending to hit it there and then hitting a weak cut into the water. The latter is just lacking the physical skill. The former is making a stupid mistake. I've been playing for nearly 30 years and I still make stupid mistakes. Knowing what you should do and actually trying to do it are two quite different things. If you never have any trouble with executing on what you decided to do when you were standing behind the ball, then good for you. Not everyone has it that way. I don't think I'm the one confusing an execution mistake with a game planning mistake.

[saevel25]

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

So I aim it there, but my last thought as I take the club back is "oh, but the flag is over there, I should hit a cut", so I try to stop my hands fully releasing. I wind up hitting a weak cut and splash. That's quite different from aiming at the middle of the green, being committed to that, intending to hit it there and then hitting a weak cut into the water.

I would say this hardly ever happens. I don't think people suddenly change their intent with in a few seconds just because they are standing over the ball.

For the most part I think golfers intuitively know their shot shape to some degree. They line up where most of the time the ball goes at the target. This could be aiming 30 yards right and pulling every shot. Then the end result is just a possible outcome of their swing. Yet they will berate themselves for making a mental mistake.

If the weak cut shot is part of their shot zone, then they probably needed to club up more and aim more left.

8 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

If you never have any trouble with executing on what you decided to do when you were standing behind the ball, then good for you.

No one is saying that.

 

[iacas]

20 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I know that my target here should be the middle of the green.

Not necessarily. It's probably further left than that.

20 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

So I aim it there, but my last thought as I take the club back is "oh, but the flag is over there, I should hit a cut", so I try to stop my hands fully releasing. I wind up hitting a weak cut and splash. That's quite different from aiming at the middle of the green, being committed to that, intending to hit it there and then hitting a weak cut into the water. The latter is just lacking the physical skill. The former is making a stupid mistake. I've been playing for nearly 30 years and I still make stupid mistakes. Knowing what you should do and actually trying to do it are two quite different things. If you never have any trouble with executing on what you decided to do when you were standing behind the ball, then good for you. Not everyone has it that way.

I could counter this by just making up some other scenario, but that would be all it was: a made-up scenario.

Or I could say "what if at the last second you thought to yourself 'oh no, water right!' and rolled the hands pulling the ball to the back left part of the green from where you safely two-putt for par."

Made up stuff like this is almost never worth even the time it takes to write out.

Everyone still makes an occasional stupid mistake - it's not a huge point of separation between players, and still accounts for a tiny portion of what affects a player's score.

 

20 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I don't think I'm the one confusing an execution mistake with a game planning mistake.

I haven't either.

5 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

No one is saying that.

That too.

[saevel25]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Everyone still makes an occasional stupid mistake - it's not a huge point of separation between players, and still accounts for a tiny portion of what affects a player's score.

Here is a personal example.

I club up wanting to hit the ball at 75% but end up going 90%. The number of times I do this maybe a few times a year.

[Vinsk]

27 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

but my last thought as I take the club back is "oh, but the flag is over there, I should hit a cut", 

If you do this it’s an execution error, not a mental error. Many times you’ll see a pro engage their shot then stop and regroup. If you’re getting a sudden thought just as you take the club back you need to stop and regroup. Then make your shot. That’s just as much of a physical action that you can correct. Not being able to hit a cut shot at the last second isn’t a mental deficiency, it’s a mechanical one.

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

If you do this it’s an execution error, not a mental error. Many times you’ll see a pro engage their shot then stop and regroup. If you’re getting a sudden thought just as you take the club back you need to stop and regroup. Then make your shot. That’s just as much of a physical action that you can correct. Not being able to hit a cut shot at the last second isn’t a mental deficiency, it’s a mechanical one.

I don't really agree with that. Changing your mind mid-swing feels awfully "mental game" to me.

But, as with all things mental, people only ever want to blame bad shots on the mental game. They will happily ignore the number of times they hit a good shot after a bad mental game process. Like when I said maybe they end up pulling the ball onto the green instead of - had they gone ahead - pushing the ball with their normal swing into the penalty area or something.

I hit a great shot the other day after I thought during the backswing "oh shit, don't fat this!" because my ball was on a squishy lie.

Nobody ever considers those times, when you have a "bad" mental game and yet hit a good shot. Yet people are really quick to blame a bad shot on a poor mental game, even if it was the same pre-shot routine, etc. as the good shot they hit five minutes earlier.

Why? Because people, in the moment, are aware of what their brains thought (kinda, not fully), but almost completely unaware of the tiny differences needed to produce a poor shot - a few degrees here, an eighth of an inch there…

[Vinsk]

I guess I’m trying to say that the outcome doesn’t determine if it was mental right? Had he hit a nice cut and landed 5’ from the pin would we say, ‘ now that’s some great mental skill there.’ 

If I stood on the range and you called my shot to execute right at the start of my backswing I don’t think my duffing many of those shots or just not making the shot you call would be a mental deficit on my half. I simply don’t have the skill to do it.

[Ty_Webb]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

I don't really agree with that. Changing your mind mid-swing feels awfully "mental game" to me.

That's because it is. And it happens a lot. It's something I work on avoiding. Sometimes more successfully than others, but my own personal suspicion is that I cost myself around 2-3 strokes in a round when my mental game is off versus when I'm doing it right. Another example I can give you of a mental mistake that I make regularly:

I have 105 to the flag. 100 to the front edge of the green and 98 to clear a front bunker. 100 is right around my full sand wedge distance. Not an option. My PW is about 125 yards or so. I have a good sized gap in my bag there. There are a few ways I can take off some yardage from my PW. I can grip down on it, I can swing shorter and I can swing softer. Because I'm an idiot, I'll often do all three, which gives me about a  95 yard shot. Right in the bunker. I struck it fine and there was no issue with my mechanics. I hit it on the line I wanted to, but because I didn't decide in advance which option to take to shorten the distance, I wound up in two minds over it and did both the short swing and the soft swing and now I'm struggling for a par on a hole where I should have had a 15-20 foot putt from beyond the hole for a birdie.

Another one. I have a 6 foot downhill breaking putt. I line it up behind the ball and decide my line is 2" outside the right. I line it up, get over it and as I am over it, I decide that it feels like it's breaking more than that. My last thought before I hit it is "better hit this firm or it's missing low side", so I do that and when it misses the hole, I'm drilling it 3-4 feet past. That's really dumb and I know that, but these are all actual examples of things that I do. Should I step away? Yes. Clearly. Do I? No. Would I shoot better scores if I did? Yes. Probably around 2-3 strokes a round like I said. Do I have days where I don't do the stupid things? Yes I do. Do I have months where I don't do the stupid things? Well, yes, in the winter, when I don't get to play for 4-5 months, but in the summer, no I don't.

I'm sure you'll just dismiss all this as anecdotal and again decide that because it's easy not to do these things that no one would actually do them in the real world and that the difference is only 5%. You said a little while ago that you think about whether you might be wrong about this stuff. Maybe consider that there are people out there who make stupid mistakes and people out there who don't know what their target should be.

It's great that you can think "oh shit, don't fat this" and still hit a great shot. I would say that the actual outcome is irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether you hit a good shot or a bad shot. What matters is whether the chances of you hitting a good shot change when you think "oh shit, don't fat this" rather than focusing on your target or whatever it is. If the chances of hitting a good shot are lower, then that's what matters. This by the way is a good example of an anecdote that you should dismiss.

I wonder - of the several players who hit it in the water on 12 at Augusta last month, how many had an overly aggressive target? Where did Tiger aim it? Do you think he aimed it more conservatively than they did? He's the best iron player, likely of all time. He hit that shot 30 off feet left of the flag. No way was he aiming that anywhere close to the hole. Molinari was aiming that a whole lot more at the flag than Tiger was. Pretty big mental mistake there. Koepka rinsed it too and finished one back. I wonder how he feels about his choice of target there. Funny that the best players in the world make mental mistakes on a Sunday afternoon under the utmost pressure. Sure there was an element of physical mishap to those shots as well, but I attribute the lost shots almost entirely to a mental mistake.

[Ty_Webb]

19 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

I guess I’m trying to say that the outcome doesn’t determine if it was mental right? Had he hit a nice cut and landed 5’ from the pin would we say, ‘ now that’s some great mental skill there.’ 

If I stood on the range and you called my shot to execute right at the start of my backswing I don’t think my duffing many of those shots or just not making the shot you call would be a mental deficit on my half. I simply don’t have the skill to do it.

Right, but you know that you don't have the skill to do that. Let's say you have a tee shot and you have two fairways to aim at. One is a 300 yard carry over water and the other is no carry and the water is not in play. Let's further surmise that your average carry with a well struck driver is 250 yards. If you go for the 300 yard carry and put it in the lake, that's a mental mistake, even though you lacked the physical ability to make the carry. Can we all at least agree on that?

Now, let's suppose that the carry is 240. Your average carry is still 250, when you hit it well, but you also don't always hit it well and when you don't, you don't make 240 yards. 30% of the time it's under 240. If you take on that carry and hit it in the water, is it a mental mistake or a physical mistake? It's a little bit of both, but you know that you might not make it, so I think that makes it a mental mistake. If you were better physically, you might have made the carry, but then also it would be true that taking on the carry would have been a better decision. Whether it's the right choice depends on several things. What's the advantage of taking on the carry for a start. What's the likelihood of making it and what's the risk if you don't. Do you have to retee or is there a drop zone up there? All of those dictate whether it's wise to take on the carry or not. Plenty of people won't know any of those things. Those people will make more mental mistakes than others. Plenty of people will eyeball whether they can make the carry.

[rehmwa]

9 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Another one. I have a 6 foot downhill breaking putt. I line it up behind the ball and decide my line is 2" outside the right. I line it up, get over it and as I am over it, I decide that it feels like it's breaking more than that. My last thought before I hit it is "better hit this firm or it's missing low side", so I do that and when it misses the hole, I'm drilling it 3-4 feet past.

I like your examples personally.  you probably miss the putt anyway (6 foot downhill breaking is not a gimme), and most of the time make the next putt.  so no change in score there.

So, say you have 36 putts a round.  You have a little glitch like this 2 times.  so 2/36 = 5% of the time it happens.  Now, of that 5% the result is the same 90% of the time (2 putt) - so now it actually only matters 0.5% of all your putts.

the issue is, you do this twice and it sticks in your brain.

so absolutely, work on better composure, it feels better.  But I'd rather give you credit that your putting "technique" and execution of the physical act is what makes you a good putter.  The rest contributes - but the payoff really isn't that huge.

[Ty_Webb]

7 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

I like your examples personally.  you probably miss the putt anyway (6 foot downhill breaking is not a gimme), and most of the time make the next putt.  so no change in score there.

So, say you have 36 putts a round.  You have a little glitch like this 2 times.  so 2/36 = 5% of the time it happens.  Now, of that 5% the result is the same 90% of the time (2 putt) - so now it actually only matters 0.5% of all your putts.

the issue is, you do this twice and it sticks in your brain.

so absolutely, work on better composure, it feels better.  But I'd rather give you credit that your putting "technique" and execution of the physical act is what makes you a good putter.  The rest contributes - but the payoff really isn't that huge.

Well, say it happens twice in a round of golf (I'd actually think that was high - I normally learn my lesson after I do it once). Even if it's once, there are two bites of the cherry. I'm less likely to make the 6 footer and if I don't, I'm less likely to make the 4 foot putt back over the 1 foot putt I would have had. PGA Tour averages from Mark Broadie are 1.357 putts from 6 feet and 1.147 from 4 feet. 1.001 from 1 foot, so let's say my averages are the same (they'll be higher but higher favours me here). Instead of 1.357 putts if I step away and realign myself, I have let's say 50% chance of holing it instead of 65% chance and about a 15% chance of missing the return, instead of 0%. So I've gone from 1.357 putts to 0.5 x 1 + 0.5 x (1+1.147) = 1.57, which is right around 0.2 strokes.

Now that's one example. I'll also have several times where I'm undecided on my target off the tee. I have a tendency to be too conservative. If there's a lake on the right, I'll aim my drive at the left edge of the fairway. That means half the time I'm in the rough and half the time I'm in the fairway, but very rarely in the water. Some of those in the rough will likely be in tree trouble, so recovery shots. A better target would be one that introduces a small risk of putting it in the water, but improves the results of all those shots in the left side of my pattern. I know this, but I can't make myself aim it nearer to where I should. An actual example that happened in a tournament on Thursday last week. 8th hole. It's 436 yards. Trees either side of the fairway and the practice ground (OB) is on the right. It's about 25 yards from the right edge of the fairway to the OB and the fairway is about 35 yards wide. I had been driving it pretty well and pretty straight that day, but rather than aiming it down the middle of the fairway (which still would give me over 40 yards leeway to the OB), I aimed it left edge of the fairway (i.e. 60 yards leeway). I hit it pretty much dead where I aimed it and I got lucky that I was in the fairway by about a yard. I had an overhanging tree that blocked me from going at the flag, but the flag was not the right target anyway, so I got away with it. But as I noted before, the result doesn't matter. What matters is that my lack of confidence cost me fractions of a stroke. Same round, 11th hole. Highway down the right, so again OB right. I aim it again at the left edge (overly cautious given my shot pattern) and this time hit it in the left rough, maybe 3-4 yards left of where I aimed it - that should have been in the fairway if I took the right target. Hole is 450 and I had 196 in uphill from the rough. Looking again at Broadie's PGA Tour averages, 200 yards in the rough is 0.23 shots worse than in the fairway. That's 100% a mental mistake. One I got away with and one I didn't. 12th hole, same round again. Follows the same line, again with OB right. This time I tried aiming it down the middle and my last thought was "uh oh, OB right" and I hit a horrible smothery pulled hook into a tree. I missed four fairways that day. Two by a yard or two, both from aiming away from OB and hitting it within about 5 yards of where I was aiming it, one by trying to cut too much off a corner and this one. I wound up 340 out (par 5) in the rough, with trees in the way (about 4.02 strokes, per Broadie) instead of about 240 out if I'd hit it where I should have (about 3.25 shots). That's another mental mistake and this time about 0.75 shots. The hole after that was a shortish par 4. I hit a really good drive and left myself 66 yards in to an elevated green. I've been struggling a bit with my partial wedge shots of late and my last thought this time was don't duff it. I hit it about 40 yards. Now that one I think a big chunk of that was physical. It cost me 0.7 strokes per Broadie, of which I'd say 0.6 was physical and 0.1 mental.

I actually wound up scoring pretty well in that round. I shot +2, 72. No birdies. Two bogeys. One bogey was the short par four and the other was a three putt on a ridiculously long par five. I made no birdies. I don't really mind that though. I didn't putt all that badly, the putts just didn't happen to go in and my approach shots all wound up on the wrong side of my shot pattern all day. Fact is though that on three shots, making poor mental mistakes cost me over a shot in expectation. Had I not made them, I may well have shot 72 still, or 73 or possibly 69 if I got very lucky and all three shots that cost me had wound up benefiting me. For the mental mistakes I made in an actual round of golf on Thursday last week, I lost 1 shot. For that to be only 5% of the difference between me and someone else, they'd have to shoot 52. There ain't nobody doing that.

[iacas]

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

And it happens a lot.

I don't think so. Maybe to you, but you aren't everyone.

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Sometimes more successfully than others, but my own personal suspicion is that I cost myself around 2-3 strokes in a round when my mental game is off versus when I'm doing it right.

Then I'd say you're outside of a couple of standard deviations. Or you're kidding yourself.

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I'm sure you'll just dismiss all this as anecdotal

Uhhmmm, it is, though.

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Maybe consider that there are people out there who make stupid mistakes and people out there who don't know what their target should be.

I have, and that's the only reason I'm not siding with a few buddies (including Tour instructors and Tour players) who say "5% is way too high."

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

It's great that you can think "oh shit, don't fat this" and still hit a great shot.

You've done it too. You've had a bad mental process and still hit a good shot or made a good score.

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I would say that the actual outcome is irrelevant.

No.

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

What matters is whether the chances of you hitting a good shot change when you think "oh shit, don't fat this" rather than focusing on your target or whatever it is.

I get what you're saying, but no, that's not what matters. What matters is the score you actually shoot.

In terms of how you seem to want to phrase things: the "chances" change very little. That's essentially my whole position. What changes the "chances" of a good or a bad shot - BY FAR - are the physical skills a golfer brings to the table. BY FAR.

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

This by the way is a good example of an anecdote that you should dismiss.

It's not an anecdote, it's an example that applies to everyone: everyone can have a bad mental approach to a shot and hit a good shot.

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Pretty big mental mistake there.

Pretty big execution mistake there. I think that if he hits it better and he wins the Masters and you're on here praising him for his mental strength to pull that shot off.

Jordan's water dunks in… 2016… also execution mistake. He's said it himself.

You're so caught up in all of this that you're wanting to take any mistake and attribute it to a mental mistake. Yet perhaps 95% of Francesco's Shot Zone was safe and would have led to a score of 2.8, but the 5% that he happened to get was the 5% that overlapped the water. Aiming where Tiger aimed required two VERY good putts (it wasn't 30') - Tiger took a risk, too. He risked dumping it in the back bunker. He risked three-putting.

If Tiger three-putts there, even though there was a 20% chance or so of him doing just that, you likely don't attribute his tee shot to a poor mental choice. Though you might be on here talking about how he must have had a poor mental approach to either his first or second putt… 😛

47 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

If you go for the 300 yard carry and put it in the lake, that's a mental mistake, even though you lacked the physical ability to make the carry. Can we all at least agree on that?

This is seriously the path you want to go down? Using that as an example of a "mental mistake"? No f***ing shit a guy trying to carry 300 when he can only hit it 250 is a mental mistake. I will give you that. But it almost never happens, and your argument is substantially weakened by you even citing that.

47 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Now, let's suppose that the carry is 240. Your average carry is still 250, when you hit it well, but you also don't always hit it well and when you don't

I'm out on these made up scenarios. There's no f***ing point.

42 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

So, say you have 36 putts a round.  You have a little glitch like this 2 times.  so 2/36 = 5% of the time it happens.  Now, of that 5% the result is the same 90% of the time (2 putt) - so now it actually only matters 0.5% of all your putts.

the issue is, you do this twice and it sticks in your brain.

That too. Rather than blame your putting stroke (and the game's best aren't anywhere near 100% from 6'), you blame your mind.

8 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Well, say it happens twice in a round of golf

Let's not, because:

1. You're just making up scenarios. Pointless.
2. You're just talking about YOU. You may be an outlier. I've never said "it's 5% for everyone, ever, all the time, until the end of time."

And you missed the point of @rehmwa's post, IMO, that percentages play a role, and yet you attribute 100% (or the majority at least) to the mental game in certain situations.

8 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Well, say it happens twice in a round of golf (I'd actually think that was high - I normally learn my lesson after I do it once). Even if it's once, there are two bites of the cherry. I'm less likely to make the 6 footer and if I don't, I'm less likely to make the 4 foot putt back over the 1 foot putt I would have had. PGA Tour averages from Mark Broadie are 1.357 putts from 6 feet and 1.147 from 4 feet. 1.001 from 1 foot, so let's say my averages are the same (they'll be higher but higher favours me here). Instead of 1.357 putts if I step away and realign myself, I have let's say 50% chance of holing it instead of 65% chance and about a 15% chance of missing the return, instead of 0%. So I've gone from 1.357 putts to 0.5 x 1 + 0.5 x (1+1.147) = 1.57, which is right around 0.2 strokes.

You're ignoring the times you've re-aligned or whatever it is you're making up here and MADE the putt, too, when you might not otherwise have done so. Plus, now, you're suddenly hitting it 4' by… Whatever. That's why these are so pointless.

8 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Now that's one example. I'll also have several times where I'm undecided on my target off the tee. I have a tendency to be too conservative. If there's a lake on the right, I'll aim my drive at the left edge of the fairway. That means half the time I'm in the rough and half the time I'm in the fairway, but very rarely in the water.

You you you you you you you. See the bullet points a few paragraphs up.

8 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

A better target would be one that introduces a small risk of putting it in the water, but improves the results of all those shots in the left side of my pattern.

You don't know that. Except you do, because you made it up and have carefully tuned the scenario in your mind to line up perfectly with what you're saying. I could counter with a number of examples where you might actually be better off pointing even FURTHER into the rough than taking on any of the penalty area. But that'd just be my made up scenarios, with my made up thickness of rough, and recovery density, and shots-to-hole-out averages, etc.

Goodness.

8 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

What matters is that my lack of confidence cost me fractions of a stroke.

No it didn't.

8 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Same round, 11th hole. Highway down the right, so again OB right. I aim it again at the left edge (overly cautious given my shot pattern) and this time hit it in the left rough, maybe 3-4 yards left of where I aimed it - that should have been in the fairway if I took the right target.

You don't seem to understand Shot Zones or percentages or how this all works.

And once again, second bullet point.

8 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Looking again at Broadie's PGA Tour averages, 200 yards in the rough is 0.23 shots worse than in the fairway. That's 100% a mental mistake.

No it isn't.