Only Bad Golfers are Lucky

[iacas]

"Only bad golfers are lucky. They're the ones bouncing balls off trees, curbs, and turtles. Good golfers have bad luck. When you hit the ball straight, a funny bounce is bound to be unlucky." - Lee Trevino

Thoughts?

I think he's generally pretty accurate. Yes, a good player can be unlucky or lucky, sometimes, but I think that when your ball is headed into the crap, it can only really get lucky, and when your ball is headed to the fairway or the green, it can only really get unlucky.

It's not 100%, but I think the ratios do shift…

[Denny Bang Bang]

A hole in one, or sinking an eagle from 50+ out, is lucky whether one is a good golfer or a bad golfer.  Based on that, I can’t fully agree with Trevino.

But luck may be relative in the sense that... good luck for bad golfers is more likely bouncing off a tree back into play... where good luck for a good golfer is more along the lines of an eagle.

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Denny Bang Bang said:

But luck may be relative in the sense that... good luck for bad golfers is more likely bouncing off a tree back into play... where good luck for a good golfer is more along the lines of an eagle.

Why is an eagle good luck? I've made eagles before by hitting two or three great shots that behaved as I would expect them to.

I think what Lee is saying is that if you're hitting good shots, they should turn out well if things are normal. It's more likely that something can go wrong than that something can go "good" to improve the shot.

[billchao]

31 minutes ago, iacas said:

"Only bad golfers are lucky. They're the ones bouncing balls off trees, curbs, and turtles. Good golfers have bad luck. When you hit the ball straight, a funny bounce is bound to be unlucky." - Lee Trevino

I don't agree because this is just a really simplified and general statement. A golfer can have good and bad luck, regardless of skill.

If a guy hits a good shot towards the green and it hits the flagstick on the fly and drops in, it's lucky, just like the guy who skulls his ball and it does the same thing. Both shots would have had different outcomes if it wasn't for luck. Yes, you can argue the good shot would have been a better result regardless, but it doesn't change the fact that holing out is a fortunate and unforeseen outcome.

I've hit good shots that have become great shots out of pure luck, myself. Hit a ball to the center of the green and it spins just right with the contours and rolls to tap-in distance. Hit a solid 3W on a par 5 you can't reach and it catches the back of a hill and kicks 20 yards forward, onto the green.

31 minutes ago, iacas said:

I think he's generally pretty accurate. Yes, a good player can be unlucky or lucky, sometimes, but I think that when your ball is headed into the crap, it can only really get lucky, and when your ball is headed to the fairway or the green, it can only really get unlucky.

You can hit the ball into crap and still get a bad bounce. You can't just say "well you hit it into crap, so that's what you get", that type of thing. I've hit many balls into the woods; they don't all end up lost or unplayable. If your ball rolls up against a tree and you can't advance it, that's bad luck.

Maybe you hit the ball in the fairway and catch a sprinkler head and it gives you 20 more yards.

Yea it's anecdotal, but there's no way to discuss something like this without getting into specific examples.

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

I think what Lee is saying is that if you're hitting good shots, they should turn out well if things are normal. It's more likely that something can go wrong than that something can go "good" to improve the shot.

That's how you're interpreting it, but that's not how I'm reading his statement. He plainly says only bad golfers have good luck and good golfers have bad luck.

I agree more with what you said than what he said, but you can't assume all good results from good shots are the direct result of good play and not some amount of good luck, as he seems to imply.

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, billchao said:

That's how you're interpreting it, but that's not how I'm reading his statement. He plainly says only bad golfers have good luck and good golfers have bad luck.

I think that he was generalizing. I don't think he's stupid enough to actually think this is an always/never type situation.

[billchao]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

I think that he was generalizing. I don't think he's stupid enough to actually think this is an always/never type situation.

I don't have the context of his statement, so I'm just going by his words.

I tend to view individual people as generally being lucky or unlucky, FWIW.

[Patch]

Good luck, or bad luck can happen to anyone, anytime, when one, or the other "just happens".

Myself, I also tend lean to the thought that golfers generate their own luck.

Good golfers hit more good shots than bad golfers. It would seem to me that the good shots generate  "more" good luck, while the bad shots would generate "more" bad luck. In other words good follows good more than bad follows good, and vice versa.  

[Piz]

The problem with luck, in golf, is that one can be "lucky" and still be in the soup.  In most other lines of endeavor; luck confers some kind of advantage.  That is not necessarily so in golf.  

[JonMA1]

I understand the opinion. It's like the odds between skill and luck favor the lesser player. "Good luck" only shows up if something bad should have happened.

I can't think of a single instance on a golf course where bad luck came into play for me. Maybe it has and I don't remember. I can, however, remember several lucky bounces (normally off of trees ).

Quick story I've shared before. I'd hit a short approach shot from an angle that brought some tree branches into play. There was a bunker right in front of the green with a flag location close to the bunker. The wedge shot was perfectly online and would have undoubtedly dropped close to the flag had the ball not barely nicked a branch. Instead of a short birdie putt, the ball landed into the lip of the bunker literally 2' from the green. What ensued was a comedy of errors in trying to get out of the sand, resulting in a very high score on the hole.

After the round, my playing partner described the situation as bad luck.

But luck had nothing to do with it. It was a poor decision to go at the flag or at the very least, an inability to hit the proper, lower trajectory shot. That's just how some people like to look at things.

Edited February 5, 2018 by JonMA1

[Denny Bang Bang]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Why is an eagle good luck? I've made eagles before by hitting two or three great shots that behaved as I would expect them to.

I think what Lee is saying is that if you're hitting good shots, they should turn out well if things are normal. It's more likely that something can go wrong than that something can go "good" to improve the shot.

I consider myself a “good” golfer, and my eagles are typically more due to luck.

You are better than “good”, so lucky for you is possibly more along the lines of a hole in one.

It’s relative, is what I’m getting at

[Club Rat]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

I think he's generally pretty accurate.

I agree 100% - Bad golfers hit more errant shots thus their odds of a good break will be greater.

Good shots generally do not have bad outcomes and rarely hit obstacles.
But it does happen and would be considered Bad Luck when they happen to.

[Fairway_CY]

Agreed.  I'm living proof.  

I've hit way more trees that have kicked the ball back into the fairway than I have hit fairways that have taken a bad kick.  Way more.  I'm far from a 'good' golfer.  I have my moments... but they're equally split between good shots and shots that just happened to turn out good.

CY

[Aguirre]

I understand the thought only in that it's a flawed way in which human beings look at chance and probability. Bayesian probability experts have studied this bias extensively. It's similar to the way that the smoker fears flying. Or the conservative investor avoids the risk of equity markets to invest in CDs without understanding inflation risk, and the idea that their nest egg won't grow fast enough.

If Trevino's premise is true, then it's more of a probability question. That good shots end up with poor luck more often merely means that there is a higher probability of such shots being unlucky (ie, 60%/40%), as opposed to poor shots (ie, 40%/60%).

If we pretend that those 60/40 and 40/60 numbers are real based on billions of theoretical simulations, then you're only "unlucky" or "lucky" if your results lie outside those distributions.

 

EDIT--What I'm saying is that this is thought exercise about math, not golf.

Edited February 5, 2018 by Aguirre

[Piz]

Book alert!  Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Fooled by Randomness.

[Zeph]

I agree. As said, it's obviously not a 100% statement, you will have the top pros being lucky and the high handicappers being unlucky, but there's definitely a heavy tendency to the statement being true. It's quite logical.

A pro will hit the ball somewhat close to what he intended most of the time. Since they play smart, they are also less likely to get unfavorable bounces, which are even less likely just because they are landing in fairways. Bad players hit it all over the course and are more likely to get a lucky bounce back into play off a tree or rock. It's not that there are some higher powers governing your amount of luck based on your skill level, but the way pros play versus bad players results in them having less random strokes of luck. The more shots you hit in vicinities where good luck is increasingly possible (ie. slicing a ball into a grove of trees), the more lucky bounces you will have. It's actually math, and not very difficult to make a case of. When you aim (and usually hit) the fairway, there are a lot less chances of having lucky or unlucky bounces, except for the rarer total mishit of course.

A pro aiming for a green, ending up pushing it, hitting some rocks near water and bounce back onto the green is luck. A pro aiming for a flag and holing it is skill, with some parts luck, or randomness if you want. Nobody can control the ball well enough to adjust a 150 yard shot to hit a small cup, but when those small deciding factors go their way, the ball goes in. Not because they bounce off something or had a leaf turn the ball into the hole, but because of the uncontrollable details in every swing that sometimes goes their way and sometimes not. The pros got shot cones with some pretty good odds of the ball ending up inside it, but they can't control it down to 4 1/4 inch. You could say it's skill to have such a tight shot cone to begin with, and with a bit of luck/randomness now and then, they hole out shots.

Edited February 5, 2018 by Zeph

[jbishop15]

I agree. You have to hit bad shots to get good luck, at least where golf is concerned. Not much luck involved if you're hitting fairways and greens and making center-club contact.

[HJJ003]

I agree with most of what has been said. Its not completely true, but I don't think its meant to be. The better golfers have less luck (good or bad) over the course of a round than a poor golfer, due to the fact they are in better control of their golf ball in general. 

So If only bad golfers get lucky...I am ready for my luck to arrive! 

Edited February 5, 2018 by HJJ003

[iacas]

6 hours ago, Piz said:

Book alert!  Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Fooled by Randomness.

I don't think that necessarily applies. It's not random - a good player hits the ball where they intend to hit it far more often than a bad player does, and a bad player hits the ball into far worse places far more often than a good player does. It's not random.

If you're going to say the bounces are random, again, they are not. A good player hitting the green has only the green contours to deal with. Those contours don't often deflect the ball 40 yards sideways. But the tree that the high handicapper hit could, even though the ball was headed toward death, now it's in the left side of the fairway.

I'm more with @Zeph on this one, and more with Lee.

Now, I will also tend to assert that a good player's "luck" tends to be smaller scale. And maybe that's where the bias exists, and really it's 50/50 for all… Just playing devil's advocate a bit here. Let's say a ball hits a ridge, and just the moisture in the green determines how softly the ball lands and whether it falls to one side of the ridge or another. That's a good player's version of "luck." A bad player's version of luck is that they thin a wedge and it hits the lip of a bunker: does it pop out and roll gently to the hole, or does it bury under the lip?

Maybe it's 50/50, but the amplitude is a bit different, in which case I can see Lee feeling like he does. But maybe Lee is right, too: maybe the good player doesn't really hit the wrong side of that ridge, and they don't often thin a wedge into the lip of a bunker.

2 minutes ago, jbishop15 said:

I agree. You have to hit bad shots to get good luck, at least where golf is concerned. Not much luck involved if you're hitting fairways and greens and making center-club contact.

Yeah, I still lean this way as well.

And hey, I'm as statistical and mathematically minded as they'll come. I am not dying on this hill, but I'm scouting it for a campsite right now.