14-Club Challenge

[saevel25]

This would be fun to do, 

 

[Carl3]

29 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

This would be fun to do

Fun indeed. I like how they need subtitles for these English speakers.

[billchao]

If those guys scored a combined 3 points, I'm going guess I'd get a big fat 0.

Fun to watch though.

[iacas]

That was terrible. I don't understand. @mvmac and I could hit the greens that were 50 yards short of our normal 5-iron distance with 5-irons during the one club challenge. I can hit pitches with 8-irons, or hit it from 100 yards. The other day I hit my 7-iron from about 80 yards and put three shots to within 20 feet.

I've hit hybrids "chippy" and hit greens that are just 150 away.

3 was pretty bad. Green looked relatively large, too, with a backstop.

I'd have expected about six shots on the green.

Now, the hole was, what, 185? The false front may have hurt them. But still… three?

[Buckeyebowman]

Hell, this was just a couple of guys goofing around! Didn't look like they put a lot of thought into the endeavor.

And Carl3, my Mom and Step Dad visited England many years ago. When they came back my Mom told me that she couldn't understand anybody over there! The English speak English, we Americans speak American!

[Hardspoon]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

That was terrible. I don't understand. @mvmac and I could hit the greens that were 50 yards short of our normal 5-iron distance with 5-irons during the one club challenge. I can hit pitches with 8-irons, or hit it from 100 yards. The other day I hit my 7-iron from about 80 yards and put three shots to within 20 feet.

OK...I know what you mean (and I've seen you do shit like that!), but the "baseline" of hitting a green from 185 is tougher than pitches or 80-yard shots or 100-yard shots.

2 hours ago, iacas said:

3 was pretty bad. Green looked relatively large, too, with a backstop.

I'd have expected about six shots on the green.

 Now, the hole was, what, 185? The false front may have hurt them. But still… three?

Maybe three wasn't great, but you shouldn't have expected six.

Take the "too short clubs" away (8i down), and they had 9 clubs with a real chance at the green.  So far this year, McDowell has hit 48% GIR from 175-200 yards, and Harrington 46%.  So, even with the optimal club, you'd only expect them to hit 4.5 shots on the green.  I would have guessed 3 or 4...figuring the really long clubs would cost them a shot or so.

(EDIT: I realize these % are on approaches, not from the tee...so I guess the lies would cost them some...but I still feel like 4/9 is a more reasonable guess than 6/9).

I agree that people overestimate the difficultly of hitting clubs shorter distance, and this video somewhat falsely reinforces that, but it's really more a demonstration of the baseline difficulty of hitting a green from 185.

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by Hardspoon

[DeadMan]

That was pretty fun to watch, but I think it would be better with a hole that's like 130-150 yards long. Then each guy would have at least 6 clubs they could hit a 140 yard shot with or whatever it is. At 185, you really have no chance to get anything less than an 8 iron there. 

[iacas]

10 hours ago, Hardspoon said:

I agree that people overestimate the difficultly of hitting clubs shorter distance, and this video somewhat falsely reinforces that, but it's really more a demonstration of the baseline difficulty of hitting a green from 185.

FWIW the sign says 174 yards. The 185 yards in my post was a guess based on the idea that they wanted to hit a 6-iron.

But yeah, your point holds… I'm just surprised at how poorly they did with the longer clubs, particularly given the run-up area available to them.

[saevel25]

Here is another one. A bit closer at 166 yards, but they end up with 7 combined GIR (50%)

 

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Here is another one. A bit closer at 166 yards, but they end up with 7 combined GIR (50%)

 

Eight yards closer and more representative of what I'd expect. Better players, though, not past their primes.

Then again, that green looks a lot tougher to hit, with bunkers, water, etc. Very little room to run the ball on.

[David in FL]

That does look fun!

[Hardspoon]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Better players, though, not past their primes.

Haha - ouch.

(but, yes, I thought the same thing when I was writing my post above and looked up the stats for PH and GM).

[Vinsk]

15 hours ago, iacas said:

That was terrible. I don't understand. @mvmac and I could hit the greens that were 50 yards short of our normal 5-iron distance with 5-irons during the one club challenge. I can hit pitches with 8-irons, or hit it from 100 yards. The other day I hit my 7-iron from about 80 yards and put three shots to within 20 feet.

I've hit hybrids "chippy" and hit greens that are just 150 away.

3 was pretty bad. Green looked relatively large, too, with a backstop.

I'd have expected about six shots on the green.

Now, the hole was, what, 185? The false front may have hurt them. But still… three?

I’m pretty surprised at the poor shots they hit. I thought it was gonna be a couple of random guys..only to see GMac and Paddy! I know they were just goofing around but those were some pretty lousy shots.

[GolfLug]

The 166 yarder was more fun to watch. I thought they should have pushed the ball in the ground a little to hit the thin shots.

[cutchemist42]

Shorter distance was better for this.