Ron Sirak Proposes 3 Low Digit Handicaps Vs LPGA Player

[nevets88]

This interests me more than Woods vs Mickelson because I want to see those amateurs get their butts walloped and forever to put bed the insanity of those who think the ridiculous notion that a low digit man could come even close to besting an LPGA player. The only drawback I can think of is maybe it's a bit of a circus event, a la BJK vs Bobby Riggs. I mean, women don't really have to prove anything, they've shown they can play week in and week out on the tour.

Quote

But let’s prove this once and for all: Come on Golf Channel! Let’s have a contest and the three winners from a pool of single-digit male amateurs take on an LPGA pro in 36 holes of stroke play under tournament conditions and under the scrutiny of the TV camera. I know I’d pay to watch that – although I’d rather be there writing about it.

http://www.ronsirak.com/

[gbogey]

Under the following assumptions: 1) Course setup / length similar to LPGA tour events - 6400 yards and similar green speeds; 2) Men selected, even scratch players. are golfers who drive the ball similar distances as the ladies, say 250 yards (this might be hard to do, my guess is that most scratch players are longer than this these days):

Then the LPGA players would kick butt.  One reason is the choke factor - I don't think amateurs, unless they are elite amateurs, are anywhere used to the kinds of pressure that LPGA players are.  The 2nd is that the ladies are really good - they don't miss fairways and greens.  In other words, given the right distance courses, they are much better than scratch IMO.

 

[dennyjones]

Something I would not bother to watch.   

[Vinsk]

Too vague. ‘Single digit’? A 1hcp is considerably different than 6-9hcp. And it won’t really put anything to rest except that the chosen LPGA player best that chosen male amateur. What was mentioned by @gbogey is actually important. A 1hcp golfer with a driving average of 290yds playing an LPGA player on a men’s  PGA length course? Any LPGA player? One from the bottom 10? 

Where have women proven time and time again to be able to play on the tour? You mean just play? Or compete? Because they’ve actually shown to not be able to compete. Annika and Lindsicomb both could not successfully compete in their attempts. 

[DeadMan]

Depending on the actual handicaps selected, I'm not sure he would get the results he's looking for. I think a scratch male golfer could beat an average LPGA player in a 36 hole event, playing from the same tees. In fact, we had a thread on this where @iacas reached a similar conclusion:

There is a massive difference between a scratch golfer and 5 handicap, though. As a high 5 handicapper, I think I would beat an LPGA player, from the same tees, maybe once every 100 rounds. It would be the of the rounds that I'm in the low 70s (which happens about 1/20 rounds for me), and then that would have to match up with a bad round from the LPGA player. Over 36 holes, no way would I beat an LPGA tour player.

2 or 3 handicapper? They probably wouldn't beat an average LPGA tour player over 36 holes, either. I bet the scratch golfer would have a pretty decent chance. Doesn't mean he'd always do it, or that he'd have a better than 50% chance, but it could easily happen.

 

 

Edited October 25, 2018 by DeadMan

[iacas]

The difference between genders is about 6 shots when you get down to the lower handicaps, so a scratch male is about the equivalent of a +5 woman. (Link 1, Link 2)

Hence, a male scratch golfer could hold their own against LPGA Tour players.

A 5 handicap, however, would not.

[Mr22putt]

On 10/25/2018 at 5:34 PM, iacas said:

Hence, a male scratch golfer could hold their own against LPGA Tour players.

A 5 handicap, however, would not.

Just did a quick exercise.

If let's say your average LPGA pro is Madeline Sagstrom who finished 80th in earnings..... the last spot to hold onto a full 2019 LPGA exempt card....and taking her last 20 scores...she'd be about a male scratch....so a typical country club male scratch would hold up well.

But if you go to the extreme and take Ariya...the top LPGA pro....looking at her last 20 scores...I'd figure she's a +3 or +4 male cap.....over the long run....Ariya would likely beat the male scratch like 6-8 times over 10 rds.

And with Ariya's length...I think she could play a male scratch quite well at yardages of 6800-7000 yards.

The talent of the top 30 LPGA is quite good...and then it falls off.

[DrvFrShow]

The thing is, how would this benefit the LPGA? It wouldn't. The men's game and the women's game are two different games. So let's just stop it.

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, DrvFrShow said:

The thing is, how would this benefit the LPGA? It wouldn't. The men's game and the women's game are two different games. So let's just stop it.

Agree. It is a silly stunt by Sirak. Perhaps he just saw Battle of the Sexes. 

I much prefer watching the LPGA players play each other.

[Moxley]

Yeah, as already noted it'd need to be scratch male amateurs, not just low cappers. 

The type of scratch players might have an impact - many club players who are around scratch are older middle aged guys who have been playing for decades , and haven't yet lost too much strength , but some are also really talented younger guys who hit the ball much further but lack a complete game. The latter of these groups might be able to take advantage of the course setup better. This would also be the one most interesting to see, if you had the guy driving 50 yards further but running off the green with his wedge, while the LPGA player sticks it to within 10 feet with her 5 iron. 

 

[iacas]

6 hours ago, Moxley said:

This would also be the one most interesting to see, if you had the guy driving 50 yards further but running off the green with his wedge, while the LPGA player sticks it to within 10 feet with her 5 iron. 

Neither of those two things happen all that often.

Some simple math here guys, again, just like in the "scratch vs. LPGA" topic: a scratch player is gonna shoot the course rating half the time. The course rating from 6500 yards is often 68 to 70. The other half of the time, they'll shoot higher… yep. That's why they'll never win an event. But they could have a reasonable career. Man to woman is about six shots.

http://www.lpga.com/statistics/scoring/scoring-average

40th is 71.212 and 80th is 71.824.

[Pretzel]

12 minutes ago, iacas said:

Some simple math here guys, again, just like in the "scratch vs. LPGA" topic: a scratch player is gonna shoot the course rating half the time. The course rating from 6500 yards is often 68 to 70. The other half of the time, they'll shoot higher… yep. That's why they'll never win an event. But they could have a reasonable career. Man to woman is about six shots.

Just to clarify on the portion I put in bold (emphasis mine): a scratch player is going to shoot the course rating or better half of the time. The differentials of a scratch golfer average out to 0 meaning they will have an equal amount of scores that are equally above and below the course rating. 

This means the scoring average of the scratch golfer would be somewhere between 68 and 70 throughout the year putting them pretty easily within the top 10 of scoring average (10th place in LPGA Scoring Average is Lexi Thompson with an average of 70.169) if those are the course ratings for men from those tees during tournaments, which seems an appropriate rating. It would be very unlikely for them to win, but they'd probably notch up a fair number of top 20's and top 10's.

[gbogey]

16 minutes ago, iacas said:

http://www.lpga.com/statistics/scoring/scoring-average

40th is 71.212 and 80th is 71.824.

These are averages.  I would assume that the 10 best scores of 20 is 2-3 shots better than average, so the 80th player would probably have an index based upon an average score of 69-69.8.  I would assume that the course rating for most LPGA events is in the 71-72 range and that the slope ratings are pretty high.  So the 80th rank player is at least a +2-+3 and would easily beat a scratch player, especially when one considers the pressure element.

All I know is that every time the LPGA plays a course I've played they kill it.  Case in point Brickyard Crossing in Indianapolis.  Ladies played it at a distance that would have a course rating around 71/135.  It took -4 to make the cut and 66 of the 73 to make the cut shot -4 or better over 4 days.  

[Vinsk]

I don’t mean to try and shut down this topic but really...what’s the point? This issue seems to rear its beaten head any time someone gets irritated about how much better the men are. Trying to see what level a male player would have to be to compete on the LPGA is quite trivial. I don’t think most people are out there bashing the ladies. It’s just a simple fact in most sports that some have a hard time accepting..the men are much better. So what? It’s not sexist it’s just nature. It’s when someone makes a bonehead comment (like the silly reporter to John McEnroe) and tries to compare female athletes to their males as if there is ‘chance’ the women are as good. The LPGA consists of the best female golfers in the planet. They are elite golfers. Period. Just because they can beat low handicap males or whatever the math shows isn’t going to make more people want to watch LPGA golf. Same with WNBA. Most 5A high school basketball teams could beat a WNBA team. This is why the ratings are low. Could they walk into a YMCA and beat the weekend warriors playing a pick up game? Sure. I don’t think most people are clueless as to how good the LPGA players are. They’re just far, far below the level of PGA golfers. And that isn’t any big deal. It is what it is. I don’t think this game he’s proposing really proves anything that most people don’t already know. 

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Pretzel said:

Just to clarify on the portion I put in bold (emphasis mine): a scratch player is going to shoot the course rating or better half of the time.

That's not accurate. They're going to shoot better than the course rating about 20-25% of the time. They're gonna shoot just above the course rating about 25% of the time. And then the last 50% of the time, they're gonna shoot higher than any of those.

1 hour ago, Pretzel said:

The differentials of a scratch golfer average out to 0 meaning they will have an equal amount of scores that are equally above and below the course rating.

The differentials… of their best half.

Brain fart, @Pretzel?

1 hour ago, gbogey said:

I would assume that the 10 best scores of 20 is 2-3 shots better than average, so the 80th player would probably have an index based upon an average score of 69-69.8.

As would a male scratch golfer.

1 hour ago, gbogey said:

I would assume that the course rating for most LPGA events is in the 71-72 range and that the slope ratings are pretty high.

For men? The men's rating is 68-70 for a lot of the events, and the slope is basically irrelevant at scratch.

1 hour ago, gbogey said:

So the 80th rank player is at least a +2-+3 and would easily beat a scratch player, especially when one considers the pressure element.

The pressure element? Tons of people deal with pressure all the time. Pressure is not exclusive to current PGA Tour or LPGA Tour players.

Look, a better place for this discussion is here:

[Pretzel]

40 minutes ago, iacas said:

That's not accurate. They're going to shoot better than the course rating about 20-25% of the time. They're gonna shoot just above the course rating about 25% of the time. And then the last 50% of the time, they're gonna shoot higher than any of those.

The differentials… of their best half.

Brain fart, @Pretzel?

Whoops! Brain fart, forgot about the tossed out scores from the last 20!

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

Whoops! Brain fart, forgot about the tossed out scores from the last 20!

They happen. Just like regular farts. Especially after my wife eats Chinese…

[Mr22putt]

On 10/31/2018 at 12:44 PM, Vinsk said:

I don’t mean to try and shut down this topic but really...what’s the point? 

There's is no point. Ron Sirak is bored and had nothing better to write about and created an article on his website about 3 single digit cap male golfers vs. a LPGA pro.

This is a discussion forum....the OP started the thread....and a discussion on the topic started.

And yes...there really is no point comparing men vs. women in sports.