DeChambeau To Decide Whether To Leave Flagstick In Based On Its Flexibility

[rehmwa]

8 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Here's a scenario where leaving the pin in WOULD hurt you:  Left to right downhill 25' putt.  Pin in.  You hit it hard enough to go 5' beyond the hole.  It hits the pin and caroms to the right.  Short uphill putt, right to left... our favorite kind of putt.  Or, it hits the pin and caroms left!  4' slippery downhill putt, breaking left to right.

Pin out and you either make it or have a 5 footer coming back... right to left, uphill.  Again, our favorite kind of putt.  Assuming right handed putters here.

If you're the guy where the ball caroms left, leaving the pin in WILL hurt you.

you hit hard enough downhill to go 5' past clean and straight (that's not too far).......that's not enough energy to rebound off of any stick and kick 4 feet uphill to the left.  The whole point is hitting the stick will soak off a lot of the kinetic energy...

the (rare) hurt I'm thinking of is more like a putt just barely kicks off the side of the stick enough to lip out instead of falling.  I'll take the rare odds of that, though (not really sure the angles make sense here even), vs the stick killing the ball to either fall or mitigate my miss

Edited November 6, 2018 by rehmwa

[Pretzel]

35 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Here's a scenario where leaving the pin in WOULD hurt you:  Left to right downhill 25' putt.  Pin in.  You hit it hard enough to go 5' beyond the hole.  It hits the pin and caroms to the right.  Short uphill putt, right to left... our favorite kind of putt.  Or, it hits the pin and caroms left!  4' slippery downhill putt, breaking left to right.

Pin out and you either make it or have a 5 footer coming back... right to left, uphill.  Again, our favorite kind of putt.  Assuming right handed putters here.

If you're the guy where the ball caroms left, leaving the pin in WILL hurt you.

That's not a realistic scenario. If it's slow enough to go in when the pin is out, it's still going to go into the hole when the pin is in. The pin will not deny putts that would've otherwise gone into the hole. 

Any putt that has enough speed to ricochet off the pin and away from the hole had too much speed to fall into the hole in the first place with the pin out. The pin itself will absorb more energy than the lip of the hole would if the ball were to bounce across it (the pin will sway and deform some to absorb energy, the lip of the hole not so much). 

A more realistic telling of your scenario would be this: You hit a putt on the downslope hard enough that it will skip over the hole without a pin in place, meaning you're left with a 10+ foot putt, whereas with the pin in you're left with that 4 foot putt.

If the hill is steep enough to make a 4 foot putt harder than a 10 foot putt, then it's also steep enough that the putt that skipped over the top of the hole will be a lot further away than just 10 feet. If the ball is moving slow enough that it couldn't gone into the hole, it goes into the hole either way - pin in or pin out. If the ball isn't dead centered on the hole (causing a ricochet to the right or left primarily over backwards), then the putt down the hill lips out instead of skipping over the center of the hill and goes even further down the hill.

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Here's a scenario where leaving the pin in WOULD hurt you:  Left to right downhill 25' putt.  Pin in.  You hit it hard enough to go 5' beyond the hole.  It hits the pin and caroms to the right.  Short uphill putt, right to left... our favorite kind of putt.  Or, it hits the pin and caroms left!  4' slippery downhill putt, breaking left to right.

Pin out and you either make it or have a 5 footer coming back... right to left, uphill.  Again, our favorite kind of putt.  Assuming right handed putters here.

If you're the guy where the ball caroms left, leaving the pin in WILL hurt you.

The other two responded already, but yeah, that could basically never happen.

[Zeph]

It is of course possible to find putts where hitting the stick can leave you in a worse spot than keeping it in, but that's for everyone to figure out on their rounds. As a general rule, you are more likely to gain an advantage from leaving it in than taking it out.

[iacas]

8 hours ago, Zeph said:

It is of course possible to find putts where hitting the stick can leave you in a worse spot than keeping it in, but that's for everyone to figure out on their rounds. As a general rule, you are more likely to gain an advantage from leaving it in than taking it out.

Far more likely.

[colin007]

I am loving this new rule, I can't wait for it to start.

[Herkimer]

I don't like this rule change.  Leaving the flag in can stop a bad (skulled) chip, so the flag becomes an aid.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Herkimer said:

I don't like this rule change.  Leaving the flag in can stop a bad (skulled) chip, so the flag becomes an aid.

The Rules change doesn't change that situation - you were always allowed to leave the flagstick in when hitting a shot (like a chip) from off the green.

[Herkimer]

1 minute ago, iacas said:

The Rules change doesn't change that situation - you were always allowed to leave the flagstick in when hitting a shot (like a chip) from off the green.

Yes, you're right about this.  I should have just said a long putt that the flag could stop.  Truth is that I'm not bent out of shape over this rule change, but I don't think it was necessary at all.  I think hitting a ball into someone else's divot is what bothers me the most, as well as having your ball be moved by the wind on a green or on a fairway, or if your ball oscillates or moves a little if you address it.

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, Herkimer said:

Yes, you're right about this.  I should have just said a long putt that the flag could stop.  Truth is that I'm not bent out of shape over this rule change, but I don't think it was necessary at all.  I think hitting a ball into someone else's divot is what bothers me the most, as well as having your ball be moved by the wind on a green or on a fairway, or if your ball oscillates or moves a little if you address it.

Many of those other things are changed too.

And divots, sorry, you ain’t winning that one.

[Papa Steve 55]

I'm just so used to putting w/o the stick in. I see me leaving it alone where I would need the flag tended though. I hate the guy standing near the hole. So I guess it will be situational with me.