Putting with the Flagstick In? - New 2019 Rules

[mvmac]

We kept the flag in for the entire round today. Definitely saves a little time. Helped me at least once on a short putt that I played firm. Same thing for another guy who's a good player. Regardless of whether it helped me or not I prefer it visually.

[dennyjones]

7 hours ago, mvmac said:

Regardless of whether it helped me or not I prefer it visually.

this for me will be the major reason I will leave the flag in.   Anything that helps me get the ball rolling on the right path will help my putting.  

[Bill Fusion]

Played Saturday and left the pin in except on short 2-3ft putts.  I found it distracting at that distance.  

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Bill Fusion said:

Played Saturday and left the pin in except on short 2-3ft putts.  I found it distracting at that distance.  

FWIW from 2-3 feet your speed should not be so bad that you will gain any advantage from leaving the flagstick in. So do what you want from that range.

Putting with the Flagstick In | Lowest Score Wins .com

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Dave Pelz published an article today in which he says this: The test results were conclusive: You will hole a higher percentage of putts when you leave the flagstick in. The hits just keep on comin…

The 95% certainty should be met on a 2-3 foot putt… 🙂

Others will like the flagstick in even from short ranges as it gives you more precision in aiming.

[p1n9183]

I know math said that it´s an advantage leaving the flag in on the green but how much per round?
Could you save a stroke each round, half a stroke or just 0,005 stroke that makes it insignificant?

My point is that.. on short putts (3/10 feet) it doesn´t help despite hitting the hole/flag more often, Even Bryson take the flag out on those. On mid ranges (15/30 feet) it help a little beacuse good speed it´s a little harder to achive but in the other hand at that range you are not going to hit the hole/flag on most shots. On long putts (+30 feet) is going to help you even more because speed is really hard to achive but on long putts hitting the hole/flag is even harder.

Despite that I´m leaving it in on long/mid putts to speed up the round.
  

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, p1n9183 said:

I know math said that it´s an advantage leaving the flag in on the green but how much per round?

Depends on the player and the situations in which they find themselves.

[phillyk]

2 minutes ago, p1n9183 said:

I know math said that it´s an advantage leaving the flag in on the green but how much per round?
Could you save a stroke each round, half a stroke or just 0,005 stroke that makes it insignificant?

My point is that.. on short putts (3/10 feet) it doesn´t help despite hitting the hole/flag more often, Even Bryson take the flag out on those. On mid ranges (15/30 feet) it help a little beacuse good speed it´s a little harder to achive but in the other hand at that range you are not going to hit the hole/flag on most shots. On long putts (+30 feet) is going to help you even more because speed is really hard to achive but on long putts hitting the hole/flag is even harder.

Despite that I´m leaving it in on long/mid putts to speed up the round.
  

For me, the only math I would want to know is that leaving it in helps. Why? It take absolutely no extra work to leave it in and gain that extra fraction of a stroke.  Most of the time when we talk about strokes gained/lost, it involves a skill that must be practiced.  This strokes gained takes little to no practice or time (might take a little time to get used to).

[iacas]

1 minute ago, phillyk said:

For me, the only math I would want to know is that leaving it in helps. Why? It take absolutely no extra work to leave it in and gain that extra fraction of a stroke.  Most of the time when we talk about strokes gained/lost, it involves a skill that must be practiced.  This strokes gained takes little to no practice or time (might take a little time to get used to).

Right.

Look, I'm a really, really good putter. My speed control even from 50' is often really, really good.

But since there's no disadvantage, taking it out only ever removes an advantage. Even if it helps me once or twice this year only, it'll have been worth it.

Plus, again, I recommend leaving it in to help with depth perception (which is part of the reason I recommended having it tended in this very topic, too) and even on shorter putts for alignment/aiming.

P.S. It's also not just about make %, but if you hit a putt and it goes 3'+ past the hole, there's a chance you'll be left with a tap-in instead of a possible three-putt.

[Piz]

It is not uncommon that the shadow cast by the flag stick helps as well.

[rehmwa]

36 minutes ago, phillyk said:

Most of the time when we talk about strokes gained/lost, it involves a skill that must be practiced.

I'll put in the work to get that advantage.

Yesterday, in fact, I probably practiced not pulling a flagstick hundreds of reps.  I'll likely do that today too.  It's even something one can practice in the winter.

(I have to say, this is likely the most reproducible skill in my entire game already - I'm really, really, good at it).

45 minutes ago, p1n9183 said:

Even Bryson takes the flag out on those.
  

and he's probably wrong to do so - but they'll all get comfortable eventually

(Bryson's putts all looked like they had good speed and would have fallen anyway.....so what?  the math still applies.  IMO the biggest advantage, frankly, is our near misses will have significantly shorter comeback putts.)

[Double Mocha Man]

1 hour ago, phillyk said:

This strokes gained takes little to no practice or time (might take a little time to get used to).

For those who may not know, there's a "Strokes Gained Calculator" web site to run the numbers on your putting (not tee to green).  You plug in your handicap, the lengths of your putts and number of putts per green.  Say you're a 6 handicapper... it compares you against the field of 6 handicappers, plus or minus strokes you gained (or didn't) on that field of golfers.  It gives you a really good idea of how well you putted that day.

Strokes Gained Calculator

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Use this tool to calculate the strokes gained metric for any round of golf. Track your putting improvement.

 

[mvmac]

Right it doesn't matter how much it will help, what's important is that it will help. You've got nothing to lose by leaving it in.

[klineka]

Hopefully this link works since it's on Instagram TV, but a little more detail into Bryson's thought process about leaving the flagstick in and also when he plans on taking it out.

 

[iacas]

 

[rehmwa]

Adam's quote is spectacular

[iacas]

I'm sharing this in the interest of remaining open here. A few thoughts:

• These results do not align with any other results I've seen.
• These results come from a relatively small sample size.
• These results really don't change my advice, which is still at https://lowestscorewins.com/tips/putting-with-the-flagstick-in.
• I'm not very certain that they were very scientifically accurate here. If they could hole 81% of their putts hitting the middle half inch of the hole on that green, the ball wasn't rolling too fast. This skews the results to look worse than they are because there's "only" a 19% increase in the one category… because the highest it could go is to 100%. If they rolled it at a speed where 20% of those putts missed, but 98% went in with the flagstick, that's a 78% increase.
• Remember, too, we only care about the putts inside these rectangles:

Those are the putts that hit the hole. Better putters and shorter putts are going to result in a higher percentage of all putts hitting the hole, and longer putts and worse putters hit the hole less often. They also have a larger variance in speed.

And, we can further narrow that down by chopping off the outer 1" of every hole (actually 1.035") because the ball won't touch the flagstick if the center of the ball rolls outside of these red lines. This further reduces the % of putts on which the flagstick will have an effect.

In other words… let's not get too worked up about this. Given that for moderate speeds, testing so far seems to indicate that there's no real advantage or disadvantage, and for long-distance putts the advantage is clear… but people rarely hit the hole from longer ranges, this is going to affect a relatively small number of putts per year.

Still my advice remains the same: the flagstick is overall a net advantage.

I'm likely going to advise my college players to put it in on putts outside of 20', and/or trickier putts on slopes.

[Rulesman]

On 1/5/2019 at 10:47 PM, iacas said:

Thanks, Doug. We posted that one here a bit ago:

 

Here's another one

TESTED: Flagstick In (vs) Flagstick Out?

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Should golfers leave the flagstick in or take the flagstick out? {VIEW RESULTS}

 

[phillyk]

51 minutes ago, Rulesman said:

Here's another one

TESTED: Flagstick In (vs) Flagstick Out?

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Should golfers leave the flagstick in or take the flagstick out? {VIEW RESULTS}

 

I like a couple points from this. On off-center strikes at 3ft speed (even 6ft), leaving it in made a huge difference. I think people confuse this flagstick rule in thinking only about center strikes.  I always have to ask them about non center strikes, because I think that's where most putts end up. The other point is that even a firmer pole gives an advantage, and this was the area where more people would start taking it out.