Watching The Pros Putt With the Pin In…

[Vinsk]

3 minutes ago, Papa Steve 55 said:

Oh I know. But I bet you some golf talking head  brings it up this year.

Faldo already did.

[mvmac]

For those who say it doesn't "look right".

 

[Righty to Lefty]

14 hours ago, rehmwa said:

I agree cleaning up imperfections is a good thing.  But so what? It's a totally tangential item.  These are NOT mutually exclusive rules changes.  You get to do BOTH.

Fixing marks is obvious to the benefit for anyone that's seen a ball roll over a smooth surface and a rough surface.

Anyone that understand physics, also the stick concept is obviously a benefit.  Any collision bleeds off energy from the ball that already got to the hole.  And for those skeptical of this, actual controlled studies show it.  There is no downside at all for any putt (that is not mentally/subjectively based).  You have 4 categories of putts.  

1. The ball would never have hit the pin at all - This makes no difference.  So it doesn't hurt to have the pin in or out..
2. The ball has good speed and falls in without the pin.  This makes no difference, ball falls anyway and the contact with the pin just takes off some of energy.  So it doesn't hurt to have the pin in - it helps to take off the energy, but it doesn't change the result.
3. The ball has so much energy that it misses with or without the pin.  The contact bleeds off energy and the ball ends up closer to the pin - probably MUCH closer.  This is WIN situation (unless the deflection sends it sideway into a hazard of some kind).  (but in both cases I'd still suggest working on your speed control).
4. The ball is in the energy realm where it misses without the pin but falls in due to the pin - I would suggest this is a good thing.

By the way - I'm listing these in the order that I think I'll see them - only based on my own play.....no other data.

I'm trying to visualize a chip or trap shot where a very unique bounce path lines up perfectly that hitting the stick changes the path from entering the back of the hole vs hitting the stick on the way down and bouncing back....trying to come up with some example of hurt.  But every single example that might hurt on a unique basis just fails if you think of it in terms of probability over multiple samples vs just single outliers....every one.

I like how you broke it down and I see where you are coming from.  My basic premise is that that it is hard to hit the flag stick in the first place and that most putts will miss the hole until you are close enough to where having the flag in is irrelevant.  I think this benefits tour pros the most because it will likely save each a shot or two during the season which at the right time can mean a lot of money. People aren't going to be dropping 2 or 3 putts per round because of the flag stick.  I will leave the flag in because I know that good putts will go in and that bad putts will miss and maybe a rare putt will be struck on the correct line but with poor speed that will hit stick and go in.  

My comment about cleaning up imperfections on the green was just mentioning that there will be much more benefit gained from that rule change than the flag stick because you no longer even have to consult with anyone whether it is a spike mark or not...you can just fix it without worry. This will mean that the leaders of a tournament will be able to putt on just about the same surface as the first people out did and that is a big deal in my opinion especially with all the traffic around the hole.  

[Righty to Lefty]

14 hours ago, mvmac said:

No doubt more pros will take notice with DeChambeau winning again and Adam Scott having one of the best putting tournaments of his career. Not saying leaving the flagstick in is the reason why but it'll have more players thinking about it.

Yep,

Adam Scott gaining strokes with the flagstick in

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SAN DIEGO — Adam Scott has gained strokes for four consecutive rounds with flagsticks resting in the Torrey Pines cups. “You could probably stroll through my career and not find four straight round…

And just throwing this out there.

 

Now if Adam Scott perceives that the flag stick helps him to align properly and dissect his putts better that it much different would you agree.  Most analysis is coming from the perspective of a putt that is traveling too fast being saved by the flag while he is saying that it helps him see his line better and that may prove to be a big deal for him if he is using it for a reference point and it helps him see his intended line better.  Confidence in your alignments can for sure lead to noticeable and sustained improvement for sure.  We shall see over the course of his season this year.  

[iacas]

5 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

My comment about cleaning up imperfections on the green was just mentioning that there will be much more benefit gained from that rule change than the flag stick because you no longer even have to consult with anyone whether it is a spike mark or not...you can just fix it without worry.

You don't know that.

The ability to fix spike marks really only affects the shorter putts - longer putts are going to hit a bunch of little tiny variations that affect the path of the ball quite a bit (ask anyone who's had a PerfectPutter for a while and rolled a few hundred or thousand 20-footers on the same line with the same speed as others how varied their final location can be…).

Plus, pros have been fixing spike marks for years under the guise that it's possibly a ball mark.

5 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

This will mean that the leaders of a tournament will be able to putt on just about the same surface as the first people out did and that is a big deal in my opinion especially with all the traffic around the hole.  

Pros also aren't in the habit of dragging their feet or leaving big spike marks near the hole - the "brotherhood" aspects of the Tour guarantee that.

I'm not saying the putting surfaces aren't going to be improved slightly, I just don't think they're going to be that much better, and I'm also not stating it like it's a fact. I am also saying that spike marks isn't the topic here, so, let's move on.

4 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Now if Adam Scott perceives that the flag stick helps him to align properly and dissect his putts better that it much different would you agree.

That's why I mentioned him in the first place…

4 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Most analysis

Most, but not all.

https://lowestscorewins.com/tips/putting-with-the-flagstick-in

Quote

Additionally, consider that there may be times when you want to leave the flagstick in for shorter putts for two reasons. Not only do you have the option to hit the putt more firmly to take out some break, but because it may help you aim more precisely: you can aim at the “right edge of the flagstick” or even use the shadow cast by the flagstick as an alignment aid.

Adam is one of the few (for now) leaving it in for shorter putts. It certainly makes sense why "most" of the commentary is about putts that are going too fast.

[rehmwa]

9 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

I like how you broke it down and I see where you are coming from.  My basic premise is that that it is hard to hit the flag stick in the first place and that most putts will miss the hole until you are close enough to where having the flag in is irrelevant.  I think this benefits tour pros the most because it will likely save each a shot or two during the season which at the right time can mean a lot of money. People aren't going to be dropping 2 or 3 putts per round because of the flag stick.  I will leave the flag in because I know that good putts will go in and that bad putts will miss and maybe a rare putt will be struck on the correct line but with poor speed that will hit stick and go in.  

My comment about cleaning up imperfections on the green was just mentioning that there will be much more benefit gained from that rule change than the flag stick because you no longer even have to consult with anyone whether it is a spike mark or not...you can just fix it without worry. This will mean that the leaders of a tournament will be able to putt on just about the same surface as the first people out did and that is a big deal in my opinion especially with all the traffic around the hole.  

hey thanks - I'm on board with both those comments - but I don't think it matters if one thinks one benefits more than another.  Both are a marginal/situation help, that statistically can provide a little edge.  I do like the idea that fixing more types of man-made marks doesn't require the extra time to consult and concur.  But that's another topic.

4 hours ago, iacas said:

Plus, pros have been fixing spike marks for years under the guise that it's possibly a ball mark.

^ this.....so glad it won't now be a source of angst anymore for those that worry about this type of stuff.

Edited January 29, 2019 by rehmwa

[mchepp]

21 hours ago, iacas said:

R² of 1.0 or -1.0 shows perfect correlation (directly or indirectly), while 0 shows absolutely no correlation at all.

The R² value of your graph was, I believe, 0.015. So, @mchepp, not quite right. The game's longer hitters are about as likely to be a good putter as the shortest hitters. 😉

I can't view the information for some reason. Was this from one tournament, year, complete careers? Shots gained putting at one tournament is going to be unrepresentative. Adam Scott just finished T11 in shots gained on the greens after spending the last 2 years at well over 100 for the complete year. It would be useful to at least view a players yearly stats. 

This is probably off topic as @klineka said. So I will concede.

[iacas]

26 minutes ago, mchepp said:

I can't view the information for some reason. Was this from one tournament, year, complete careers?

For the year.

Virtually no correlation here at all.

[mchepp]

41 minutes ago, iacas said:

For the year.

Virtually no correlation here at all.

Hmm. Yeah, truly nothing there. 

[turtleback]

17 hours ago, Papa Steve 55 said:

Oh I know. But I bet you some golf talking head  brings it up this year.

Faldo already did bring it up.  But he is an idiot and is worried about his course records.

Seems to me that before anyone starts making ridiculous proposals we should let the data accumulate for a while, and then see what it says.

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions. John Ruskin

IOW, to puncture BS.

[Buckeyebowman]

On 1/28/2019 at 8:23 AM, iacas said:

"More likely" isn't 100%, and you seem to be giving no weight to the idea that the flagstick helps people align or changes their perception in a positive way, like Adam Scott demonstrated this weekend at Torrey Pines.

My recommendations don't include "leave the flagstick in for short putts," but they do allow for the possibility that they can help with alignment or a "take the break out of it" type situation.

From 25-40 feet last year on the PGA Tour, there were 35,465 putts. Of those, 18,758 finished long. But again, of the 35,465, 17.9% finished more than 29" past and 8.3% (almost 3,000 putts just from 25-40') finished outside of 59 inches past the hole.

In fact, in 2018, on all putts outside of 10', roughly 11,000 finished 4' or further past the hole.

Would you care to revise your statements?

Hmmmmm.

So, just how many putts were there outside of 10'? I see your figure of 35K+ from 25-40'. There had to be a heck of a lot more than that outside 10'. A little thought would examine 3,000 putts from 25-40' finishing nearly 5' past the hole, and comparing that to roughly 11,000 of all putts outside of 10' finishing 4' or further from the hole, leading one to believe that the pros really suck when putting from 10' to 25'. I would have expected better from them.

I realize that this is a superficial, and incorrect, assessment. But, I think a complete statistical breakdown might be illustrative. 

Sorry, don't mean to be handing you more work to do, but I figure that work may already have been done and you're the guy who knows where to find it.  

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

Sorry, don't mean to be handing you more work to do, but I figure that work may already have been done and you're the guy who knows where to find it.  

I do.

The point here isn't how good or bad PGA Tour pros are at putting. We know these stats already.

[Righty to Lefty]

A test that shows that the flag stick in is a disadvantage especially when the flag stick is grazed by the ball. It isn't an open and shut case. 

Edoardo Molinari conducts pretty scientific putting/flagstick experiment — and the results may surprise you - Golf Digest

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This is the video where Molinari is explaining more about how the test was conducted (10:06 is the timestamp):

 

Edited January 30, 2019 by Righty to Lefty
Added Information

[boogielicious]

4 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

A test that shows that the flag stick in is a disadvantage especially when the flag stick is grazed by the ball. It isn't an open and shut case. 

Edoardo Molinari conducts pretty scientific putting/flagstick experiment — and the results may surprise you - Golf Digest

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This is the video where Molinari is explaining more about how the test was conducted (10:06 is the timestamp):

 

 

Being that there are no real details about how the test was set up, "pretty" scientific may not pass peer review scrutiny.

In order to do a real "scientific' test you need to do a few thing. A few Design of Experiments principles are below:

1. Identify the independent variables.
2. Block other variables in test set up to make sure the testing does not disturb the test environment. 
3. Have a large sample size.
4. Randomize the testing to eliminate unknown variables such as time of day, temperature, wind, etc.
5. Test the hypothesis statistically.

With out seeing the actual details of their testing, it would be difficult to access their results as valid. Without seeing the actual hypothesis testing, we can't even determine if their results actually showed what they think it showed.

I have done hundreds of DoE BTW.

[Righty to Lefty]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

Being that there are no real details about how the test was set up, "pretty" scientific may not pass peer review scrutiny.

In order to do a real "scientific' test you need to do a few thing. A few Design of Experiments principles are below:

1. Identify the independent variables.
2. Block other variables in test set up to make sure the testing does not disturb the test environment. 
3. Have a large sample size.
4. Randomize the testing to eliminate unknown variables such as time of day, temperature, wind, etc.
5. Test the hypothesis statistically.

With out seeing the actual details of their testing, it would be difficult to access their results as valid. Without seeing the actual hypothesis testing, we can't even determine if their results actually showed what they think it showed.

I have done hundreds of DoE BTW.

I just put the information out there that I came across and of course we can all do with it what we wish.  His description in the course vlog would lead me to believe that they were gathering some valid results upon listening him explain it.  It would then be difficult to properly explain it in a quick instagram video I would think.  

[iacas]

We addressed this already, and Edoardo's test is the only one whose results are different, and there's enough statistical evidence on the other side to ask what's different about his test first, rather than concluding that his is right and exposes some giant flaw in the others.

A big part of that flaw is the speeds and limits of his testing. At his fastest speed, he was still able to make 81% of the putts at the center of the cup, so that limited the gains there to 19% when they could have been upwards of 70, 80, 90% even.

To make 38% 1" off center ("grazing the flagstick") at their medium speed, it was still pretty low speed.

So Edoardo's test, conducted from far enough from the hole that I have doubts about their entry point accuracy (and if they did 100 putts from each, in which order did they do them? Did they move to fresh holes? They appear to have used the same hole from the same place all day, rather than at least using different edges of the hole, or different holes), only really tested lower speed putts, when even at 6' by speed 1/2" off the center of the hole, almost no putts went in without the flagstick in.

Edoardo basically confirms this when he says to Mark Crossfield: "In is better only for very high speeds, so if you hit a putt that goes four or five feet by". He's defining "very high speed" as "four or five feet by." He also talked about how "especially when the flagstick isn't straight in," implying that his flagstick was leaning throughout his testing (implying, not confirming).

And, as we know, PGA Tour players don't all have great speed on all their putts, and hit a fair number of them over 4' by the hole. Amateurs even less so.

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You're eager to accept his results and exclude the others because you're biased. You want to "prove us wrong" about something here.

What you don't seem to understand is that, as a scientist, I'm not biased. I go where the data leads me, and right now the data says "leave it in when you're not sure you will be within 3' of the hole". I don't even care about the 9' by results from, say, MyGolfSpy or Dave Pelz, as that's getting ridiculous.

[saevel25]

Yea, with out knowing his methodology, it's hard to say if there is some variable causing his putts to react differently than other experiments.

As of right now, I am going with what Erik, Pelz, and other test that have similar results through similar testing. What Edoardo's results should have done is give him pause, and that maybe he should look into why his results were different than the consensus and review his test procedures.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, saevel25 said:

As of right now, I am going with what Erik, Pelz, and other test that have similar results through similar testing. What Edoardo's results should have done is give him pause, and that maybe he should look into why his results were different than the consensus and review his test procedures.

I honestly don't think the answer is any more than that Edoardo's tests were done with speeds that sent the ball < "4 or 5 feet by" the hole, or "very high speeds" as he calls them.