Your most unpopular Golf opinions?

[djmohab2]

5 hours ago, MelloYello said:

The cup needs to be slightly larger to reduce unnecessary stress up close and to make chip-ins a bit easier. 

 

I'd like to see short game made more important. Small holes means even the great chips almost always miss and putts outside of 10-ft rarely drop. 

 

I'd rather play a game where a great putter can really take advantage of that skill by making more than his opponents. 

 

So prioritize short game skill by making it easier to get the ball in the hole?

[larrybud]

11 hours ago, MelloYello said:

The cup needs to be slightly larger to reduce unnecessary stress up close and to make chip-ins a bit easier. 

 

I'd like to see short game made more important. Small holes means even the great chips almost always miss and putts outside of 10-ft rarely drop. 

 

I'd rather play a game where a great putter can really take advantage of that skill by making more than his opponents. 

 

If you want to reward the better putter, then you make the hole smaller, not larger.

 

[itsame]

1 hour ago, larrybud said:

 

If you want to reward the better putter, then you make the hole smaller, not larger.

 

 

Not necessarily. If you made the hole so small that putts would almost never go in past 10 feet, good putters would see their advantage dwindle while the opposite would happen to good wedge/iron players, since sticking it *really* close would be the only way to make birdies, and being a 'good' putter from 15+ feet would practically mean nothing.

 

If you made the hole larger, then good putting would have a greater impact on score. PGA pros only sink 15% of putts from 20' and 7% from 30'.  Increase that to 25% and 12% and it would make good putting more likely to turn around tournaments.

 

Basically the smaller the make percentage, the more luck there is to it, and vice-versa.

Edited May 17, 2022 by itsame

[PhilsFanDrew]

22 hours ago, Captain Hook11 said:

Well you just stole mine. I got sh!t from my dad about 5 years ago for not doing it, and I haven't done it since out of pure stubbornness. It's not the Masters. We're at a muni and just shot 97 in 5 hours. Grab the ball out of the hole and let's hit the bar.

 

Edit to clarify that I don't take off my hat. I'll shake your hand after the round if you instigate, but I'm not taking off my hat like we're walking off 18 at the US Open.

 

I generally don't make it a routine or habit, but.... If I am playing as a single and I get paired with a group of older guys (50+) and I genuinely enjoyed their company for the round I will do so more out of respect.  But I never do when I play with my brother in law and my wife's cousin and I definitely don't if you are a hacker that swears left and right thinking you are actually capable of routinely hitting shots a single digit to scratch golfer can hit.

[Umpire Strikesback]

Id like to see more competition in the market for straight flight balls, like the Polara balls. If the big brands got on board producing these balls for social, casual golfers it would make the game a lot more accessible and enjoyable for so many. Still keep the balls illegal for competition, but encourage and market them for casual golf. Would speed up pace of play too. 

 

Every other ball sport has variations that aren't frowned upon. Two piece balls in cricket come to mind.

Edited May 18, 2022 by Umpire Strikesback

[garcia51694]

Make courses shorter, not longer, and abolish greenside rough. Shave em down 

[Umpire Strikesback]

3 minutes ago, garcia51694 said:

Make courses shorter, not longer, and abolish greenside rough. Shave em down 

 

As in making it harder or easier around the green? I prefer a fluffy lie over a tight one around the green to be honest 😅

[garcia51694]

 

18 minutes ago, Umpire Strikesback said:

 

As in making it harder or easier around the green? I prefer a fluffy lie over a tight one around the green to be honest 😅

Just prefer things to get more exciting when the ball is on the ground. Lol 

[HappyGilmoresBoots]

1 hour ago, Umpire Strikesback said:

Id like to see more competition in the market for straight flight balls, like the Polara balls. If the big brands got on board producing these balls for social, casual golfers it would make the game a lot more accessible and enjoyable for so many. Still keep the balls illegal for competition, but encourage and market them for casual golf. Would speed up pace of play too. 

 

Every other ball sport has variations that aren't frowned upon. Two piece balls in cricket come to mind.

Have you checked out Maxfli Straightfli balls from DSG?  They're supposedly USGA approved this year.

[Umpire Strikesback]

1 hour ago, HappyGilmoresBoots said:

Have you checked out Maxfli Straightfli balls from DSG?  They're supposedly USGA approved this year.

Yep, both a couple of boxes. They don't do anything out of the ordinary compared to other balls. Only so much you can do working within the constraints of a symmetrical dimple pattern.

[SE Gamer]

I'd imagine this one will draw some ire, don't care though.

 

I wish Tiger would just disappear from the game. He's a scumbag. I'd much rather see other players in the Majors. But if he's in the field. It's wall-to-wall tiger coverage, regardless of how he's playing.

 

FWIW, I was once a huge fan. But I'm a content of character type person. So he went from hero to zero REALLY quick. 

[mark174ace]

59 minutes ago, SE Gamer said:

I'd imagine this one will draw some ire, don't care though.

 

I wish Tiger would just disappear from the game. He's a scumbag. I'd much rather see other players in the Majors. But if he's in the field. It's wall-to-wall tiger coverage, regardless of how he's playing.

 

FWIW, I was once a huge fan. But I'm a content of character type person. So he went from hero to zero REALLY quick. 

Tiger and Phil are both scumbags. I have a feeling some real nasty stuff will come out in detail about both of them once they are gone from the game. We live in a world of rats and squealers so something will come out and I hope it makes the PGA Tour look bad as well. 

 

John Daly may be a complete mess and the biggest waste of talent in the history of the game, but he does not pretend to be someone he is not. His brutal honesty beats watching the PGA Tour polishing turds all the time. 

[larrybud]

On 5/16/2022 at 11:24 PM, itsame said:

 

Not necessarily. If you made the hole so small that putts would almost never go in past 10 feet, good putters would see their advantage dwindle while the opposite would happen to good wedge/iron players, since sticking it *really* close would be the only way to make birdies, and being a 'good' putter from 15+ feet would practically mean nothing.

 

If you made the hole larger, then good putting would have a greater impact on score. PGA pros only sink 15% of putts from 20' and 7% from 30'.  Increase that to 25% and 12% and it would make good putting more likely to turn around tournaments.

 

Basically the smaller the make percentage, the more luck there is to it, and vice-versa.

 

Do you think it takes more skill to shoot a target with a 1" diameter bullseye, or a 1 foot bullseye? More skill to bounce a ping-pong ball into a solo-cup, or a swimming pool?

 

The point is, when you make the hole larger, you don't NEED to be good to make putts. Think of a hole 2 feet in depth (so that speed isn't a consideration) which expands the entire width of the green (essentially a trough). The only "skill" would be to hit the ball hard enough to get the trough.

Now lessen the width of that trough by 50%, by 75%, by 90%. The smaller it gets, the more skill involved to hit that dwindling target.

By the way, Mark Broadie agrees with me (inventor of the Strokes Gained metric). From his book Every Shot Counts:

 

Quote

Our simulation of thousands of pro and amateur putts to a hypothetical larger hole shows that Luke Donald and Gene Sarazen were right: Poor putters would benefit from a larger hole more than good putters. Simulation results with an eight-inch-diameter hole show that a typical pro putter would gain five strokes from a larger hole; a 90-golfer would gain 6.5 strokes.1 The gap between good and poor putters narrows with a larger hole. Here’s the intuition: Poor putters have more room for improvement, so the larger hole will benefit them more. Pro putters rarely three-putt and they average about seven one-putts and 11 two-putts in 18 holes. 

 

Broadie, Mark. Every Shot Counts: Using the Revolutionary Strokes Gained Approach to Improve Your Golf Performance and Strategy (p. 76). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by larrybud

[SE Gamer]

17 hours ago, mark174ace said:

Tiger and Phil are both scumbags. I have a feeling some real nasty stuff will come out in detail about both of them once they are gone from the game. We live in a world of rats and squealers so something will come out and I hope it makes the PGA Tour look bad as well. 

 

John Daly may be a complete mess and the biggest waste of talent in the history of the game, but he does not pretend to be someone he is not. His brutal honesty beats watching the PGA Tour polishing turds all the time. 

 

The latter is a good point. I may not care for someone; due to their behavior and decisions. But if they're honest about who they are, I can at least respect them. 

 

I agree with you on Phil. Tiger takes the cake though. Because his bad decisions actually endangered others. It baffles me that a person can get loaded and drugged up, then hop in their car multiple times, and still get a pass from so many.

[mark174ace]

1 hour ago, SE Gamer said:

 

The latter is a good point. I may not care for someone; due to their behavior and decisions. But if they're honest about who they are, I can at least respect them. 

 

I agree with you on Phil. Tiger takes the cake though. Because his bad decisions actually endangered others. It baffles me that a person can get loaded and drugged up, then hop in their car multiple times, and still get a pass from so many.

I am still trying to figure out how Tiger's blood wasn't tested after the car crash. Must be nice to be a celebrity I guess. Someone should check and see if the police received any large chartitable donations from the PGA Tour haha. No way I am buying that he was just driving too fast and missed the bend in the road. He was either impaired or distracted on his phone. 

[mshills]

1. “You can tell someone’s character by playing golf with them” is a myth. You know absolutely nothing about someone’s character just by playing a round of golf with them. All you know is what they are like when playing golf. 
    
2. Alcohol should not be available during play. Save it for after the round.

[SE Gamer]

1 hour ago, mark174ace said:

I am still trying to figure out how Tiger's blood wasn't tested after the car crash. Must be nice to be a celebrity I guess. Someone should check and see if the police received any large chartitable donations from the PGA Tour haha. No way I am buying that he was just driving too fast and missed the bend in the road. He was either impaired or distracted on his phone. 

I'm with you 100% . Even if you ignore that this is like the 3 or 4th time he was caught driving impaired, the whole investigation around the recent crash just didn't add up and reeked of special treatment. Keep giving the guy a pass he's gonna end up killing someone. 

[itsame]

7 hours ago, larrybud said:

 

Do you think it takes more skill to shoot a target with a 1" diameter bullseye, or a 1 foot bullseye? More skill to bounce a ping-pong ball into a solo-cup, or a swimming pool?

 

The point is, when you make the hole larger, you don't NEED to be good to make putts. Think of a hole 2 feet in depth (so that speed isn't a consideration) which expands the entire width of the green (essentially a trough). The only "skill" would be to hit the ball hard enough to get the trough.

Now lessen the width of that trough by 50%, by 75%, by 90%. The smaller it gets, the more skill involved to hit that dwindling target.

By the way, Mark Broadie agrees with me (inventor of the Strokes Gained metric). From his book Every Shot Counts:

 

 

 

I don't think you understood my explanation at all. 

Of course if you go overboard, then the opposite happens.

 

Consider the following extreme scenarios:

The hole is so small that only 1% of putts go in from 15'-25'. Even if the best putters on tour were twice better than average (an incredible feat), they would only make 2%. Even the best putters would often play a full tournament without sinking a single 15' putt.

 

At the other extreme, 95% of putts go in from 15'-25', which might be plausible with an 8" hole. Obviously there's very little room for the best putters to shine, as even at 100% that makes them marginally better than average.

 

Considering the current make percentage on tour, it is likely that a slightly bigger hole would give an edge to the best putters. At 8" we'd be way past that, but something bigger than 4.25" and smaller than 5"  might be the 'sweet spot'. 

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by itsame

[farmer]

2 hours ago, mark174ace said:

I am still trying to figure out how Tiger's blood wasn't tested after the car crash. Must be nice to be a celebrity I guess. Someone should check and see if the police received any large chartitable donations from the PGA Tour haha. No way I am buying that he was just driving too fast and missed the bend in the road. He was either impaired or distracted on his phone. 

If the Docs did emergency surgery, they absolutely did a blood draw.  They have to know what floating around in there before anesthesia.  Whatever the results may be, HIPAA prevents the results from release.

[Umpire Strikesback]

2 hours ago, SE Gamer said:

I'm with you 100% . Even if you ignore that this is like the 3 or 4th time he was caught driving impaired, the whole investigation around the recent crash just didn't add up and reeked of special treatment. Keep giving the guy a pass he's gonna end up killing someone. 

Yep, its an absolute face, but typical of the double standards, lack of professionalism and corruption amongst law enforcement in the US. 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Umpire Strikesback

[mark174ace]

3 hours ago, mshills said:

1. “You can tell someone’s character by playing golf with them” is a myth. You know absolutely nothing about someone’s character just by playing a round of golf with them. All you know is what they are like when playing golf. 
    
2. Alcohol should not be available during play. Save it for after the round.

Drives me crazy when I see the beverage cart on the first 3 and the last 3 holes. No need for that. A couple of weeks ago I was paired up with three guys that were shotgunning a Coors Light if they wanted to take a mulligan. Two of them took a mulligan on 6, 7, 8. 

 

At least they had the decency to know they were a pain in the a** and said they would not be offended if I wanted to move on without them. I ditched them after the 9th hole and played the back in an hour. I am really starting to hate stimulus check golfers. 

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by mark174ace

[SE Gamer]

27 minutes ago, Umpire Strikesback said:

Yep, its an absolute face, but typical of the double standards, lack of professionalism and corruption amongst law enforcement in the US. 

 

 

 

While I agree with part of the above, I think it's a bit broad strokes. As the FL cops didn't look the other way. They arrested and charged him. They knew who he was, but they did their jobs.

 

Now, the CA cops? Absolute joke and embarrassment to the profession. And the good cops who do the right thing every day hate those type of cops even more than anyone in the general public.

[geesecougar2]

Except for instruction, golf social media is lame. It makes golfers look like dweebs.

[SE Gamer]

2 hours ago, farmer said:

If the Docs did emergency surgery, they absolutely did a blood draw.  They have to know what floating around in there before anesthesia.  Whatever the results may be, HIPAA prevents the results from release.

Oh, I have no doubt they knew exactly what was in his system. IIRC, they passed the buck saying it was basically up to Tiger and his people to release any details. Which may be true in the backwards land of CA. 

 

But the fact that Tiger's gatekeepers never let that info see the light of day tells us everything we need to know. If he were "clean", you'd better believe his PR folks would have been blasting that out on every media outlet available. 

[larrybud]

11 hours ago, itsame said:

 

I don't think you understood my explanation at all. 

Of course if you go overboard, then the opposite happens.

 

Consider the following extreme scenarios:

The hole is so small that only 1% of putts go in from 15'-25'. Even if the best putters on tour were twice better than average (an incredible feat), they would only make 2%. Even the best putters would often play a full tournament without sinking a single 15' putt.

 

At the other extreme, 95% of putts go in from 15'-25', which might be plausible with an 8" hole. Obviously there's very little room for the best putters to shine, as even at 100% that makes them marginally better than average.

 

Considering the current make percentage on tour, it is likely that a slightly bigger hole would give an edge to the best putters. At 8" we'd be way past that, but something bigger than 4.25" and smaller than 5"  might be the 'sweet spot'. 

 

I'll stick with my opinion backed by the research.

[larrybud]

13 hours ago, mshills said:

1. “You can tell someone’s character by playing golf with them” is a myth. You know absolutely nothing about someone’s character just by playing a round of golf with them. All you know is what they are like when playing golf. 
    
2. Alcohol should not be available during play. Save it for after the round.

 

Can't say I've ever met a cheater golfer who was honest in life. And by cheater, I mean when it "counts", not someone throwing balls down in a casual round which doesn't affect anthing.

 

#2 I'm starting to move that way the older I get.

[aenemated]

13 hours ago, SE Gamer said:

the whole investigation around the recent crash just didn't add up and reeked of special treatment.

 

LOL

 

Los Angeles media loves nothing more than bringing down rich celebs - or at the very least, making an extreme spectacle of them when they screw up.

 

If it happened in Florida, I'd buy that take. But LA? Not a chance.

[Hoselknocker]

I know "growing the game" is important, but it seems all the new golfers I've encountered since the pandemic have absolutely no golf etiquette and are very annoying.  Learn the rules and practice a little bit before you jump onto a busy course.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Hoselknocker
typo

[itsame]

21 hours ago, larrybud said:

I'll stick with my opinion backed by the research.

 

The only "reasearch" that was done was a computer simulation, and they only ran it for an 8 inches hole, which like I explained will indeed reduce the advantage of good putters.

(As someone who works in software engineering, I question their simulation process, but that's irrelevant.)

 

They used 8" because this is what Gene Sarazen suggested it in 1933, and Jack Nicklaus hosted a tournament in 2011 with those dimensions.

Read page 74 to 76. The 8" hole was suggested presicely to reduce the importance of putting to begin with.

 

Again, I don't think you understood my explanation at all.

[larrybud]

I understand it fully, I just don't agree with it. You even admit that an 8" hole will reduce the advantage of good putters. So how big do you want to make it? 36"??