My Golf Source
Attention Golf Enthusiasts! Level up your golf game with hosts Darren Penquite and Noah Horstman, PGA as they keep you up to date on the latest trends, equipment, training aids and more. Learn tips and tricks from PGA Professionals to lower your score and grow your love for the game of golf.
My Golf Source
From Ball Speed To Bogey Myths: A Coach’s Playbook For Everyday Golfers
We welcome Coach Ryan to talk speed training, wedge flight, and the stats that set sane expectations, then dig into course management that trades hero shots for lower scores. Mindset threads through it all: reframe misses, practice with feedback, and make boring golf your superpower.
• winter driver speed plan and ball speed goals
• launch, spin, descent angle and carry distance
• PGA benchmarks for 100–160 yards and putting
• expected strokes to hole out and make rates
• low-flight wedge technique and grass effects
• identity, mental coaching and practice habits
• course management at Centennial and tee selection
• Tiger Five scoring rules adapted for amateurs
• par-five second-shot strategy and ego checks
• lag putting targets and three-putt prevention
Welcome to the My Golf Source Podcast. Welcome to My Golf Source. It's Darren, and uh we're gonna do things a little bit different today. Some would say maybe opposite handed. Yes, the lefty is in the house. Ryan uh coach Ryan is sitting in for Noah today because Noah is uh eating dinner with the family and playing golf and soaking up the rays on this on the beach in Mexico. How's he doing? You talk to him today? Uh I have not taught. No hablas. Uh no hablas is panel on Noah.
SPEAKER_03:No. No, I have not uh a couple text messages, but that is about it. Uh if I was in Mexico, I wouldn't want to deal with work. So I'm hoping I'm hoping that he separates himself.
SPEAKER_00:I I just got a text from him. Now he's all I'm at dinner. Who's on the podcast? Say enjoy dinner and uh have fun in Mexico. So um you spend what 90% of your time here at the golf garage coaching, right? Yeah, sometimes 99% of my time. Yeah. 99% and the other 1% uh working on your own game. Working on my own game.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I like to, I mean, I'll do other things too. But yeah, I work on my own game a lot, actually going through some doing some speed training right now. Um, trying to get some ball speed numbers up a little bit throughout the winter. Where were you at and what's your goal? So about I started this program about five weeks ago with my trainer Scott Robinson. Um and uh average, like my gamer swing that I would use on the course was about 165 ball speed. If I was cranking it as hard as I could, um 168, 169, 70 on the absolute top end. Now I feel like my gamer speed swing is up about four miles an hour, maybe three and a half, four miles an hour to 168, 169. And my my max right now has been 176 that I've hit. So I've I've gone up six in the last five weeks. What's your goal? Goal is 180 by the end of January. As your game speed. Uh, game speed I'd like to have 75 and full go would be 80. Now we'll reassess reassess at the end of January, but that's where I'm at right now.
SPEAKER_00:With your technology and a hit on the center of the club face, what does that equate to?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so that's uh for me to get 180 ball speed. If I hit it dead center on the face, I gotta be swinging the club 120. Um that's gonna make ball speed go that's gonna make ball speed go to 180. That's the the equation. It's it's ball speed divided by club speed.
SPEAKER_00:And this is with the driver. With the driver, yeah. What does that equate to distance-wise? If I so a couple of I mean sea level conditions, yeah, let's say say you're hitting a vacuum 75 degree day, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, in a vacuum. Uh and it so like if you launch it somewhere around 13 to 14 degrees and you keep the spin down low two thousands. Uh, if you swing at 120, you hit the ball speed 180, 180, you're gonna carry that a little north of 300, uh, somewhere around 305, 310.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So, but that that can vary based on spin, hit location, launch, and curve. What type of ball you're using, what type of ball. What conditions you're in. Yeah, absolutely. Wind, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, launch angle and and attack angles uh do play a lot of role into that. So it's been really cool the last couple weeks, um, you know, really going after driver swings and then seeing the results on the sim, uh, feeling like, all right, what was that golf swing and what did it produce? What's that launch and how does that spin equate to the carry? And then try something a little different on the next one. Try to not hit it as high, for example. Um, and then see how the launch angle comes down, if the spin stays the same, or if it changes, and then what does that do to the subsequent carry? Uh, also how much is the ball curving? Because that's gonna, I mean, sometimes eliminate some of the or minimize some of the current the carry.
SPEAKER_00:So you are just a wealth of knowledge, obviously, in your in your playing ability and in your coaching ability. And I know you like to share a lot of stats with your students. Yeah. Always people eat this stuff up. Always enlighten us. Yeah. Tell us a first of all, tell us a couple stats that make the average golfer feel good about themselves.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, one of my absolute favorites is uh from 2000 to 2002. This is the tiger stat, uh, from 100 to 125 yards, which is a sand wedge, maybe a gap wedge, a lob wedge for Tiger. For most pros, obviously, but for Tiger in that 2000 to 2002 year range, he hit the green 80% of the time with a wedge. And that means that he missed the green 20% of the time.
SPEAKER_00:So from how far out roughly?
SPEAKER_03:100 to 125. Wow. So in that 25 yard range, he missed the green one out of five, five times, but then I go out and play with, you know, your average, you call it a five, call it a 10, call it a 20 handicap. They miss the green from 100 and they're upset. Right. I mean, it's like you can't be. You literally can't be.
SPEAKER_00:Uh a lot of people are ups upset if they're more than five feet outside the pin from a hundred yards.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um, I mean, on the PGA tour from a hundred yards, they average hitting the ball to about eighteen feet five inches. Yeah, they're gonna hit ones closer and they're gonna hit ones farther, but they're going to average about eighteen and a half feet from a hundred yards. And uh when you when you look at that, that's just you know, golfers upset when they hit it to 20 feet from 100 yards.
SPEAKER_00:What percentage of those 18-foot putts go on the hole on the PGA tour?
SPEAKER_03:From the putts? From from 18 and a half feet. I want to say that's somewhere in the 15-20% make range. Um yeah, I mean it's it's not a lot. Um statistically, it's lucky when you make a putt like that, right? Right. It is uh because you don't make it very often. And um yeah, that's just what it is.
SPEAKER_00:I bet those statistics really change at about the six-foot mark between the PGA players and amateurs.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they do. Um you're talking you're kind of going into like the the strokes expected to hole out um number, which is a really interesting number that I think golfers don't really grasp. Uh, for example, uh a five-footer on the green, PJ tour players average 1.26 strokes to hole out. So so what that means is they make it about 85% of the time. So they're gonna have a five feet. Yeah, they're gonna have one shot to hold out, and then sometimes they're gonna have two shots to hold out, right? You average all those times.
SPEAKER_00:Round that up. So nine out of ten putts are will go on the hole.
SPEAKER_03:Pretty much, yeah. Maybe just under nine.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And then uh the the 15 handicap's gonna average 1.59 strokes to hole out. So they're only making that putt 60% of the time.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So there's a huge difference in a five-footer for the PJ tour and a and a 15 handicap golf street.
SPEAKER_00:We're at 18 feet, that gap is probably a little bit more narrower.
SPEAKER_03:Um, at well, so at 30 feet away from the green, uh, excuse me, at 30 feet away from the green, this is like on or off the green, but 30 feet away. Uh PJ Tour player averages 1.98 to hold out. So they're up and down a lot of times, right? Don't make three very often from there, but they're chipping it very close. And then the 15 handicapped golfers gonna average two and a quarter. So they're getting that ball up and down 25% of the time. Sometimes they're making four, some but most of the time they're gonna make three. Right. Right. And so when you look at like numbers like that, uh basically I think you consider like how do you or where are you gonna leave a ball, right? Obviously, you want to try to make everything because then I think your misses are closer, but you know, are you trying to fly a shot to the hole and have it stop fast? I think a lot of people do that too much because it's really cool, but statistically, you're not gonna hit that ball very close.
SPEAKER_00:I was walking through the golf garage yesterday and watched you pick up your backwards putter or your backwards wedge and chip one right in the hole from what, about 15 yards? Yeah, yeah. My backwards wedge, my left-handed wedge. Your left-handed wedge.
SPEAKER_03:It took me a second there. I'm left-handed, it's okay. Uh yeah, yeah. I was uh, I think that was actually I'd had a little chipping contest with uh with Toby the other day with your son, and uh we we picked a little anthill hole out there for our first one, and I canned that one with a low shot, just bounced it up, rode the spine, and and drained it. And uh I think I crushed his soul on the first hole there. That was tough to watch. That was yeah. But it was a good little chipping contest we had.
SPEAKER_00:And uh I'm glad I could be a witness to that.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, it was um, but yeah, I mean, I think statistically, like when you start hitting and seeing shots lower, uh, which is something I try to get a lot of students to do when applicable, hit the shot low, make the ball roll, right? Nothing rolls better than a ball. So why do we try to fly short shots higher than we need to?
SPEAKER_00:Because we don't have confidence in reading the grain. Sure, absolutely. So we want to take the undulation out of the equation as much as possible.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I think there's a time and a place for that, right? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:But you see like a triple break going on, you're like, all right, let's just flight it and take take all those breaks out of the equation. Sure.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's I mean, really, it's you know, it's obviously all shot dependent, but like there are a lot of things that I think point towards, you know, how do people play smarter golf, uh, and just understanding like what the actual stats are. Because when we're when we're watching golf on TV, they they only show the leaders. Right. Right? They only show the people that are hitting it closer than the averages most of the time, right? It's the highlights, it's the good television, but they don't show the people finishing last on the week, right? They never show the people, even the guys that make the cut, the guys and gals that make the cut, uh, if they're finishing last of the people that make the cut on Sunday, no one's they're probably finished up before coverage is even started on TV yet, right? Right. So you don't even see the people that are shooting 77 on the PGA tour every day.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And it happens every day. I read the leaderboard and and every day. I I you know almost inevitably when I look at the leaderboard and start looking through the people who did not make the cut, there's a plus eighty in there. Yeah, for sure. And occasionally I've seen some in the mid in the low mid-90s.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, on the wildest days. I mean, I think the the Butterfield Championship they just had, I think it was was that Bermuda, I think, in down in Bermuda the last time a couple of weeks, yeah. Yeah, last week, yeah. Adam Shank won it. Um but he uh but yeah, they were battling 45 mile an hour wins. Oh my god. What's the high score on that tournament night? I didn't even check.
SPEAKER_00:But that would be uh, I'm sure up there and but you see this gap of the winner is for the four days is 12 under par. And one of the guys who didn't make a cut shot an 81 and a 92. Yeah, right. On the first two days, and you're like, wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:There was uh yeah, it looks like there were some, yeah, there are some 84s. Uh some a couple a couple high scores in the in the high 70s, low eighties every single day. Yeah. I mean, that's just yeah, that's what it's gonna be.
SPEAKER_00:So you are involved in part of this quest to help me break 80. Tell me about what we did with irons.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or your evaluation was with me a couple of weeks ago.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we did, we did the one that the first lesson, the new student assessment. And uh, you know, I think it's it's probably something that's if arguably not the most common uh call it a swing flaw, it'll just be brutally right. It's right, it's uh it's an over-the-top, steeper downswing. Um and and we address the setup to try to work on some tilts with the body, specifically upper body, and get you kind of set up in a position to be able to swing it from the inside on the way down without without really having to try very hard to do it. Like that's the goal here. It's like I don't want to that swing plane change is arguably one of the hardest changes you can make. And if you're not doing it daily, uh it becomes something that is just flat out hard to do.
SPEAKER_00:And if you don't see yourself on video, there's no way to tell you that you're doing it. Absolutely not. I think uh that that was a tough pill to swallow. I mean, I yeah, I I feel like I know that I don't want to I know that I want to come inside out. I know that I don't want to come over the top. I'm making a conscious effort to not come over the top. And I don't feel like I am, right? But I see the video and I am. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I think everyone would benefit, you know, saying this from from experience too, but uh, I think everyone would benefit from having a reflective surface somewhere in their house, yeah, sliding glass door at nighttime, uh, obviously a mirror. Um, but something where you could watch yourself make golf swing motions and not require yourself to hit a golf ball while without hitting hitting the chandelier in your dining room.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, don't ceiling fans.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Make sure your airspace is clear, right? Yeah. Um request out, yeah, request permission for the flybys. You need to get those 14 foot ceilings in the next house you buy. 100%. But uh when you can start seeing those things, you change your perception in your mind of what the swing looks like, which allows you to generate, I think, some different feels, right? So then when you see it, you start to believe it. When you see it, you connect the visual to the what's actually happening. So you're you're changing your neuropathways, is what you're doing when you're watching yourself do it. And uh, and I don't think people do that enough, right? Specifically, specifically, if you could take the golf ball out of the equation and you can work on motions at home without having to hit shots, that's how you really change your idea of what the golf swing is.
SPEAKER_00:Now, I'm not the first person to have told you this. I just want to know why. Noah's a big advocate of asking why. I worked on my irons, you literally added 15 to 20 yards to my irons. It's amazing. When I hit the ball well now, it's I I'm 15, 20 yards further. Since then, I cannot hit a wood. Why?
SPEAKER_03:Um well, I would think something along the lines, you know, maybe it's some ball position. Maybe I mean it's a new motion for you too. It's a new pattern, right? So uh I always use the analogy that you've your your golf swing from what it was, um imagine that you built a house of bricks, right? And every time we do a lesson, or every time that you make a motion in the new way we're trying to make it happen, you're taking one of those old bricks out, you're putting a new brick in its place. Now, right now you you built a castle of bricks, right? And and uh when we did your iron this is a big remodel. Well, yeah, when we worked on your irons, uh it was basically like taking a cannon and shooting it at your at your castle, right? Your cat your castle's in shambles right now a little bit. So and you kind of have different towers, right? So it's like we maybe that iron cannon knocked out the uh the driver tower for for lack of a better analogy right now. But um, yeah, I would think there's there's definitely there's gotta be some ball position going on. There's gotta be it's a new pattern that your body isn't really, you know, oh like super fond of yet, right? It's just flat out, it's it's a it's chaos in a system when the body hates chaos. So uh you're gonna always you know yours tend to revert, right? We're gonna always revert back to tendencies uh unless otherwise like constantly being checked, unless they're constantly being checked. I know I have certain things with my setup with my golf swing that I will always continue to do if I don't continuously check them. Right.
SPEAKER_00:I know at the top of my backswing exactly what's gonna happen. Yeah, true. And where I feel it, where my check is on that are knees. If they're too bent, if at the top of the backswing I squat too low to try to build some explosive power, if if I if my knees are bent too much, I know it's I know I'm gonna top it because I'm gonna push up too hard out of it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And where my wrist in the back of my hand is pointed at the at the top of the back swing, it's gonna tell me whether I'm gonna hit the ball straight, whether I'm gonna pull it or whether I'm gonna slice it. You should just But by then it's too late.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, you should just when you get to the top, every time you should just make it where your wrist is in that straight position. I think that'd be a really good idea. Easier said than done. Well, yeah, I know. Yeah, and and I mean also, you know, you can have the best day of your life one day and then the worst day of your life the next day, right? Like golf doesn't care that you just had your best round.
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_03:So uh, and that's why the game can be uh you can either look at it like it's frustrating or it's challenging or it's humbling or uh probably a million other adjectives.
SPEAKER_00:But I I just you know when I was in the corporate world in corporate management, I had the I had the CEO, he'd always say, You're only as good as last month's financials. Yeah. And in golf, you're only as good as your last round. Absolutely. Doesn't matter how great you've been, you know, years before.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Yeah. I think no, and I I this is something I've gotten, I think, a lot better at. It's uh I've always tied myself and self-worth. I've tied myself worth and identity to how well I'm playing, and I'm sure a lot of people do, right? In golf. Right. Absolutely. You know, golf.
SPEAKER_00:Well, especially when you play at the competitive level, it's it's your life.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you have you have people that are, you know, they're they're genuinely asking, they want to know how you're doing. Um so if you don't do well, you feel like sometimes you let them down, even though you don't, but you do. Uh you do feel that way. And then so I think over the last couple of years I've gotten a lot better perspective. Well, you know, my perspective has changed. Um kind of through the actually the some of the mental coaching that I've done with with Daniel.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Schuler. Yep. Um yeah, super, super smart, uh, really wise, and um can put some things into perspective that it's really kind of helped me reframe identity, which has been really nice. I mean, look at I if I use that comparison to how I look at golf now, and I I feel like most of the time I'm a pretty rational person, um, logical. And so like when I go play golf, I I play golf, I I play two, I play golf uh basically for one of two reasons at this point. Uh one's in tournaments and competitive competitive events. Uh the second, I'm playing golf with students, so I'm seeing how they're doing on the golf course, and then I could use those rounds to analyze and look at all right, this is how I think we really need to improve. Um when I'm playing rounds with students, uh you find yourself playing better because you're more relaxed and yeah, there's that. And I I find that I turn off a lot of thoughts, you know what I mean? Like I watch my students have all these swing thoughts, and they're just you know, so I mean, sometimes people do better than others, right? But it's uh they're always thinking so much. They're actively thinking about how to do things because some might say overthinking. Oh, absolutely. You're going through a swing change, which is a hard thing to do, and you take that to the golf course and it makes it even harder. So it could be frustrating, which is why I think people, you know, they get they start taking lessons and they get worse. They feel like they get worse, right? Because you go out and play golf and you're only measuring your score as this, you know, unit of measurement for if it's good or bad. And so, yeah, you're going through a change. You're going through what I said earlier was chaos in a system, right? So your body hates that. You can't commit to one or the other throughout the round, and you ultimately probably revert back to what old was, what comfortable is, right? And so you never allow that swing set, that swing change to actually like set in, right? I mean, I remember in 2017 I played a season on the Dakotas tour, and I looked back at my golf swing in 2017, and I'm just like, how did that even work? You know, because it just it was it was so timing reliant, um, handsy, vertical, not really on plane, doing whatever it wanted to do on any given day. I just had good timing with my hands sometimes, and I would hit I would shoot good scores. But then the next day it'd be all over the map. So I in 2018, um, I dealt with a little wrist injury. Once that got better, I decided that I'm gonna take a little time away from competitive golf, rebuild the golf swing. That was the second half of 2018, all of 2019. I really don't even know. I know I didn't play any competitive golf in 2018. Might have played one or two events in towards the end of 2019, but it was it was effectively nothing. So 2020 comes around. I've been working and grinding on this golf swing for a year and a half, and all of a sudden I go out and start playing some tournaments, and I found some pretty good success um here at the local PGA level. And you know, it was like, but but look at the time that that they put into that, right? That was a year and a half. It wasn't just like over the course of a winter, over the course of a month. And I mean, I can pretty much guarantee you I was taking more golf swings and doing more motions than you know, my 20 handicapped students. Right, right. And and I hope that I can like inspire them. That's my biggest thing. I think I I get this a lot from from students and from some of our other coaches. They feel like I do a really good job at inspiring students to practice because I know what it's like to have to practice. Um, I don't think I was just like great at this game. I know I've practiced a lot. Well, and that will test your love of the game. For sure. I mean, you hear Scotty say it all the time, which is super cool, but it's guy loves to practice, loves to get better. Yeah. Right. And obviously that's goes without saying you have to have that with everything. But like golf is just you watch all these professional athletes from their from their other sports play golf. Some of them are terrible, right? But then they get better and they start to love it. And they even love it when they're when they're bad, right? Because it's a humbling thing for them. They're so good at their own.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, maybe enjoying a partake in a couple of beverages. Yeah, and you're in some of the most beautiful settings in the world.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, absolutely. And so it yeah, golf, golf is a really cool outlet, I think, for a lot of people. And uh it is tough when you're going through changes to to see that light, probably at the end of the tunnel.
SPEAKER_00:I think with a lot of student athletes, you see the burnout factor come in. Totally. And and that's you know, when you're playing football and you're practicing twice a day, and then you're in the weight room once a day, and or you're playing golf and or or swimming or whatever, and and the burnout factor kicks in. And that's where a really talented athlete goes, This sport isn't for me. Because in order to achieve the level that I want to achieve, it's not gonna be fun anymore.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. Watched a handful of golfers I grew up playing against um go through that, and I heard they don't really play much golf anymore.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I grew up playing three different sports, and baseball fell to the wayside in middle school. Um more more so because it it was gonna be the same season as golf. It was gonna conflict with golf season. So I I probably liked baseball the most. Uh I was better at golf and I had more opportunities in in golf. Um, played basketball in the winter just to run around a little bit and growing up on the coast in Washington.
SPEAKER_00:My my son is obsessed with golf. Without with golf, absolutely. Yeah, he lives and breathes it. With you know, we push him in a lot of things. I am hard on him in a lot of things. Golf is not one of those. Yeah. If anything, it's Toby. You need to do two hours more school today than golf today.
SPEAKER_03:I've been throwing the football with him a lot lately here. Just you know, just do something different than different than golf a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he's got a good arm with with the football. Yeah, yeah. He loves the sport of football too, until it comes down to actually making hardcore physical contact with other people.
SPEAKER_03:Getting leveled. Yes. Never played football, and I'm pretty sure my dad's pretty happy about that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I I've been there.
SPEAKER_03:It can hurt.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It can hurt. Yeah. And sometimes your knee pops or locks up funny, and you're like, oh yeah, I played football. Yeah. That's why. That's why it does that. Yeah. So getting back to the wedge thing, and then I want to get into more statistics again, because the statistics are are just cool. Um you talk about key hitting your wedges low. If I have a 60-degree lob wedge, you can open up the club face and hit a flop shot. If you hit it with your 60 degrees of loft, it's gonna go in the air. How do you how do you fly a 60 degree wedge low and still control speed, speed, distance, spin?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, so uh a good rule of thumb. And don't you have a 69-degree wedge, by the way?
SPEAKER_00:I do, and I use it exclusively inside of 30 yards.
SPEAKER_03:You know, that's like my least favorite club. It's I love it, it's hilarious, but I love it's just it's such a I think a hard club to hit.
SPEAKER_00:But it's not a hard club to hit. It's a little putting stroke, it pops it in the air, and the great thing about it is if you're 10 yards off of the green and the pin is three yards onto the green, I don't want to be thinking I need to hit, you know, I need to hit the rough and roll onto the green. I don't need to worry about a ton of spin to get it to try to back up on a flop shot. I just hit the shot and I know the ball's gonna land and it's gonna stop pretty quick without having to do a lot of manipulation in the stance, in the swing with the club. I just get up there and hit the ball, and I know that wherever wherever it lands, it's gonna stop pretty quick.
SPEAKER_03:I would say your second shot shouldn't have left you in that short side of the city. Of course you wouldn't say that.
SPEAKER_00:Why can't you just admit that the 69 degree wedge is amazing?
SPEAKER_03:No. Um, I've never had one left, they don't make that club left-handed, I don't think. So I've never had the pleasure of trying one.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I'm sure they do.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe they do. I'm sure they do. Uh Christmas is around the corner, and my birthday is not too far after that. Okay. If you think if you're thinking of getting me some.
SPEAKER_00:I'll I'll get you one, I'll get you one of those. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Um, but going back to your original question, the how do you fly to 60? How do you how do you control the distance, the spin, uh keep it low. And keep it low. Yeah. So I mean, uh, there's a ton of factors that go into this.
SPEAKER_00:First of all, it's obviously close to club face.
SPEAKER_03:Deloft the club face, right? So different than closing, because closing refers to angles being left or right. Um, so de-oft a club face, that can happen very naturally by ball position, by shaft lean at impact, right? Um, how much handle is forward, how much more of your handles forward. It could you you could you could vary um height by by grip pressure. Those those factors, the amount of the amount of hinge that you allow, or the amount of call it release, how fast your club's releasing through the shot. Where where's your club going to finish when you're done? Low finishes, generally lower shots, higher finishes, higher shots. So, like we have, you know, we're lucky to be able to use these sims and see the see the numbers on every shot. But my my general uh target for golfers is to be able to launch their wedges approximately half of what the loft of the club is.
SPEAKER_00:Noah and I have talked about that before. That's yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So it's cool. PGA tour average launch on a on their 60 or 58 degrees, about 27, 28 degrees. And that looks like a I mean, that almost looks like a bladed shot to the average golfer because they're launching their wedges at like 39, 45, or 45 degrees. Like they're hitting their wedges so high in the air. And when you do that, it I mean, just flat out the ball's in the air, and there's gonna be more time for that ball to do whatever it wants. Wind toss it around. The ball's gonna run up the club face, it's not gonna shoot towards the target, it's gonna just go up. So the spin's gonna be different.
SPEAKER_00:But that's where amateurs like me go, the wind is gonna affect my ball a whole lot less than the turf conditions and the angulation on the green. The wind is gonna affect, say that again. The wind is going to affect my ball less than trying to bump it off of the rough and take that into account and the different um elevations and breaks on the green.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I mean, are you talking chipping, pitching, but kind of the more of the fuller swing shots, I think, right?
SPEAKER_00:Like I I'm just talking about your little 20-yard you know, I I'm only you know, 10 yards off of the green.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So I mean, I think everyone on the higher level at the higher level can hit the ball high, but they try to make it go lower when the shot allows for it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, right?
SPEAKER_03:Like, yeah, if they got to pitch it over a bunker to a short-sided pin, they're not gonna go low because then they're not gonna get the ball close, and then they're not gonna try to just guess on a bounce that's gonna, you know, land in the rough.
SPEAKER_00:Is your ball with a lower flight generally gonna check up quicker? It can because you're pinching the ball a little bit more.
SPEAKER_03:Depends on depends on turf conditions, depends on um angle of attack, loft that you're maybe delivering uh to the ball. But I mean, the the type of grass you're playing on is a widely overlooked aspect of how much spin you're gonna be able to produce on the ball. Right. You know, here in the northwest, it's pretty hard for us to get spin on shots. Um if you're not on the fairway. If you're not in the fair, yeah, if you're not in the fairway. Especially, but even if you are in the fairway, I think in the northwest, generally speaking, it's it's a little more difficult to get the ball to check. Um, there's no grain up here for the most part. So, you know, you and you go you look over at Bandon, right? There's there's zero grain over there, that's offescu or Polana at this point. Um, but those golf balls are a little harder to check, those greens are a little firmer, too. You go to the south, like Florida or Texas, and you're gonna see a lot of grain. You're gonna see the golf ball, you know, grabbing and stopping a lot. Play on Zoja, it's the best grass you'll ever play on. Um, I've only played that a little bit softer grains, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:A little bit softer, but just they're cut tight, so they roll fast, but just on impact, they're very receptive.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, they're just they're just perfect. There's just nothing to say, nothing else more to say about them. Zoja grass is the best. Um but uh but yeah, it is, you know, like the flighting shots is is such a key, I think, to to being able to control your distance. Like if you're talking more of like a you know, call it a 50, 60, 80 yard or a full swing shot. Um yeah, I would talk in launch angles that that's gonna influence spin. Descent angle is a huge is a huge number to look at too.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Um I like you can have zero spin, but if it falls straight down out of the sky, it's not gonna go very far.
SPEAKER_03:Right. And uh generally speaking, if I'm doing club fittings, I actually learned this not that, you know, not that far back, but um generally speaking, if you're doing club fittings, like I'm trying to get people to have their clubs with descent angles of you know no less than 40. Um, really 44, 45 would be awesome. It's gonna hold a go, it's gonna hold a green all day. And uh up here in the northwest in the winter in the winter, we can get away with probably like 38, 39 because it gets softer, right? Right? But if you're playing in in firm conditions, you need something like 40, 45 for the ball to come down.
SPEAKER_00:And if you're hit and if you're hitting into strong wind, dead straight into wind, and you hit a 56 degree wedge, 105 yards, it's dar near gonna fall straight down out of the sky.
SPEAKER_03:Might come backwards if you're playing at Bandon. Yeah, it's gonna happen. I mean, I you know, I think trajectory control is such a huge thing when it comes to being able to learn how to score. Learning how high, like how high you need to hit this ball. Yeah, it's important to have a stock shot, I think, for for all your clubs. But um, I mean that's why that's why I think you and you hear this in the in the interviews and in the announcers talking about it with the PGA tour right now, but that's why Scotty's so good. He controls the flight of his ball and the spin of his ball better than anyone else.
SPEAKER_00:It's funny, he's not the most interesting player to watch. Maybe one of the most boring.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. But how good is boring when it comes to golf? Boring's great.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, you you watched Tiger and the way that he would shot shape his ball.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00:The way that he would manipulate the ball flight and and his club was exciting to watch. Yeah. More of an artist. The way the way Phil Mickelson would, you know, hole it out of the out of the craziest bunker shots with a super high lip was amazing and exciting to watch. Yeah. Shuffler's boring because he never puts himself in a position to have to do that. He just plays boring, solid, straightforward golf with literally near zero mistakes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. You call Tiger and Phil maybe a couple of artists in their own in their own rights, and then I think you call Scotty more of a robot. Right. Dead center down the fairway, middle of the green. Oh, maybe I missed it. 250.
SPEAKER_00:Never has put himself in a position to just doesn't make a whole lot of mistakes, right?
SPEAKER_03:And I was talking with a student the other day about that. Just, you know, I I went out and played with some students with three with three students for the first time um on Sunday. And uh I had a pretty good round. I shot 63. That was a fun day. Okay. And it was just didn't do anything special. I had missed a couple greens. I got up and down on uh one of the two greens I missed, and I chipped in the other time. So got lucky on that chip, and there's there's definitely a little bit of luck involved on a few of my shots, but it was a boring day. Where was this? At Centennial. Okay. Yeah. Um and uh and the whole time, like you know, I played with all of them on Sunday and I had lessons with all of them yesterday. And uh kind of a common theme in our conversation at the end of it during our lessons were um, you know, how did you how did you manage your shots? Like, you know, where did you where did you hit if you hit a bad T shot, that's fine. I did I hit a couple bad T shots, but then my second shot got me back in the hole, right?
SPEAKER_00:I was and I was able to look pretty forgiving off of the T-box.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. So you're not, I mean, unless you're 90 yards offline and you're in the tiled areas, right? You're gonna be able to find your ball. Hopefully you have enough club that you can get to the green, right? But you know, like watching watching them maybe pull it, because I didn't do any coaching out there, I was just watching. That's all it was, was just observing. And uh watching them pull like a three-wood from uh side hill lie on the rough from 240. It's like, okay, well, you're you're not gonna get the three wood to go two forty if you hit it off a T and perfect. Um, so why are we pulling it off of a side hill lie where the ball's two feet above your feet and you're in the rough? You're gonna, I mean, this ball is not gonna go, you know, where you want it.
SPEAKER_00:What if you hit a five iron and eighty-yard shot versus uh three wood with a lot of risk to leave yourself a 20-yard shot if you hit it perfect.
SPEAKER_03:If you hit it absolutely perfect, but most of the time, I mean, that's just gonna be it's a recipe for disaster. You know, you got 240 from a spot like that. Look at it like try to make a par from that 240-yard spot, like a four, right?
SPEAKER_00:Well, most of us, and I'm guilty of this too, on a par four, we just think let's leave our second shot as short as possible. On a par five, our first two shots, we just want to go as far as possible. Even if it means, you know, on a lot of the par fives, I mean, I can get within if I if I can't reach it in two, I can get within 30 yards. Yeah. On two. But there's but there's so many mistakes made on that second shot in club choice where I go, had I club down a little bit, I would have left myself a 60 yard shot instead of that 20 yard shot that I was hoping for. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I think there there's something there's a conversation I have probably at one point or another with just about every student, and it's when when talking about scoring, um you know, how far do you hit your driver on average? And does that compete with how long of a course you're playing?
SPEAKER_00:Right. Okay, that becomes a big one because I'll tell you what, in the last few weeks, since I have not hit a wood at all. Yeah. I'm hitting the four iron off of the T-box. I'm still able to reach it almost every green in regulation.
SPEAKER_03:In our like sim leagues, or yeah. And and we play courses that are like about six thousand yards most of the time. Yeah. You can hit that four iron what? 220?
SPEAKER_00:220 to 235 carry.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so if I hit it well, if I if if I if I catch it a little bit fat, I'll get it, you know, 195 carry, roll out to 210.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And no, this is actually perfect, right where I was going with this was, you know, the the the PGA tour golfer, they they average about uh, I mean, now it's about 300 off the T. So when they average about 300 off the T, they're gonna play golf courses that are about 730, 7400 yards long, about 24 to 25 times longer than their T shots.
SPEAKER_00:So in our area, is Centennial the only golf club that'll get you that distance?
SPEAKER_03:Um, it is. I think maybe Eagle Point might be out there around 7,000, but I think Centennial gets you up to 74 from the tips.
SPEAKER_00:It does.
SPEAKER_03:So length lengthwise, it would it would compare to a PJ tour course.
SPEAKER_00:I hear a lot of active golfers, you know, give you know, shed a lot of you know, hate on Centennial. Don't understand why. I I I don't I mean I mean they say, oh, it's boring, it's wide open, it's too forgiving, it's not challenging, it's boring, whatever. What it may what it may be boring and forgiving in that aspect, it will challenge you in length.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it absolutely can. I mean, yeah, there's the I mean with with the exception of what there's two pawns out there when one of them's not even in play. Um three pawns, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:Um whole ten, the pawns in play from the T-box if you can hit over 220, 230.
SPEAKER_03:How far do you think I hit it off that T-box then? 210.
SPEAKER_00:I know you hit an iron off off of that T-box and hole ten.
SPEAKER_03:I never hit it in the water on that hole, and I never make double bogey on that hole. So What do you hit off of the T-box in 10? Whatever puts me to about 140 yards. Because that's short of the water. So I can have a I can have a gap wedge or a pitching wedge coming into the.
SPEAKER_00:That's true, because I've been right down by the water and I'm about a pitching wedge, nine iron in.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. But the sec so if I'm playing, you know, if I'm if I'm playing the white tees, uh, I think it's I think it's 370 yards total on the whole. So I'm gonna hit a 220-yard, 230-yard shot.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:If I'm playing the back tees, it's gonna be, I think it's around 415 to 425.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Then I'm gonna be able to hit a 275 yard shot. That's gonna put me around 140. It's not a super long par four. It's not. So And it's and there's bunkers.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe driver is not always your best bet off of the T-box.
SPEAKER_03:No, and I mean, think of your ball flight, right? Generally speaking, you hit it left to right. So you're aiming at bunkers, and if you hit it straight, you'll get over them, no problem. But the second you put any fade into it, boom, that water is just calm. Yeah, yeah. Saying, Darren, come here. So I mean, I it's that's something like it's uh come here and drop the ball and be getting three out of here. Yeah. At least you know, bright side of that is you just hit the turnstand and you were able to refill your cooler and you know at the end of the day, we're okay.
SPEAKER_00:But and then it's then it's stacked up and you're sitting around waiting and drinking that drinking that six pack that you just bought at the turn. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Looking for the cart grill on hold twelve.
SPEAKER_00:But I love I love that course because it's it's fantastic. It's always in pristine condition.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, golf course is phenomenal. Yeah, super fastest greens in town. Yeah, they uh they get them moving. Um no, they do uh their whole staff does a really good job. I think all the golf courses around here do a really good job. Southern Oregon, like it's really good.
SPEAKER_00:I love Centennial. It's it's home to a lot of three putts because the greens are so big. Yeah, you could hit a green in regulation and still be 85 feet, 90 feet for the pen.
SPEAKER_03:Yep, yep. And uh speaking of that, actually, I had when I was working with with your son the other day, we were talking about um putting. We were talking about putting and putting and distance putting specifically, and how it's okay to leave certain putts short, right?
SPEAKER_00:No short putt everyone in the hole, man.
SPEAKER_03:But here you go, here's some stats. Get your putts inside 10 10 of the total first putt length, and you are going to putt l putt better, you're gonna have less three putts. But when you have a 30-footer, you hitting that putt five feet by is worse than leaving it three feet short. True. Okay. So Toby asked Unless it went in the hole. No, it's five feet by.
unknown:True.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, I mean, you know how dead center of the hole you have to hit it if you hit it five feet by with pace, right? Your hole is so small. So understanding, I think when it's okay to you know have a lag putt that ends up just short, make your tap in easier than having to stress over five footers all day. Now all of a sudden you get to the end of the round, and it's like, I mean, if there is funny, there's I watched the US Open back when I was like, it had to have been 2008, 2009, something like that, back when Johnny Miller was still an announcer, and he said something that just stuck with me. He said, There's two things that don't last in life. One, uh, dogs that chase cars and long putts for pars. So I, for some reason, that one just stuck with me, a Johnny Millerism.
SPEAKER_00:And uh I heard Tiger Woodson in an interview once, and and I I'm not gonna quote him here. I I don't remember exactly how he worded it, but essentially he was saying I would rather on a par four I would rather be in the crud and leave myself a 30-yard shot out of the out of the crud than be in the middle of the fairway with a hundred and thirty-yard shot.
SPEAKER_03:What do you mean? That's that's what he said?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he said he yeah, that when when he was asking like getting himself out of jail? Well, he he was asked about why why he hits his driver so hard and why he wants to hit his why he's focused so hard on hitting his driver a long ways. Yeah, is he said I would rather I would rather be in the rough or in the sand and have a 30-yard shot than be in the middle of the fairway with a 130-yard shot.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so okay, I I see what you're saying when it comes to like his t-shot selection. Right. Yeah, so no, that's or on a power five is second shot. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Tiger's actually got a great little scoring method, if you've never heard of it, called the Tiger Five. You ever heard of this? No. It's basically when you look at rounds of golf, it's what Tiger would do. He would go back and after the round, uh, use these five categories. And uh, and I'm gonna use kind of six like a tiger, tiger five plus one, so six categories. But you can basically pinpoint all the strokes that you left out there. Um think of a round that maybe one of you know, think of one of your better rounds that you've ever played. You're still gonna have strokes that you think, man, I should have, I should have saved those. I didn't need to spend those, right? I shouldn't have done that. I should have yeah, yeah. It's always gonna happen, even on your best round in your life. So, number one is of the Tiger Five, and here we're gonna do the Tiger Six rules of scoring, no bogeys on par fives, right? When you want to start, when you start getting your scoring down um to a to a single digit handicap level, and and some of these are gonna apply to you, even being at what are you right now? A 14, 15, 16 handicap.
SPEAKER_00:If if my handicap fluctuates, okay.
SPEAKER_03:Well, we got it fluctuates weekly. Yes, I'm I'm low teens. Low teens. Okay, so so no no bogies on par fives is number one. Get out of your par fives with pars. Um play plain and simple. The better you are, be finish under par on par fives, but never bogey. Uh number two, no double bogeys, right? So minimizing your big numbers takes two times the amount of birdies to make up for a double than it does for a single bogey, right? That's two versus one.
SPEAKER_00:But eagles are few and far between.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. No, you're very, very rare. So um yeah, figure out ways to avoid doubles. Uh number three, no three putts, right? This goes into distance control putting. This goes into good chipping. Oh, and chipping, but hopefully you're not three putting after after chipping it around the green, right? That'd be a pretty poor chip, but yeah, absolutely. Uh number four, no bogeys with a nine iron or less into the green in regulation.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So be good with your scoring clubs. Your nine-iron, pitching wedge, eight iron, uh, nine-iron pitching wedge, gap wedge, sand wedge, lob wedge. Okay, be great with those clubs. I don't need you to hit a green with a seven iron. I need you to get a ball around the green with a seven iron.
SPEAKER_00:And I need you to hit a far enough T-box shot on a par four to not need a seven iron.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, for sure. I mean, uh yeah, absolutely. There's you know, I was I was kind of getting into it earlier, but like for you to hit uh like for for the average average golfer who drives it about 245, for them to play a golf course where they would have comparable clubs coming into holes as PGA Tour players would playing from 7,400 yards, the guy who hits it 245 should play a 6,000 yard golf course.
SPEAKER_00:White T's at most courses. Yeah, most, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And but like you Centennial just up the road, for example, white T's are about 63, 6,400 yards. So that means just to compare yourself to uh having the same clubs in the par fours as the tour player, you have to hit the ball about 260. But how many players play the white tees and they're hitting it 210 off the T?
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And then they're gonna shoot 92 or whatever because they're just not gonna get to par fours and two. We're not getting up. There's no par four on the PGA tour where players can't get the.
SPEAKER_00:The only par four at Centennial that I really struggle reaching in two from the white tees is 18. That's a hard hole. Yeah, well, you got bunkers down the right and you got Drabble up the left. I I know they say hole three is the highest handicapped par four in the area.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I I'll take hole three any day of the week over 18.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, 18's a hard one. I mean, it always plays it's 440 from the white tees. It's into the wind most of the time. Um you're landing a ball. You're landing the ball. One of the two, yeah. See in stars. Hit two balls, see three balls, hit one. Um, yeah. So I mean, there are, yeah, they're and they're, you know, like that for that. There's like there are certain holes that just you know set up to people's eyes poorly or better, you know. Worse or worse or better. Um, number five on the Tiger Five turns into no blown easy saves. So that's like an easy chip from off the green. And I know that's a relative thing, but so you're chipping from three feet off the green to a flag that's 20 feet away from you.
SPEAKER_00:You should get it. You better walk out that.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you should get the ball up and down, right? So two shots expected to hold out from there. That's an easy up and down. It's not a pitch over a bunker, that's not an easy up and down, but those would be easy up and downs to whatever you'd classify. And the final one is no penalty strokes, right? So, so think about let me let me tie a couple things that you said in a little bit ago, that like whole tenant centennial, right? Where there is water up the right, it's 220 off the T. You have bunkers off the left that are about 200 off the T. You can play from the bunkers, that's okay, but you can't play from the water. Now, reference what you said about Tiger, how Tiger would hit, he'd rather hit driver and bot and be 30 yards out from the junk than uh lay back to 135.
SPEAKER_00:In the middle of the fairway.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So that junk must be playable, right? Maybe that's just longer rough. It's not water though, right?
SPEAKER_00:And those guys practice out of the junk like nobody else.
SPEAKER_03:Always, yeah. And so when you're when you're looking at how you're breaking down a hole off the T-box, like I like to look at, I mean you go go from the green backwards, right? Some people go from the T forwards, but go from the green backwards. Where's the flag at? Maybe what's my angle that I want to have coming into this hole. If I have bunkers that are guarding the right side of the green and the pins on the right, I might want to come in from the left and then be able just to hit it. A nice safe shot over to the left, not safe, but a smart shot over to the left side of the of the green, on the green, hopefully. But you know, I'm not staring at those bunkers from the right side of the fairway if I was approaching the green, right? So now I see the flag on the right, there's bunkers on the right, I'm trying to hit a T shot down the left, left center, maybe, and then you know, if but if there's a bunker down the left or water down the left, obviously plans will be changed.
SPEAKER_00:So even if you're a 20 handicapped golfer, it is critically important to look at your scorecard, look at your yardage, know the shape of the hole you're on, know the distance of the par four you're on, even though you know you're not gonna reach it from the T-box. Yeah. I mean, because that's gonna play into the strategy you use if it's only a 305-yard par four. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean the job.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, 100%.
SPEAKER_00:It's gonna be it's gonna be a 56 degree or a gap wedge out.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, I think the uh the you know, the 20 handicappers got a you know, they got their own um they have their own battles uh that the you know the professional golfer doesn't have. But but at the same time, you know, just think if you if you took the Tiger V and you adjusted it slightly for for the for the 18 handicap for the bogey golfer. Say instead of no bogeys on par fives, no doubles on par fives. Instead of no double bogies, say no triple bogies, right? Um instead of no three putts, no more than one three putt, right? Like modify it based on on skill. Um no bogies with nine iron or less into the green. Maybe that's saying when you have a a nine iron or less into the green, your goal should be the balls in the hole in four shots from there. At most, but maybe it's it really should be three, right? That would be the goal. Because but the but the goal, I mean, it being three, that would be what a PJ tour player would do. If they're making a part with a nine iron or less, they're making a three from the fairway, right? Um no blow, no, no, no penalty strokes, that's gonna be a hard one for the 20 handicapper.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Um, but at the same time, you know, you can modify these rules, and uh when you're done, yeah, look back at that round. You know, you last shots.
SPEAKER_00:It's funny too. When we watch the PGA tour on TV, we're watching highlights, we're watching little snippets of each of the you know players in the top 20. Um with YouTube now, and some of these PGA tour players like Bryson DeChambo having their own YouTube channel, and you literally get to watch them hit every single shot on 18 poles head to head with somebody else. Um you go, wow, they're not as good as I thought they were. Well, they're one of the best golfers in the world. Yeah. But you see their misses where when you're watching the PGA tour on TV, a lot of those things never make it to air.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I mean, the best players in the world still hit balls in the water, they still hit balls out of bounds, right?
SPEAKER_00:They still miss a four foot pot.
SPEAKER_03:They still miss a four foot putt. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, you know, they're just they're just a lot better at not doing that, right? Right. They're their bad shots are uh are are still very, very good. And uh I watched a video speaking, like there was a uh Max Homa was playing with some YouTube golfers a couple weeks ago, and I saw a clip where he uh the one of the YouTube guy, I think he was a uh used to be a mini tour player, healed one, he healed a driver off off the off the T-box and hit it down the fairway. And uh the guy, the the guy was like upset that he that he hit the heel. He was upset that he hit a had a poor strike. Max Homo goes, dude, that's why you never made it. And the guy looks at him, he's like, What do you mean? He's like, Well, if I heal one off the driver and it goes down the fairway, I tell myself, wow, I'm so good that I healed one and still put it in the fairway, rather than saying, Man, I'm so bad that I healed it. And yeah, it's a mental game. Yeah, it's a reframe.
SPEAKER_00:Walking up to your next shot, no matter how bad your first shot was. Yeah, walking up to your next shot with confidence and focus, yeah, that you're gonna make the best of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, yeah, the what's in I mean, all the cliches are so applicable in golf, but like what's past is past, right? Deal with the present. Um, yeah, last shots in the past. And and so yeah, I think people obviously they dwell on that way too much.
SPEAKER_00:Before we wrap this up, um run run through a couple more statistics that are interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, the uh the ones that we've talked about, I mean, the putting ones, the uh the the strokes to hole out, expected strokes to hole out, I think is always such an eye-opening one because you know, A, people never really heard of it. Um, but when you're when you're looking at like a 400-yard hole, for example, 400 yards away on the T-box, the PJ tour player averages 3.99 to 4.01. So call it a four. 15 handicap averages 5.32. Okay, so on a four-point on a 400 yard hole, 15 handicap averages a 5.32. That means a lot of doubles in there. Yeah, they're gonna make a few parts, but there's a lot of fives, and there's a lot of sixes to skew that to 5.3. From 160 yards in the fairway, the PJ tour player averages 2.9 strokes to hole out.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so that's them either hitting the green and two putting or missing the green and getting up and down, right? That's what that is, the majority of the time. But they're just barely better than it, right? They're a couple, you know, they they very rarely would make a four because that's their nine iron coming in, right? But the the 15 handicapper, and this is maybe one of the bigger disp uh disparities here, is the 15 handicapper from 160 yards away, which what is maybe an eight iron, a seven iron for the most of them, uh 3.92 strokes.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:So if they hit a T shot down the hole, down a fairway on a par four, leave themselves with 160, they're expected to average a 4.92 on the hole, right? Including the T shot. So most of the time they're making bogey. Yeah. Most of the time they're making bogey from 160 yards, but then people look at that as a major loss, right? It's the worst thing in the world that you just made bogey from 160. Not really. That's like the PJ tour player hitting it from about 200 yards in the holes, right? That's what they're doing. That's from two and from 200 yards. Okay, sometimes a four isn't the worst thing at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00:And bogeys are most common in par threes, right? Uh yeah, for the for that reason.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they they have, I mean, that's why that's usually why you have the the highest, or I guess the lowest, um, the easiest quote unquote handicap ranks on on holes are par threes. Um, that's something actually that I think is really misunderstood. Um, when you watch scoring difficulty for holes, like which holes playing the hardest on the PGA and LPGA tours, they rank them by scoring average, but they're just comparing that scoring average to all of those players in the tournament. Right. That's not how handicap on golf courses is actually calculated. Uh, people that do ratings for courses basically take a poll of a bunch of scratch golfers and a bunch of bogey golfers, and then they'll average out the scores on those holes. So number one handicap holes on courses are generally par fives or a long or a long par four. The scratch golfer is going to have more pars, you know, a few bogey pars. Yeah. And and on par fives especially, they're gonna make they're gonna make a lot of birdies too, right? Right. But the bogey golfer is gonna make a lot of bogeys, a lot of doubles. So the discrepancy or the difference in the averages of this of this of the single of the scratch golfer and the 18 handicapped bogey golfer, that difference is gonna be wider on the number one handicap hole than it would be on the number two and the three and the four. So the best example of this is Bandon Trails, no hole number 12. It's a 200 anything, depending on where the flag is, it's a 220 to a 245-yard par three. It's the 18 handicap hole.
SPEAKER_00:That's saying that the scratch golf That's a hard green to hit from the T-box.
SPEAKER_03:The green is almost the size of a football field, so it's really not the green is massive. Um, but and everything around the green is short grass, so you can put it from 30, 40 yards off. But basically, what that's saying is if you took a hundred scratch golfers and a hundred bogey golf, the difference in those two averages is gonna be very minimal.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Right? Because you're gonna be you're saying like the 18 handicapper could hit a driver up there and two putt for par, right? Right. But the but the bogey golfer, the scratch golfer could easily you know hit it up thereon up there. Yeah, and then they could three putt from 90 feet, you know, and make a bogey. So it's saying that everyone's you know, just more or less more likely to make a bogey on that hole, most likely to make a bogey on that hole than any other hole.
SPEAKER_00:Because uh the the majority of tour players are gonna be a closer shot in on a par four for the second shot than they are from the T-Box on any par three.
SPEAKER_03:A lot of times, yeah. Yeah, generally speaking. I mean, you'll you have the 500-yard par four nowadays on the PJ tour, which is crazy how common that is. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:But Bry Bryson DeSambo said something that really cracked me up he the other day. He said something along the lines of your second shot on par fives are what separate the men from the from the rest. For sure. Your decision making. Yeah, absolutely. He said that is the most controversial shot on any golf course where you're gonna struggle with balancing ego and strategy is on your second shot on a par five.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's a good, that's a pretty good comment. Pretty wise comment, I think.
SPEAKER_00:And and and I never thought of that. I just that's any other golf shot, you know. But the when I think about it, I'm like, yeah, he's absolutely right. You hit a really good drive, your confidence is high, you're like, I'm gonna go for this in two. Yeah. And you end up bogeying the par five because you make a big mistake and you try too hard and you take too much club.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. And you hit it somewhere where you just flat out can't, you know, and very versus gun.
SPEAKER_00:Now I think versus the strategy of taking a long iron and leaving yourself 60 yards short.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, it's there's a lot of uh different schools of thought would say, you know, do one or the other. You know, if you could, yeah, that we look, we've been talking about expected strokes to hole out and uh proximities from certain distances. People you're gonna hit it closer to the hole the closer you are to the hole. Right. So from 20 yards, I'm gonna hit it closer to the hole than I will from 200 yards. Um, but even 30 yards, right? From the from different distances, 10 yard increments, I'll hit it to closer spots. So if there's no water, if there's no trouble, what's your decision making? How do you weigh that process? Yeah, absolutely. Push it up there if you can, if you're not. Going to lose the ball, push it. If you're going to lose the ball potentially, if you try to do that, hit the five iron and then knock a wedge on. Make your par that way, or at least, you know, no doubles. Or up and down for birdie still. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there's so many ways, like, you know, it's on course coaching is so much fun because uh when I talk things out, I make people look hopefully at at the at the game in a different way. Um, because I look at it just from an aerial, like I try to have like this aerial perspective of how do I see the hole, how do I visualize where I want the ball to go, and then just try to get the ball to go over there.
SPEAKER_00:But sometimes will you join us again this year in the Davidstrah tournament?
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:All right, 100%. Where are we playing tonight in league?
SPEAKER_03:We are playing uh Jack's Point. It's a John Daly designed golf course in the south part of New Zealand.
SPEAKER_00:They have a bar at every other hole.
SPEAKER_03:They they might. And if you have a cool, I think, you know, 10k laying around, jump on a flight and go play this place because it looks sweet.
SPEAKER_00:It does.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm excited. All right, Ryan. Thanks for filling in for Noah. Thank you, Darren. Happy to uh bring a little left-handed influence to the podcast.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. Let's go play golf. Take care.
