MD/DC/VA Golfers - Twelve Monkeys Mental Divergence

[tungstenplug]

I generally know before I get to the course what I'm going to do for eating and drinking while I'm there. With that being said, I can't see myself walking past a create your own Bloody Mary station without buying one

[HighBoomingDraws]

If I recall, WW resells Kirkland Signature snack products!! LOL

[davechen]

Do they got Ksig 4 piecers?

[tboh]

Suggestions for courses tomorrow (other than Pinehurst)?

[dsc123]

 

 

https://media.giphy.com/media/uTuLngvL9p0Xe/giphy.gif

[GHIN n Juice]

Great save there with the avatar. That was a brief, yet epic thread.

[dsc123]

Drove past Langston on my way home and a police helicopter was making multiple passes with a search light on the course. Probably left a wedge behind.

[FAbb]

It must've been custom stamped, if they scrambled the chopper to come find it.

[aiyyer]

RIP Pete Dye. Amazing prolific career.

[Terphack]

 

Arundel Mills Costco

[dcmidnight]

Definitely feel like we stole a day out there today. MV decided last night to open the course today and tomorrow even though there are a couple projects on going on the course - and the clubhouse/bar is completely closed. Didnt matter. Wearing shorts in January is an absolute bonus. Very cool of the pro shop guys to open the course, they are all supposed to be off these first two weeks of Jan. They even had a cooler of drinks/snacks setup.

Drove the ball better today than I did at any point last year. The right leg stuff that I've been working on the last 6 months is really starting to come together off the tee. Unfortunately the fairways were so wet / greens covered in goose poop that there were absolutely no good scores to be had out there. Didn't care one bit though.

Wondering if there will be a weather adjustment on the scores posted today - I guess technically its the "Playing Condition Calculation". I wouldn't be surprised but then again I dont really know how that works. Not sure what it was like up in the Balto area but around here it was probably 10-15+ mph winds all day to and might even have gotten stronger towards the end of the round.

Bald eagles are back too, we were coming off 16 and they flew by, about ten feet off the ground.

[Gmen1204]

Choke

[2moreTerpz]

Do you mind letting us know if they do adjust it at all? I'm interested. I played. It was pretty windy and wet. I didn't play very well. I shot 81 which is certainly within my range of normal scores and my friend shot 78 which is real good for him.https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/handicapping/roh/Content/rules/5%206%20Playing%20Conditions%20Calculation.htm

The playing conditions calculation (PCC) will be an automatic calculation and can be summarized as follows:

Calculate the expected score for each eligible player.Calculate the expected standard deviation of Score Differentials at the golf course, incorporating all applicable Slope Ratings.Establish how many players scored better or worse than expected on the day.The proportion of players submitting a score equal to, better than or worse than their expected scoring range determines whether a PCC adjustment is required.If an adjustment is required, determine how much harder or easier the golf course played that day.Based on these calculations, determine any final PCC adjustment required for play on that day.A PCC adjustment is applied as a whole number.

That last line makes me think it has to be quite extreme to have an adjust. A full shot is a LOT.

[TheCityGame]

I thought I read somewhere that they would adjust up to 1 shot easier or up to 3 shots harder. I'm pretty interested in seeing how often adjustments happen, too. A full shot does seem like a lot, but for all I know, it could happen 3 days a week. Also, how this will be communicated to us in the website and app.

Typically in course ratings, I think of about 200 yards as a stroke. There's not much that can happen that can make a course feel like it's playing 200 yards longer, but I don't really have much intuition for that.

I remember when I played Pine Ridge a lot, there was one pin rotation that felt much easier than the rest. I think it was front pin on 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17 and you didn't get the back pin on 15. There's some holes there where a front ping vs. a back pin was 30+ yards difference (e.g. the 9th green is almost 45 yards deep.) AND it brought a lot more trouble into play. The 4th hole at Pine Ridge was sometimes an 8 iron and sometimes a 5 iron -- we don't get that at Turf so much.

[FAbb]

I wonder how much taking scores from all tees into account muddies the waters. One specific example that comes into mind for me is Waverly, from the back tees. For my distance, the difference between firm conditions and soft conditions is a world of difference from the back tees. Playing 200+ yards longer in soft conditions is absolutely not a stretch. From any other tee box, it doesn't really matter so much. But there are probably so few rounds going off the back tees on any given day, that scores posted from them would have very little impact.

[2moreTerpz]

you are correct:

Can determine an adjustment of -1.0, 0.0, +1.0, +2.0 or +3.0 and is applied in the calculation of Score Differentials for all players.

also in the app it shows two scores. your differential and your adjusted differential.

[vtnerf]

The tees won't matter for the adjustment. It will take into account the differentials shot on that day, then make the adjustment if necessary or fit.

[aiyyer]

Bye week and sitting most of the starters for the last game did not help.

[FAbb]

I understand how the implementation works. Just noodling on whether doing it per course, rather than by course-tee combo might effect things. A very January mental exercise lol. I'd guess the PCC doesn't amount to a hill of beans overall anyways.

 

I'll be interested to see if they'll use it to inform the slope/rating of courses. If you get a course that's seeing heavy use of PCC, something is probably off with the rating/slope.

[vtnerf]

Yeah, the worst part is most courses are on a 10+ year cycle for rating updates. Occasionally the pro will take things into their own hands and redo the hole handicaps, but that still doesn't touch the course rating. Our home course is in an odd spot now since they recently lengthened two holes and went from par 70 to 72. But it's not been re-rated, nor the handicap holes evaluated. Works well for playing straight-up, but just adding 2 to the course rating might not be accurate; but it's all we have until they come back next year to reevaluate.

[FAbb]

That kind of lengthy rating revision cycle is just like the twice a month index revision schedule - technology has obsoleted it. It's not a great undertaking to gather the data you need anymore.

 

"But we ordered 10 million scorecards this spring, and the USGA changed the rating/slope for one of our tee boxes!"

 

Here's an idea - stop printing the rating/slope on your scorecards.

[vtnerf]

Here's an idea - stop printing the rating/slope on your scorecards.

Seriously. POST IT ON YOUR WEBSITE!!!!!

It's ridiculous how difficult it is to find current ratings/slopes for some courses.

[2moreTerpz]

not printing the rating/slope on scorecards is the worst idea in history. HORRIBLE.

"what you measure you can change" - some random dude from a youtube product review

so saturday i break out the dr scholls and spray my driver face before my first tee shot. first one off the toe. next one closer to center but a little low on the face. next one way on the toe*. next one closer to the center but a little low. so i'm 0-4 on hitting the ball where i want to on the face. and i'm 0-4 hitting it high enough on the face. so i make an adjustment and tee it up slightly higher. BRILLIANT! next 4 drives were all roughly the right height on the face. two were pretty darn close to where i'd want it. two were still 1/8-1/4 inch toward the toe. It was hard to really distinguish at that point because i wasn't spraying. point is that by being able to see where i was hitting the ball it was a lot easier to really adsorb it and change it.

*the walk from 6 to 7 is uphil and even being in pretty shape you're always breathing heavy. I didn't wait for my heart rate to become more normal before hitting the shot. I hit a lot of toes shots so it's a HUGE stretch to say i did because i was winded ... but it is a factor. my friend had the honors on that tee but i'm in so much better shape that i hit my shot first. LOL. mistake.

 

[FAbb]

Why do you think it's such a bad idea?

 

Post it in the pro shop.

 

Post it on a sign by the first tee. That's a lot easier to change when you get re-rated than having a butt-ton of obsolete pieces of paper laying around.

 

Oh, and you can probably find it on the course's website.

 

And you can find it in the USGA course rating database online.

 

And you can find it in your handicap app, which also will tell you your course handicap so that you don't have to worry about what the CR/slope are.

 

It's 2020. Let's act like it, golf.

[dcmidnight]

Does anyone know if its automated or does the handicap chair / pro shop have to look at all the scores and decide? I would have to think from a data perspective it *could* be automated right? The system looks at the Saturday postings and say, OK the guys at MV posted 100 scores from the Blue Tees on Saturday, the average differential is X, it compares to Y data point - or however its done - and so we're doing a +2 adjustment. Or does it have to be manually kicked off by someone in the pro shop who says OK it was really wet and windy here today and the greens were covered in goose crap - so we're doing an adjustment today?

Not sure. We didnt even have tee markers out this weekend so we just played the plates.

Nerf there is a USGA slope/ratings DB I've always used if I cant find it on a course website. I dont know if its always 100% current but if I cant find it on a course website I consider it better than nothing.

[2moreTerpz]

should they put yardages on scorecards? it's relevant information. the ease of accessing information in 2020 doesn't mean you shouldn't include relevant information in the document that gives you relevant information.n

saying that printing the rating and slope is a factor in re-rating courses is beyond a mega stretch. it's a complete non-factor.

[vtnerf]

I've used the MSGA and USGA database before. Solid option. But would be nice when checking out a new course, when they have the "course tour" with a flyover of every hole, just add a few lines with the tees/length/rating/slope. Amazing how many course do not have this info.

 

2more...I believe what Fabb was saying is that some pros/course managers order a mega $#*& ton of cards, then hate to get re-rated because they've spend $13 on paper. Which delays the proper rating and/or the proper hole handicapping. If it's taken off the card, this won't be an excuse, and will allow for proper rating and handicapping.

[SullGolf]

The lack of re-rating is definitely the worst. I don't think they re-rated Blue Mash after adjusting the first hole significantly. I don't think PB Dye has been re-rated despite taking out tons of fairway bunkers. And even ignoring that there is a wide variety in how closely the courses actually play the tees to the rating/slope. Some courses actually keep it on the right box and it plays the same as the card. Many places play tees up by almost a whole set of tees. The amount of places I've seen the tips actually at the tips (on the right box, not necessarily the back of the back box) is minuscule. I suspect this accounts for a lot of how well a particular handicap "travels".

With years of hole-by-hole data, USGA could definitely dynamically re-rate/slope courses based on real data. And make people post hole-by-hole scores to further develop that data. I wonder how much of that will automatically happen due to the daily revision, but I thought that was mostly targeted at weather, not slopes/ratings that are inaccurate.

[tungstenplug]

From what I've read, the Playing Conditions Calculation is automated within the WHS, and will be triggered when the average differential exceeds or is below a certain range, given there are a minimum of 8 scores posted on that day on that course. It's important to post your score on the same day you play, as the PCC calculation occurs around midnight in each time zone for the scores posted that day. If your score isn't in by then, it won't be used for the calculation. I think you would still get the adjustment if you posted retroactively, but your score wouldn't have been included in the average

So if you play like s#&t, be sure to post your score that day so we can all get a stroke on our differential

Edited February 26, 2023 by tungstenplug

[vtnerf]

The Pro at OC collected cards for an entire season in order to redo the hole handicaps. And it's more accurate now, at least in my opinion.

With the advent of drones, bluegolf, and all sorts of other technology, a course should be able to be re-rated rather quickly. But they insist on doing it the 1930's way of having people play the course and judge it with their eyes. I mean, let's get into modern times...even baseball is calling balls and strikes based on technology. It's disappointing they hold courses hostage; which in turn holds the members that keep their handicaps at those courses hostage, to an antiquated rating because they don't have time to get there to play it in person. From what I understand, there's a fairly basic formula applied when figuring it out. Things like forced carries and their distances, placement and yardages to fairway bunkers, green complex protection and slope as well as pin locations. You know, the things that could be determined with a drone flyover or a bluegolf course study.