Let’s be real... sometimes the difference between winning and losing is luck

[iBanesto]

Nope.

 

The difference between winning and losing is the amount of shots you take.

[sekrah]

I feel pretty sorry for anyone going through life believing that no luck is involved. That doesn't mean we don't have the ability to tilt the odds in our favor, you absolutely do and most successful people have done that, but randomness is all around us every second of our lives and that's never more true than in sport.

[playar32]

Also have to remember it's not only luck in the final round, but also something that can happen Thursday or Friday that saves a player. One thing players talk a lot about is their tee time. If you have Thursday afternoon/Friday morning you can affecting can caught in the same storm that is avoided by the Thursday morning/Friday afternoon pairings.

[DavyC]

Is there an element of luck? Yeah. There’s an element of luck to everything. You get bad breaks from good shots and good breaks from bad shots. But in the case of the Open, Molinari played superior golf, luck completely aside.

 

And to try to say Tiger played better but just got unlucky is denial. He had his own good breaks throughout the week and on Sunday.

[Retsdon]

There's always luck involved and that's why they play 72 holes over 4 days - to try and even out and mitgate the luck. It luck wasn't a factor there's be no need to play more than 9 holes. They could establish who was the best golfer in an afternoon...

[jerebear21]

i thought tiger got a lucky bounce on 10 from the gallery. he should have bumped it left of the bunker and probably drop 1 shot. But he wanted it too badly and flopped it. It's golf.

 

What's great is we can see these lucky shots from tiger for a couple more years given the small sample of healthy swings he's made this year. Moli won it by playing boring solid golf. It was a day even par would have gotten it done.

[Dave230]

It also depends on playing style. There's not much luck in play with Molinari's game. Fairways and greens, 1 or 2 putts. There is a lot of luck involved in Phil Mickelson's game where he's going for everything and relying on the bounces. When he gets lucky, he can have amazing tournaments. When he doesn't he can miss the cut. Phil will point to his CV and say it's worth chancing your luck as the ultimate gambler. Taking a chance and relying on luck can be the difference in winning or losing.

[NevinW]

No question that luck plays a role in who wins and who ends up second. In many tournaments, if you finished in the top 10, you had a legitimate chance to win, if things went your way. That's golf.

[TLUBulldogGolf]

Tiger has been saying for many years, including about his own wins, you need a break or two to win. Call it luck or a break, whatever, but no one wins a golf tournament without a fortunate bounce or roll. That's the game and it pretty much evens out over time. It just doesn't look too even when you focus in on one bad bounce.

 

As far as Tiger getting the rescue wrapped around the shaft - first of all, the OP has the wrong hole. It wasn't the 10th hole, it was the 11th. Molinari and Tiger had pretty much the same lie, Molinari handled it, Tiger didn't. It wasn't bad luck, it was bad execution.

 

Besides, there is this thing called "fairway" on this hole as well. If you hit your previous shot there, there is zero chance of your shaft getting wrapped up by the high fescue.

 

I think that was the first thing Tiger said in his interview. If he had been in the fairway both holes he goes par bogey at worst I'd say (12 is tough). And Molinari was in the same spot on 11 and even farther left on 12 and dealt with it. You could say he drew better lies, who knows.

[duffer987]

Tiger was lucky not to dunk it on 18 on Sat, Tiger was lucky to have room to clear the bunker on 10, Tiger was lucky to bang it off a fan on 11.

 

Ball-striking like a living breathing Italian Iron Byron for two days (except the teeshot in the OP) ya sure makes you lucky doesn't it?

[gvogel]

It absolutely is.....

 

It's not something that gets talked about a lot, because people want to believe that they control their destiny. That winners win because they worked the hardest and kept their cool the best and it only could have happened this way.

 

It doesn't mean winners didn't deserve to win. It's just sometimes guys get a bad break and lose, especially in single elimination sports, or sports like golf

 

Jack Nicklaus finished second in majors 19 times. He probably agrees with you.

[naval2006]

Luck won't substitute for hard work, drive, talent and attitude. But you do need a good break. And even more in golf. And even more at the Open. The greatest players have always been on the lucky side, but it's as if the gods had awarded them for all the effort they made.

[imakaveli]

Jes, Van de Velde was very unlucy with the bounce, Norman was very unlucky Mize holed that chip, and so on...

 

On the other side, Tiger was lucky with the foot wedge of that guy in the gallery, Spieth was very lucky with the driving range drop, Stenson was very lucky his 3w at the 18 at Tronn did not finish in the pot bunker...

 

At the end it really depends if you like the player or not ;)

[15th Club]

"The [u.S.] Open is 72 holes of bad breaks with an occasional surprise..."

~ Jack Nicklaus

[Superbrit]

Everyone would have had a bit of luck through the week, no luck in Molinari smashing it down the middle on 18, hitting a near perfect wedge to 6ft, then draining the putt to win though, that took a hell of a lot of skill, and cajones!

[me05501]

The Open Championship seems to always include more "breaks" for better or worse. That's the type of golf they expect and want to see in this event. It does seem to irritate American players a bit more, because it's not as close to their expectations.

 

Whether or not a ball rolls into a pot bunker has a lot to do with where the ball started and how it was hit but also a lot to do with the ever-changing wind, the random bumps and rolls of the fairways and rough, etc.

 

My guess is that over four rounds the breaks come out close to even for each player.

[BNGL]

No question that luck plays a role in who wins and who ends up second. In many tournaments, if you finished in the top 10, you had a legitimate chance to win, if things went your way. That's golf.

 

I agree. One prominent tour winner broke it down like this for me. Rule of 20.

 

Say a field has 100 guys, 20 percent will play well enough to win. So of those 20, 20 percent (4) will putt well enough, and from that you’ll have your winner. The more I’ve seen the truer it gets.

[MountainGoat]

The difference between winning and losing is the statistical overlap of normal distributions.

[Shilgy]

"The [u.S.] Open is 72 holes of bad breaks with an occasional surprise..."

~ Jack Nicklaus

And that is your preferred type of course? Seems odd.

[legitimategolf]

Tournament golf is played outdoors with a tiny ball that gets struck several hundred times over the course of 18-20 hours/four days, traveling something like 30,000 yards over a playing field of a couple hundred acres, climbing a hundred feet high into the sky. Of course there is a lot of unpredictability.

[15th Club]

"The [u.S.] Open is 72 holes of bad breaks with an occasional surprise..."

~ Jack Nicklaus

And that is your preferred type of course? Seems odd.

 

I didn't say that, and neither did Jack. It is a whimsical statement from the greatest champion in the modern history of the game.

[Shilgy]

"The [u.S.] Open is 72 holes of bad breaks with an occasional surprise..."

~ Jack Nicklaus

And that is your preferred type of course? Seems odd.

 

I didn't say that, and neither did Jack. It is a whimsical statement from the greatest champion in the modern history of the game.

Sorta like the 20% rollback comment from him. :)

 

Jack won more majors than anyone in history. Of late it seems he feels that means anything he says is gospel. It's still one guys opinion. I truly hope he meant that inane comment to get a discussion started not that we should roll the ball back to 1910's distances or less.

[15th Club]

"The [u.S.] Open is 72 holes of bad breaks with an occasional surprise..."

~ Jack Nicklaus

And that is your preferred type of course? Seems odd.

 

I didn't say that, and neither did Jack. It is a whimsical statement from the greatest champion in the modern history of the game.

Sorta like the 20% rollback comment from him. :)

 

Jack won more majors than anyone in history. Of late it seems he feels that means anything he says is gospel. It's still one guys opinion. I truly hope he meant that inane comment to get a discussion started not that we should roll the ball back to 1910's distances or less.

 

I just caught myself, before hitting "Post," replying to you on the rollback issue. And I thought that someone might then write, "15th Club, are you going to turn every single thread into a ball rollback debate?" The answer is, "No," although I really want that fight and I want it out in the open so that as many people as possible are exposed to it. I just want it clear that I didn't bring that fight to this thread. So why don't you and I take our fight somewhere else, and have it out?

[stanger37]

in a game of millimeters, it is impossible to think luck isn't involved to any degree. Skill and the ability to go out there and perform is the biggest factor by far, but getting a break or two doesn't hurt.

[King_Slender]

Tiger can win a major, but the difference between yesterday and vintage Tiger was that he didn't need luck. He was so dialed in that on Sunday's he would just go out there an grind out whatever was needed for the win and let other fall by the wayside who had to be aggressive to try and catch him. He won a lot of those tournaments on Friday and Saturday.

[Shilgy]

"The [u.S.] Open is 72 holes of bad breaks with an occasional surprise..."

~ Jack Nicklaus

And that is your preferred type of course? Seems odd.

 

I didn't say that, and neither did Jack. It is a whimsical statement from the greatest champion in the modern history of the game.

Sorta like the 20% rollback comment from him. :)

 

Jack won more majors than anyone in history. Of late it seems he feels that means anything he says is gospel. It's still one guys opinion. I truly hope he meant that inane comment to get a discussion started not that we should roll the ball back to 1910's distances or less.

 

I just caught myself, before hitting "Post," replying to you on the rollback issue. And I thought that someone might then write, "15th Club, are you going to turn every single thread into a ball rollback debate?" The answer is, "No," although I really want that fight and I want it out in the open so that as many people as possible are exposed to it. I just want it clear that I didn't bring that fight to this thread. So why don't you and I take our fight somewhere else, and have it out?

I didn't even know it was a fight. Odd choice.

[Llortamaisey]

Everyone has good luck and everyone has bad luck during a tournament. The difference between winning and losing is how the player responds to luck. If you capitalize on the good luck, and overcome the bad luck, you will have the best chance of winning.

[golfortennis]

Tiger can win a major, but the difference between yesterday and vintage Tiger was that he didn't need luck. He was so dialed in that on Sunday's he would just go out there an grind out whatever was needed for the win and let other fall by the wayside who had to be aggressive to try and catch him. He won a lot of those tournaments on Friday and Saturday.

 

That is the thing, he's never won a major not leading going into the last round.

 

He had two shots get knocked back into play by galleries yesterday. To the point I almost wondered if people(because there are guys on here who would do this), were purposely getting in the way to a)get a glove or whatever from him, and (more importantly) b)help him out.

[SkiSchoolPro]

Agree that luck and other things beyond your control can influence your outcome, but luck wasn't the reason Tiger didn't win yesterday.

 

I do think that final results and our images of players get altered at times due to luck and and things beyond their control. Take Jordan Spieth- great young player who seems ready to play most majors and has closed the deal on 3. If DJ makes a 12 footer on the 72nd at the 2015 US Open, Spieth would be a 2 time major winner (which is still good), but also have blown more than he has closed the deal on (remember, he made a double on the 70th or 71st hole). If Spieth doesn't get a lucky dunk off the flagstick on the 72nd at his first win, then he doesn't even get into the FEC playoffs that year (which might have altered the events he got into the next season)

 

Luck isn't going to turn a multiple major winner into a hack or a 10 HC golfer into a major winner, but the guys out on tour are so close that some good luck at the right time (or the performance of another player) can affect things somewhat significantly. If Tiger wins at Bridgestone, he can thank Russell Henley for missing the cut at the Open as but for that, Tiger would be sitting at home.(Same result if Kuchar, Spieth or Finau finish tied with Tiger at -5 instead of -4)

 

While luck may even out over 1,000s of rounds, for many players, there are 1-3 tournaments a year that make or break their year. Take the Barbasol for example...guy who wins gets a two year exemption while a guy a stroke or two back may or may not make the playoffs. Getting a bit of luck at the right time can influence a career.

[BB28403]

Molinari and TW both hit bad drives on 10 TWs shaft wrapped around the fesuce... Molinaris didnt

 

Xander had three of the worst bunker lies Ive ever seen... still almost forced a playoff

 

Back to tiger... hes good enough to win a major. When he catches the breaks he will win.

 

Molinari is on fire and has been. This is his 3rd tournament win this year. He is a race horse in his prime. Hard work and no luck involved.

He straight up beat the field, hands down.

 

Congrats to him on his performance. My hat is off.