Do you think anyone has ever...

[schaperb90]

I've always thought about this. Do you think anyone has ever been under par cumulatively for their lifetime of golf?

 

I remember reading that in the mid 2000s Tiger was about 2000 under par in his PGA tour career. I'm sure he may have been under in his college career too, but probably less. But was this enough to make up for his youth when he was still learning? And future "poor" golf he may play once retired and older. 

 

This question isn't solely directed at Tiger, just using him as an example. There's obviously no way to know for sure for anyone, but that would be a crazy impressive feat.

[AdmiralPicard]

Paging Lou Stagner. I’d actually love to know more about this. 

[PedronNiall]

Someone like Fitzpatrick who apparently logged every shot of every round hit since he was relatively young would probably have the info to track this.

 

Tiger probably could as well, but I'd bet on him being under par for a lifetime and being able to tell you either way. He knows to the day when he first beat his dad as well as what they shot and I'd guess has a good enough idea of about how many rounds he played and what he shot outside of tournaments from pretty early on. Might even have a lot of the scorecards somewhere still. Even without all of that, with his insane score to par in pro events and his practice rounds during and between events I'd bet he more than offsets and over rounds he's had.

 

Wouldn't be surprised if Scheffler is under for his career considering the way he dismantled most of the fields in the junior events he played and with what he's done since.

 

Probably going to be a hard one to find out with certainty for most, doe.

[jvincent]

19 hours ago, schaperb90 said:

I've always thought about this. Do you think anyone has ever been under par cumulatively for their lifetime of golf?

 

I remember reading that in the mid 2000s Tiger was about 2000 under par in his PGA tour career. I'm sure he may have been under in his college career too, but probably less. But was this enough to make up for his youth when he was still learning? And future "poor" golf he may play once retired and older. 

 

This question isn't solely directed at Tiger, just using him as an example. There's obviously no way to know for sure for anyone, but that would be a crazy impressive feat.

 

I'd bet if you looked at somebody like Phil who's played for 30 years as a pro and probably has a lifetime scoring average on tour of under par it's pretty reasonable to say that if you included his junior golf he'd still be under par.

 

30 years of pro golf is probably a lot more rounds than he played as a junior, plus a lot of his later years junior golf probably had a large number of under par rounds. 

Edited April 23, 2023 by jvincent
Typo

[Hawkeye77]

Jack was for his career and hardly played outside of tournament golf - you really will never know how many rounds were played by guys before they went to college and what all those scores were, but I'd suggest the relevant reasonably answered question is whether they were under par for their college/professional careers and I'd bet lots and lots of guys would be there.  At any given time the scoring average on Tour is under par for just about every single player.  

[ChipStrokes]

according to some on this site, ben hogan never made a bogey and was probably -2,000,000 for his lifetime. 

Edited April 23, 2023 by ChipStrokes

[shoot4par]

It's an interesting thought experiment but not relevant. So say you make a swing change and then you go out to play 9/18 to groove that change on the course, how does it all factor into the calculations? Keep track of a three hole loop score after work on a week night? (Averaged under par for competitive rounds v. under par for rounds played for score v. under par average over all rounds ever, etc.)

Edited April 23, 2023 by shoot4par

[ChipStrokes]

6 minutes ago, shoot4par said:

It's an interesting thought experiment but not relevant. So say you make a swing change and then you go out to play 9/18 to groove that change on the course, how does it all factor into the calculations? Keep track of a three hole loop score after work on a week night? (Averaged under par for competitive rounds v. under par for rounds played for score v. under par average over all rounds ever, etc.)

[schaperb90]

2 hours ago, shoot4par said:

It's an interesting thought experiment but not relevant. So say you make a swing change and then you go out to play 9/18 to groove that change on the course, how does it all factor into the calculations? Keep track of a three hole loop score after work on a week night? (Averaged under par for competitive rounds v. under par for rounds played for score v. under par average over all rounds ever, etc.)

 

Yes but that's why it's interesting to think about. Sure someone may play bad golf for the short term to become better in the long term, but that may or may not work out. 

 

And sure it's not relevant. There are plenty of stats in the golf world that aren't relevant to much. If it was traceable, it would be interesting to see who not just had the best run during their pro career, but played the best golf consistently throughout their entire life.