Or how pros always prefer uphill putts. But Ship is going bananas about how slight variations from your line in uphill putts hurt you while downhill putts revert to the starting line. How come pros don't prefer down hill putts, and certainly if they have the choice they would want to add some break. They definitely should want a downhill breaker on the last hole to win the Masters rather than a relatively straight uphill putt.


Or hoe about how lots of pros hit putts intentionally harder in a lot of scenarios just to take some of the break out. While this is a flawed approach as you shrink the hole size when you increase your speed(aka more lipouts) it's interesting to note that if given the choice they apparently would prefer a putt that breaks less, not more.

Yeah I brought up "taking out the break" about 200 posts ago and he of course didn't respond to it. There is a lot of stuff he won't respond to.

Horrible choice of words on my part. Over the years my trivia team has had half a dozen active members both male and female with alternative lifestyles. Never been an issue with anybody, if it was the offended party would be quickly kicked off the team.

My academic career is not relevant to this thread, even if I'd attended MIT some people ITT would still degrade my math skills. Not that I care, it's just funny at times.

BO

Wrongfully banned by the exact same person who banned ship ITT?

Not really sure how winning 1up in 37 holes qualifies as "owned". Regardless, stads has far outplayed Fox since their match.

BO

That really is funny in a lot of different ways. The ways you stated, but also the fact that he had an opportunity to go to the best technical school in the world, but instead went to Missouri.. To play golf. You'd think he could have found somewhere else to play golf, like... Maybe Yale, or Princeton, Duke, etc... Or just forgone golf since it is an individual sport which doesn't much rely on being in a mediocre college program to progress one's talents.

But hey, he passed up a chance to learn physics, math, and computer science from the greatest minds in the world to be a Golden Gopher! He must be brilliant.

Talk about a derail, my choice was what ship was talking about upthread, chasing a dream. And that can be more important than money. Unlike Duke(since you mentioned them), Mizzou guaranteed me a spot on the team, the only D1 school to do so.

BO

I am told that their are D3 schools in golf (Methodist) that are actually better than some D1 schools. Perhaps the coach was exceptional at Mizzou, but I don't see how the division your in really matters in golf. Wouldn't it be more of an advantage to be in a climate that allows you to practice year round? It's sort of like if you were a distance runner. Does it matter if you're at a D1 school, or would you just rather being in CO running at altitude?

I will say this, though.. If you were accepted to MIT, that's impressive, just as being a +6 handicap is impressive. A +6 is impressive like being able to run a mile in 4:20 minutes, very few people can do it, but enough can so that it's actually worthless. I also have little doubt that had you gone to MIT, it wouldn't have mattered, except now with telling people you 'could have gone to MIT and double majored', instead you would instead be finding a way to tell people you actually went there. 'Oh you're having a coffee.. that's nice, I used to drink a lot of coffee studying for finals at MIT.'

So you chose to be in atmosphere of 2-3 good golfers as opposed to 10,000 of the best scientists?

I wish I could put a lot of money on a true 25-handicap beating what BO imagines is an 18-handicap.

Obviously don't quit, Ship. Dumb you got banned, as you weren't posting in bad faith.

I've heard of the "some of my best friends are gay" defense but not the "some of my best trivia team members were gay".

Nobody think you are a homophobe - settle down BrO.

It's hard to blame us when you think 20+20=20.

Exactly. This point is something very few understand, most think +6 is PGA Tour caliber. As the commercial says, these guys are good.

But you know what? I tried to play competitive golf and wasn't good enough, but I can still attend MIT if I wish.

But enough about this, let's get back to 100ft putts and straight vs. breaking.

BO

BO, it's clear that you're good at golf and a smart individual. Your problem is that you aren't applying the proper evidence to relevant situations. Thus, the incorrectness of most of your arguments in this thread.

Still, you've been almost more correct than ship actually, so credit where credit is due.

BO I got accepted to Harvard. Does that make me a genius?

It definitely means you're not stupid, and depends on your definition of genius.. And also depends whether or not you got in based on being an exceptional athlete.

No, you are not correct in what my thought process is. AGAIN, on a 100 foot putt a dead straight putt requires an almost impossibly square putter face. I do not think a standard bogey golfer has the ability to perfectly square a blade on a consistent enough basis to make the putt more often than taking a putt that, as you agree has more lines and speeds to arrive at the hole. I’m sure those of you new to the thread have skimmed more than anything so there’s the crux. I do agree that there is a higher premium placed on speed, but the sum of probabilities is larger for the SLIGHTLY BREAKING 100’ PUTT.

I understand your question, but I'm not sure why you think I say the breaker only exists in reality. I'm saying the straight putt only exists in theory. Obviously there isn't a perfectly flat 100' putt anywhere. What I've been trying to do for the last few days is steer the discussion to show that we can in fact get a pretty close estimate of what any skill level would make on a dead straight dead flat putt.

To expand on the probability exercise above I’ve stated I’d expect a 6-7 foot window on either side of the hole by a bogey golfer. NXT thinks it will be much smaller even though in his picture of his trial he has about a 10’ wide spread of putts, not to mention half of the 10’ putts in the Exeter experiment on a perfect surface were missed by college golfers. Let’s settle on a 5’ window on either side. If you think that is too wide you are clearly being disingenuous. My window was probably 6-7’ approximately. So the width of the hole represents the inner most 3.5% of the dispersion pattern. I offered up that I agree this would be a relatively normal dispersion. If 25% of all putts have the correct speed then you need quite a few balls to fit in the innermost 3.5% in order to yield the same amount of makes our small trial has yielded in this forum. So without calculating this exactly it is pretty clear that the dead straight 100’ putt in a controlled environment is running SIGNIFICANTLY behind our 3 random putts. I am trying to find some SAM data for face angle expectations on this length of putt and we will literally be able to deliver the exact expectation for NXT’s dead straight dead flat video game putt.

Can you follow that so far?



I certainly could be mistaken that you were dissenting. I assumed from your tone that I would be surprised you agree with me that there are in fact breaking 100’ putts that would have higher expectation that you had been able to change your mind. I never realized you had no prior opinion.

Either way, I’m glad you can understand all this.

I fully agree that I was underestimating their odds for the bet as well as my own. I never discounted a hacker’s opinion on the bet simply due to their handicap nor their ability to rationalize the bet or problem. I did with regards to the question of which putt would be easier for sure. A Rod is a terrible golfer, as a result he does not have the ability to understand some ideas. He has the ability to learn them yes, but there are things he simply doesn’t know that are imperative to the game. Until you have seen thousands of putts react you simply don’t know what you are talking about.

That is also why I have shown the Exeter experiment to be flawed. I will assume that the experiment was written by a non-golfer and as a result they drew a conclusion that is irrelevant. Maybe not irrelevant as much as invalid. The experiment says a straight putt is easier than a breaking putt and the implication is that the results carry over into the game as played outdoors. That is flawed, again, since there is no such thing as a dead straight and dead flat putt. I do agree that in real life the results for a 10’ putt would have been the same. Straight easiest, the small break, next biggest break. Here is where intuition and experience shows its head…prior to that link ever being posted I said the inflection point would be in the vicinity of 15’. 15’ > 10’, thus the results of that flawed experiment aren’t even relevant to this debate.

It has nothing to do with the disconcerting feeling of a 1’ breaking putt from 100’.

The answer to your question is, AGAIN, the exact putt I have described will be made more than a dead straight dead flat vacuum putt.

I really want the people who are operating on such a higher plane mathematically than me to show me the flaw in my probability illustration. For as many times as I’ve been told by ARod that I avoid questions there has not been a single one of the clueless that can show where my logic is off.

Speak of the devil…..

See above.

4’ < 100’

I’d say keep make irrelevant comments about any putt other than the one I’ve described and the dead straight putt, but I don’t think you could make more.

Well, you are incorrect in your first post. In the 2006 PGA at Medinah Tiger specifically said he tried to keep the ball above the hole all week. This was the first time I heard of this idea. Since the greens were slower he said he wanted to keep the ball above the hole since the greens had been redesigned and were basically a simple back to front slope throughout. From there he could do as he was taught and “I felt like I could make anything. I kept saying all day, 'Just putt to the picture.' That's the way I first learned to putt. Dad actually knew what he was talking about. -- Tiger Woods”. What he was referring to there was that from above the hole on a breaking putt he wants to putt to the fall line and then just let gravity take over. He knew that gave him his largest margin of error….and won by 5.

That is just another little nugget I’ve been holding back for you. Again, A Rod keeps insisting that I am not answering questions. If I have missed some I certainly have answered them when asked a second time. There are no questions about what I think here. What is interesting is how many times I’ve been able to state a question or position and the only response is either air or reverting back to a 4’ putt. That is not the question nor has it ever been.


See above. I do agree however that taking out the break is poor strategy. When a professional decides to take out the break it is always due to indecision on the read. They do have a shot clock in golf so while optimum psychology would dictate they wait until they are certain sometimes it simply isn’t feasible. Somebody please quote my prior post saying “Give them a little credit with psychology that they have the ability to eventually settle on a line and commit to it.” and scream you can’t have it both ways! I’ll get it out of the way to save the embarrassment for whoever would have made it. When they decide to take the break out and hit it due to a running shot clock they are committing to the line so I am not contradicting myself.

Anyway, bedtime here. I’d say this discussion has clearly run its course and is finally boring. I am pretty pleased it all went down though. As I said I’ve really been trying to work on myself lately and this has really helped my writing and vocabulary. I feel as though I’ve done all I can to show a pretty clear principle which at the end of the day is quite irrelevant since the dead straight/dead flat 100’ putt obviously doesn’t exist.

I can’t express my point any further as it has basically been beaten to a pulp. I am still interested in hearing somebody from the other side break down where I am off in my probability thoughts noted and quoted numerous times. If somebody has the time to actually figure out what the inner most 4.25” of a 120” dispersion contains in a normal distribution I’d love to see it. I’m sure there is a simple program you youngsters have that would pull it off. I’m not sure I have the skills yet to figure out the standard deviation or other variables needed to isolate to 3.5% at the center of the distribution….oh ****, I won’t even consider that maybe a hacker would actually have a normal distribution that favored one side or the other. I know mine would slightly favor the outside right since that is where my errors are, but I’m only a +6 so what the **** do I know.

How have you not posted your IQ in the other thread? I'm dying to know how far beyond me you are.

Pretty impressive, where did you go, or where are you going?
or is legacy

Bump for ship.

Of course the end result requires a very very straight putter face compared with the line. But all that's required is the golfer to hit that line 1 out of 100 times. And the margin for error is so small that it's going to be the result of luck. The golfer could even line up incorrectly and accidentally hit the correct line by mistake.

There are more possible lines to reach the hole with the breaking putt. There are not more possible speeds, the speed is still limited by A) getting to the hole and B) a speed so fast that it hops over the hole even when striking it dead on. On a slightly breaking 100-footer, the trajectory at the hole is going to be essentially similar to a straight putt. However, the correct break must still be paired with the correct speed, which I am going to disagree with you on - it is not more likely to hit that speed-break combo than it is to hit the straight putt - general speed combo.

And before this gets out of hand, no i did not, i was merely trolling. Though they did send me their full application twice, I assume on the basis of my ACT scores. But no. Never applied. Would not get in.

You are failing to realize that this putter can "luck" his way into squaring up the putter face. You are imagining him going for a square face and being off by a degree each time and going "dammit, off again. Just a little..." Sometimes, despite lack of skill, this golfer will square up the putter the exact way it must be and the putt will go in. You are simply not accounting for the probability of this happening.





It's hysterical that one of the main reasons I left was our debate a couple months ago where you held the believe that a longer drive had a linear benefit. I tried to point out to you that this would only be true if fairways widened at 330 yards compared to 270. Because fairways generally do not widen, and because the spray cone for a 330 yard drive is wider than that for a 270 yard drive (same degree cone but 330 yards out it's wider), the 330 yard drives will be harder to keep in the fairway. I brought this up to you several times yet you never responded and I got fed up with you and your ignorant ways.

Yet here you are telling us all about how much harder it is to keep a 100 foot putt straight compared to a 4 foot putt. As if nobody here ****ing understands that concept. You are arguing a point nobody is refuting. And at the same time, proving my point about the benefit of a long drive not being linear. This is what makes you a really bad poster.

It's also what makes me wish more holes were designed to allow wider landing areas beyond 300. Probably not all of them because I do enjoy the parity in golf between bombers and short game guys but it would be nice if there were more holes in which the fairway widened the further out from the tee. This is not practical in many cases due to land size and character, obv.

First of all, there is no way your IQ is 151. Secondly, I've taken internet IQ tests (bull**** tests) too and scored higher than that. Post whatever bull**** you want. But next time you're down here come win a free $1,000 from this "****ing idiot". We'll even post our actual results in this thread after taking legit IQ tests. Also it's really sad you posted an email from 2006 in which you had to dickslap one of your employees. You must be an awesome boss.

this. it's going to be variance when it hits. what the crux of the straight/break argument comes down to is whether the sum of the probability of all combinations of speed/break is higher for one or the other. we assume that the bogey golfer is only capable of aiming "ummm...there-ish" and hitting it "i guess about this hard"

Yeah right after I posted I saw you posted the exact same thing. About lucking into squaring it up. Yes, it's hard to square up. It's also hard to hit it exactly 1 degree off left or right every single ****ing time.

Read what you wrote here over and over again. Think this through.

If you go back and read my posts from early itt, I went through the analysis of shot cones and speed. I am 100% on the same page that amateurs will very very very rarely start the ball on the line they intended, especially from 100 feet.

But to make any putt, they have to start the ball on a given line with a given speed, which means the face being perfectly square to that given line. That will happen on a breaking putt exactly as often as it will happen on a straight putt, DUCY?

Regardless, it's irrelevant to the discussion. The salient question is a physics one, which afaict, nobody here is qualified to answer.

We all agree AimPoint is pretty good, right? Is it a perfect science, no, but as I stated earlier in the thread it is relatively decent. Especially on the shorter putts. Your question of 4 degree shows again where somebody who doesn’t quite understand golf fully (that’s not an elitist knock, it’s just a fact based on your question) can mess up an otherwise well intentioned experiment.

Where your question is flawed and thus useless is that you can’t put a pin location on a 4 degree slope on a green running at 12.5 and have the ball rest. It will not stay in place. So your question is pointless. I did miss replying to it earlier but since I had dismissed its legitimacy when reading it I didn’t make a strong point to remember to answer it.

If you purely want to ask hypothetically I’d say the straight putt. But, AGAIN, 10’ < 100’ and useless even without the fact it is an absurd question. I don’t fault you for the question, it seems a good one to a lay person. Lay with regards to high level golf that is. You are clearly a very smart person.

Since you didn’t post early in the thread (I think) I’ll assume you have skimmed most of this ****. My putt was a tad uphill and breaking right for the last 8 feet. The interesting thing I learned from my trial was that I could hit a putt on the exact same line with 2 different speeds and have both go in. The one hit slightly harder (I’d say 3 inches harder on a 100’ putt, so not much) traveled on the same line but reached a slightly higher apex (told you guys I’d work that word in soon). However, to reach that apex it rolled slightly further uphill. From there it took a more severe break and would be able to go in. So one putt, same line, 2 speeds, both makes. Expanded options.

As for the notion that all that has to happen is luckily hit the line once, you’re kidding right? Isn’t there some % of correct speed that needs to be applied to the one time it hits the hole to get an expectation? Or is this just a bet to hit the hole? Or are you just drunk and didn’t think that through, which is perfectly acceptable.

Yes I am aware of the fact it can luck into it, and thus why I gave a normal distribution. Do you understand that?

For the second point I’d like to see what you are referring to in order to make a comment. I do agree that a 330 yard drive hit on the same line as a 270 yard drive will be further from dead center so I’m not sure where our confusion could have come from.

3rd point, again, please bump that post.

I said I’m sure yours is higher, all I did was post a score that was relatively in line with what I tested at when I was put in gifted programs as a 3rd grader.

I posted an email from 2006 because that’s when we took the test. Hard to fathom, I know. The bet was his idea when we were drunk one night playing poker and I was ragging on his $30k a year private school education for fun since he sucks at poker and logic. In the long run I lost that bet since I know have a daughter at that school and another that will start there in 3 years. FML.


The whole golf elitist is funny. I really don’t understand why the thought of experience is so disregarded by many of you. I recently found myself in a similar situation which will illustrate the idea that experience really only comes with experience. Notice I didn’t say age, experience. I have a buddy who builds 4-6 $3-5M contract home a year here in Dallas and makes a couple million a year doing it. As I’ve said I really would like to get back to work in some capacity as I think it is vital to actual happiness to feel productive. I have had remodel work done a few times on my houses and really enjoy HGTV shows with the wife. I’ve thought that I would love to do what he does I think. Well, earlier this year I thought about building a sweet Cross Fit gym in my house. I have a perfect area that I could add onto my second floor so I had him come over and check it out for thoughts. Watching, and more importantly listening, to him as he walked the house and talked the idea out I realized holy ****, there is no way I could just build homes. It would take 3 years + to be able to have any legitimacy at all. Sometimes you are best to try and learn until you gain a certain level of experience and then apply your vast intelligence to that idea with authority.

Oh yeah, I’m still waiting to hear how my probabilities are off .

And yes, I did try my hardest to be high, mighty, and elitist with this post in order to illustrate how completely ignorant every single one of these comments are.

Every question that has been "ah ha, here is where you are wrong Ship!" has been perfectly refuted and quite timely at that.

However, AGAIN, please show me where the probability is off and that normal distribution (or really any distribution) will put 10+ putts inside the inner most 3.5% dispersion of a 100' putt.

See above.
See above.
I agree with this completely. Which is why I say that having more line and speed combinations makes the odds of hitting one of them higher. Let alone the fact that there are some lines that have multiple speeds that will result in a make. DUCY? Again, I am talking about a 100' putt that I took. My only statement is that I can find a 100' putt with higher expectation than a dead straight putt. That's all.

I do agree that clearly none of us can actually put this through a correct test and 100% convince the other side. I do not have that in depth of ability in physics, and the other side simply doesn't have it correct.

I don't even know where to start here.

Why don't we start with Tiger's actual quote. This is the transcript for his Sunday interview after the win.

Q. Some players talked about the greens and said they were really able to hold them well, and the reason being is because they're only a few years old and the root structures hadn't set in there. Wondering what your opinion on that is. Also, you said you
prefer major championships to be single digits. Having won at 18-under, do you take that? Is that okay, too?

TIGER WOODS: I'm never going to say no if I win. No, the guys are right. The root structure wasn't there, and every ball is just splashing and bringing up -- making huge ball marks. We're bringing up dirt. You're never going to get balls bouncing on these greens at all, this
week, and then with the rain this week it just made it worse. You just had the feeling early in the week even when you played the practice rounds that guys were going to make some birdies this week. All the par 5s with good drives, except for 14, so basically three of the four par 5s were reachable, pretty much for all players. You knew that guys were going to be bunched up making a bunch of birdies. Then you had the soft greens, and guys were going to continue making birdies.
One thing they never got this week is they never got the greens quick. Even if you had downhill putts you were never afraid the ball was going to run out. You never were cautious on a downhill putt, you thought you could still ram it in there and knock it in there. That's normally not the case in most majors. But this week it just happened to be an aberration.

I mean nice try on attempting to skew the above quote in favor of your side of the argument(as if just bc Tiger says/thinks something that makes it right). Nowhere in there do I see him say he "tried to keep the ball above the hole". If he did in fact utter that exact phrase in another interview, since it was 2006 you will likely be able to find it on the Internet somewhere. I'd love to see it although it will negatively effect how intelligent I think Tiger is.

All he appears to be alluding to is that at Medinah that year being above the hole wasn't as penalizing as it normally is on major championship greens.

How does "putting to the picture" have anything to do with the putt being downhill? Is it impossible to "putt to the picture" on a relatively flat/straight putt or an uphill putt?

Deep. You're telling us that to make a putt he just tried to match up the line and speed? That is brilliant.

Why doesn't he just hit it above the hole at every tournament and win by 5 every time?

Facepalm.gif