Do you at least agree that if there was some magical increase in make % on breaking putts you would want that extra help on a 3 footer just as much as a 100 footer?

Or can someone form an actual reasoning for how much break is beneficial and how much break becomes detrimental?

Can we all agree that a straight 10 footer is easier than a 10 footer that breaks 8 feet? And if so, where between the straight putt and the 8 foot breaker does break stop being helpful and turn against us?

It's honestly like you aren't even reading anyone's posts but your own.

I guess since you don't get the idea of an inflection point I'll answer your question as directly as I think you can follow with SOMEWHERE.

That's boom.gif worthy IMO.

Not sure if serious. I have already shown proof of actual inflection points. You have just claimed one exists, at 15 feet.

Prove it somehow? Saying SOMEWHERE doesn't work.

But since you apparently understand inflection points, show me why you would rather have a straight putt if you are 14'11" away but prefer break on a putt that is 15'1". You know since they are on opposite sides of your imaginary inflection point.

I'm on the edge of my seat.

I'm going to post something I posted a long time ago and apparently nobody on Ship's side of the argument read.

You think a putt with a gentle break, in which your read is that you can start the line RIGHT EDGE and hit it several different speeds to get in the hole is easier to hole than a straight putt of the same distance.

You feel warm and fuzzy here because you have taken away the right (pro side) miss. (Unless you really **** up and push it + mash it too hard). You aim right edge and let gravity roll the ball gently into some part of the hole. Eazy peazy, right?

You feel all warm and fuzzy because your margin of error seems higher. What you simply are not accounting for is the fact that you are actually giving up a small portion of the right part of the hole, and you are, thus, underestimating how many times you hit it too soft and miss on the left, amateur side of the hole. It's human nature to not naturally account for this.

This putt is in no way easier to make than a same distance straight putt. You just think it is because you will only miss on one side. What you don't realize is that by giving up the high side, you are doubling the likelihood that you miss on the low side.. It is a wash. It is still easier to hit the straight putt and have NO IDEA if it's going in right half or left half of the cup. That seems really scary to not know but the physics and probability does not give a flying **** about human emotion. It is not any more difficult than the breaker.

I'd like to see more than just bald assertion tbh. It wouldn't surprise me if there were edge cases where the relationship is exactly linear. Largely due to the fact that putts break more as they lose speed, not at a constant rate.

For the record, I'm still on Team Straight. I don't know that there is any real practical application where you would want a breaking putt instead of a straight one, outside of some specific corner cases maybe.

Why is the burden of proof on Zwien when actual data (and reason) supports his side, and does not support Team Ship's side?

People who say things like "breaking putts are easier to make than straight putts" are the ones who bear the burden of proof.

I think maybe you're reading too much into where I'm disagreeing with tzwien. Here's the important piece:

I think Reid has laid out an interesting idea that makes some amount of sense, and deserves more than just a "because I said so" to disprove it.

How many times does NXT need to win this argument?

can you please show me where I stated that at 15' precisely I would take the breaking putt? I have been quite clear that there is not a set in stone distance or break that meets your black or white needs. It comes down to the nature of each specific putt. Period. I've never stated otherwise. I'm going to bed now so you have all night to search and post my words to show where I stated 15' exactly. I've given a plethora of examples of various putts that meet my standards, some shorter than 15' and some longer.

However, AGAIN, this is either simply your way to troll (as always, standing. Clapping. If that's the case...which i don't think it is)or divert the debate from what the original question was. Which, AGAIN, is that I can find a 100' putt that breaks that will have higher expectation than a dead straight putt. I'm still waiting for anyone at all to field the only question I've requested be answered at least 5 times. At this point NXT has even finally acknowledged that question is out there yet still has continued to avoid it.

So, this is a bit over my head, but from what I can tell this is as definitive a study as we are going to get.

http://puttingzone.com/Science/cjp-putting.pdf

Looks to me like the most relevant figures, and their explanations, are figures 4 and 5.

Sure.

From post #182 in this thread.

durrrrrrrrr

Also interesting to note that your inflection point definitely falls outside of 8 feet. I thought nothing about putting was black and white? This would classify as black and white.
What is the question exactly? I have literally asked you this multiple times now and you have refused to simply just restate the question you want an answer to.

You are also conveniently ignoring all of my Aim Point quotes that just embarrass your side of the discussion.

I don't know but I think he's become my favorite golf poster. Even though, gasp!, he's never tee'd it up in the US Open.

Well, you said 15 feet. Then you reinforced it by saying the phrase "inflection point" about 75 times since then.

Now it's time for me to ask you... do you know what inflection point means?

Interesting. Saved me the time of writing my own paper. Doesn't make sense, but I won't argue! I don't know how the speed doesn't counter each other.

Oh my god. I can't wait to get home and read that paper. It looks like it probably has the complex equations I'd need to model multiple trials of varying direction with constant speed, showing if I'm right or wrong.

Boss, I want to say thank you for being open minded. I know I haven't given a strong enough argument or any data to warrant changing anyone's opinion, but at least you read my stuff and said 'hmmm, it might'. I truly appreciate having not wasted my time on this.


The forum warrior response of 'lol no' gets under my skin way more than it should and really makes me feel like I'm just wasting effort on people who aren't even trying

inflection point...where the second derivative equals zero? Man I haven't done any calculus in a looong time

Nice find.

It would appear the conclusion with regards to the easiest putts to make in 1 attempt are

Straight down hill putts

then

Straight/flat putts

then

I'm having trouble deciphering whether Uphill straight putts or putts across a slope are the most difficult

I'm willing to admit I am wrong, in that it appears a straight/flat putt is not always as easy or easier as a putt of equal length with slope. An easier putt would be a straight down hill putt. I overestimated how the increased speed on the downhillers would result in more lipouts.

It's also interesting that they conducted the downhill 10 footers on a 5* downward slope. They then admit that on fast green the slope cannot be greater than 3.7* otherwise all misses will never stop. How did they even get the ball to sit still on that slope while they putted it I wonder?

But before Ship uses this straight downhill putts are the easiest to 1 putt compared to all other putts of equal length to prove his made up Tiger strategy from Medinah(still would love to see the quote where he says he "preferred" downhill putts all week), it is important to point out a few differences.

1. Tiger's downhillers at Medinah were not perfectly straight.
2. Just because Tiger's make % on straight downhill putts(which he did not have) would go up, the author admits that an increase in 3 putt % would possibly nullify the gain in 1 putts.

Therefore as an overall strategy it would be pretty poor to always try to put yourself above the hole because your total expectation of putts would increase.

That is some seriously interesting ****. In a nutshell here's what I took from it, please correct me if I'm wrong.

According to figure 3, downhill putts are easier to make than flat putts which are easier to make than uphill putts.

According to figures 4 and 5a and also items 2.4 and 4.3, on breaking putts, in general there are two different launch angles/windows/cones for the correct launch speed where the putt can be holed whereas there is only one launch cone on straight putts.

But obviously if there is too much side slope, the putt is more difficult, so here's a hypothesis. If there is too much slope, the speed of the ball will not allow the hole to "capture" it in at least one, if not both of the launch windows, thereby making the putt more difficult. So if that is indeed the case, the inflection point would be at some halfway point between flat and maximum slope where the hole could "capture" both launch windows. Again, speculation here, I could be way off.

I find figure 5b interesting as well as the subsequent text. The speed of the green is slower in this figure and as we see there are no overlapping lines even though the differences in launch angle are less. The text states that if the green speed is slow enough that there will be only one launch cone instead of two. If I interpret that correctly it means it's easier to make a breaking putt on a faster green, so long of course as the speed isn't too fast to allow the hole to "capture" the ball.

It's late and I just hope I'm not way off on how I've read the article. Regardless, it's got some great stuff and it's all at least ten years old if not more. Super find.

BO

If this is true, why is it not true for all distances? I understand you are saying in the real world there aren't dead straight putts, but it appears you are accepting the hypothetical dead straight putt and *still* say you can find a breaker that has higher EV from 100 feet. So why would that not be true from all distances? If I have a dead straight 5 footer, is it your contention you can find or construct a 5 foot breaker that has higher EV? If not 5 feet, 15 feet? 25 feet? Your argument doesn't hold water because it can't be extended logically to other examples.

To which ship this responds

I'm guessing they experimented with misses as well for testing a clubs forgiveness.

Christmas came a day early. I’d guess this wraps up the thread with a nice little bow on top. I will give you credit for actually choosing the words “I’m willing to admit I am wrong”. Of course it would be virtually impossible to spin this otherwise so my praise is a tad diminished vs if you had been able to listen to me and come up with this yourself.

It’s amazing, they said that the pin can’t be on a slope over 3.7*? I feel like somebody said that earlier ITT…who was it?

I am still impressed with your desire to change the context of the argument constantly. Your wife must be one happy lady. So you admit you are wrong, but then bring up the Tiger statement. I’ll offer this, since there is ZERO chance I spend any more effort on this and try to find that for you, you won't listen anyway so why would I try. However, is it within the realm of possibility that the GOAT implemented a strategy he knew would gain equity for him?

Your reasoning why this wouldn’t work because of increased 3 putting might be negated by the fact that he has probably the best control of speed ever (in before HE CAN’T LAG NOW!). The greens were slow, he putts best on fast greens, downhill putts can be putted “to the picture” where they then, assuming you have great speed control, will drift with gravity and want to roll better than BANGING THE **** OUT OF THEM uphill where the exact nature of the straight uphill putts works against you….ya know, like I said about 4 days ago but you needed a pretty picture in order to grasp this. I realize I am gifted with the ability to visualize the roof example, 45* example, etc, but I didn’t realize you need me to use MS Paint to draw you a ****ing picture.

The author admits the gain % would be nullified by the 3 putt % unless you’re Tiger Mother ****ing Woods and win by 5.

And yes, uphill putts can be rolled to the picture, but the picture is his way of seeing the HIS apex of the putt. Which somewhat coincides with where the downhill putt starts to become/trend toward being straight...ya know cuz straight downhill putts are easy. I feel like I gave that exact example earlier too.

I guess for simplicity I’d say reread the entire thread.

I’m not sure how you think that this:

[QUOTE=ship---this;41474771]Not to mention that I still think that as the putt gets longer than about 15 feet the breaking putt (breaking within reason, not 6 inches from 3 feet) will actually be easier due to the amount of times you will in fact hit a putt that is not perfect [QUOTE]

Shows that my DEFINITIVE inflection point is 15’. The word “about” means approximately. I agree that I can’t define my inflection point as absolutely precisely from my office as you deem necessary. I guess that is just a flaw of your black/white brain. You are correct, I can’t state (more define really) my exact inflection point for every single putt, with every slope, every speed, etc. That post would be even longer than my prior TL/DR posts. However, I have been more than clear regarding the fact I say the inflection point is scattered and that is why I was able to tell you to do the search for me. I knew I had never said exactly 15’ and didn’t feel like finding the post you would use where I threw that out as a ballpark which even included caveats.






Ummm, this one? We’ve even discussed that that I am fine with you narrowing the dispersion to 4 feet at 100’ since you said that you could hit my range blindfolded. We have discussed how wide the speed range could be for a putt to go in. So there has been a number of times you have acknowledge my question, yet then never answered it. Every time you or ARod has pointed out a question I have missed I have then answered it.

As for you post that I avoided all of your AimPoint questions, you are correct, since I was shopping I did not get around to reading your post. Once I got home I only had limited time to respond to anything prior to cooking dinner for my extended family so I choose to fully address Brocktoon’s statement I misquoted him. See, I respect him and wanted to clear that air first and foremost as much as possible. I wanted him to see that he had simply misread the post and that I in fact did not misquote him.

If you would like to get more proof of my time constraints last night you will see that every post I made after the post to Brocktoon was very short and purely from my iPhone. I’m sorry that I’m not going to sit around all night and read AimPoint stuff you think proves your case when I know regardless of what is says you are wrong. Especially since I felt quite certain that the AimPoint would be related to all the ancillary derails you have tried to take this debate down.


I’d start with one and build from there.

Well, there is some old saying related to “the blind leading the blind” so I can see why.

Refer above definition of “about” please.

Ship still doesn't get it.


Yes I have been wrong in this thread about 1 particular thing. According to that paper my only mistake has been that perfectly straight down hill putts are easier than perfectly straight/flat putts. You have been wrong about more and it's certainly not like this paper made you right and me wrong.

The above is a huge glaring example of you being wrong.

Thinking there is a magical inflection point SOMEWHERE AROUND 15' where you suddenly prefer a breaking putt to a straight putt.

COULDNT BE MORE WRONG

That is just not right. You see the only putt easier than a straight/flat putt is a straight down hill putt. So if given the choice between those 2 types it putt the distance literally does not matter, you ALWAYS choose the straight/downhill putt.

You don't select the straight/flat putt up to 8 or 15 feet(or wherever you are now going to try to move your imaginary inflection point) and then once you get outside that number switch to the downhill straight putt.

The paper also does a great job of showing just how right I was when I tried to explain comibinatorics to this thread. See figures 10, 13, and 14 from the paper.

Let's look at figure 13, and the middle representation of a straight 10 footer. Notice how you only have 1* of error on either side, but the closer you get to the center you have a lot more leeway on speed. From 2.5 m/s to 3 m/s at the center and as you move away to the edges that speed window narrows.

Now by comparison, go to figure 14 and look at the 10 foot examples(the left box is average greens the right box is fast greens, the 10 foot example is on the right side of each box)

Now you can hit the but anywhere from 15* to 45*, but look how much more precise the speed has to be on each line.

If you add up the total area of these figures thats how you determine which putts have a larger make % than others.

Downhill straight putts have the largest area as seen in figure 13. Straight flat putts are next easiest bc they have the 2nd biggest area. Uphill and sidehill putts are the hardest bc their total area is the smallest.

See?

Thread has become a complete abortion/pissing contest wow. Someone meet me at a course in Scottsdale and I got $100-$500 to do this

lololololololol

Do you remember that ship learned all about Aimpoint and in the process became a big proponent of it while trying to improve before Q school? It's not that he doesn't understand it, it's that it doesn't prove NXT correct.

And I'd bet Reid detests this "forum warrior lol" post.

BO