Quoted so he can't delete.

It's really weird. He appeals to authority all the time. And in his mind, anyone who has had a golf article published in a for-profit magazine is an authority. He never appeals to his own brain. He won't believe something unless it was written on a stone tablet somewhere.

Whatever guys, I give up for tonight. But I always ROFL when someone in a golf forum questions my math skills. Why is unimportant, but it's always a complete riot.

BO

Rote memorization skills does not make you a great thinker.

I have no doubt you can probably learn high level math by memorizing formula but you can't seem to apply math to the real world, or think outside any box.

I know you're like a Jeopardy! guru and I really do respect that (I wish I could get on there). But that doesn't mean you are capable of thinking about abstract concepts and working out hypotheticals.

Everything you know you learned from a book or a formula. You are great at memorizing stuff and learning by rote, but you simply cannot link diverse concepts together to come to logical conclusions to hypotheticals. I bet if you took Myers-Briggs, you'd score roughly 100 on the "Sensor" label.

There is nothing wrong with this. The world needs Sensors. But you need to stop thinking about intelligence the way you do. iNtuitives are different thinkers than Sensors.

And you still haven't answered the question I'll ask for the 3rd time:

"Would you rather curve a putt if you could even if it was a straight putt? Or just hit it straight?"

Don't want to.

I can understand why many players don't understand the concept, but IMO it's pretty unbelievable that NXT claims not to and tries to haul out math to explain why.

Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree with the application comment but the concept is valid.

BO

Bo, cite your math accomplishments. I'm genuinely interested.

It's 40 yards of total area to miss in both scenarios. Do you not see that?

No I understand it when applied correctly. If you cut it all the time it would be 100% moronic to aim down the center of the fairway.

In your example of a 40 yard fairway, if you NEVER missed left aiming down the middle would only give you 20 yards of error. The left 20 yards of the fairway would be a complete waste.

However if you aim down the left side, you now utilize the full 40 yards of the fairway.

40 > 20. See the difference?

Aiming down the left doesn't magically lower your margin of error. It's still the same, except now all of your error is skewed to the right.

I thought this thing ntnbo is talking about with the fairway was discussed by golfdoc, and is a generally accepted thing, and golfdoc didn't receive any derision for it.

Different argument.

He didn't because I'm sure he used it in the proper context. Bo's explanation above is hilariously void of some important words.

http://http://paulhurrion.com/wp-con...Inst.Putt_.pdf

That's where I pulled the .6 from. I'm willing to concede that that angle doesn't encompass the entirety of the hole, but the counter, as you pointed out, would be that the higher end of the speed spectrum I laid out would never go in at the margins.

Throw some numbers out at me.

How often do you think a bogey golfer hits a 100 foot putt between 100 and 107 feet? Use a different higher end number if you think mines wrong; it was just a guess at the max speed a putt could hit a piece of the hole and go in more often than not. Fwiw, I think I erred on the high side, it's probably closer to 4 feet.

And what do you think their start lines look like, measured in degrees, from straight?

Grunching all the thread that blew up after this post so I'm just replying to this part of your post, ship.

I'm going to really surprise you here (since we're "arguing" on the internet) and say that YES, I see what you are saying about this particular type of putt.

I will grant you that there are indeed breaking putts that are easier to make than straight ones, specifically ones that provide a "cushion" as you describe it where putts started slightly outside the line get pulled back in and vice-versa.

To take it to an absurd extreme we can imagine a hole at the bottom of a funnel shaped green, clearly that would be incredibly easy. But of course there are also breaking putts that are far harder to make than flat ones for similar but opposite reasons, such as the hole being on the top of a ridge with contours falling away from it in all directions.

The relevant argument that I'm sure is brewing and that you'll have to have without me because I'm not interested in having it, is one where the slope is constant, a tilted plane. This is not a realistic thing you'll find on Earth, which makes it kind of silly to discuss, but I think it's what the debate is really about.

FWIW I was just complimenting NXT on what I thought was a nice analogy, and I still contend that is was very apt.

What I'm really interested in is getting this thread back on track and having people of all skill levels go out and try this prop. I'm still of the belief that most golfer are comfortably +EV. If I'm wrong, I look forward to eating crow in this thread. It's not a pissing match, I'm genuinely curious to see how it shakes out.

Hitting a 40 yard FW is not indicative of having a PERFECTLY square clubface, do you see the difference? Not very many shots go EXACTLY at the intended target. Do a ton go virtually exactly at the target, yes, but not exactly at it.
Have you read the description of the putt I hit? Have you thought about it? Now please read your comment again and look at yourself in the mirror. If you need further evidence that I am correct you can refer to the last quote here from Brockton where he acknowledges I am correct that breaking putt is in fact easier to make than a straight putt.
This is correct, but does not refute the truth that a breaking putt has multiple perfect lines and speed. So if you somehow hit a bad putt it still could luck into one of the other lines. I also didn’t note in my posts about the putt that I actually have about a 6 inch buffer on the right on MY ideal line in case I hit it too hard that it could have a wreck with the hole and go in as well.

As noted above, please see Brockton’s post below acknowledging this all is correct. He is to be commended for getting through the haze of logic and seeing the light.

I don’t know any more than you if they are 4-6 times better. I have acknowledged I am speculating in an argument that most likely can’t be proven. Many debates are theoretical until proven and I don’t anticipate we ever truly solve this bet in a relevant sample size, I doubt it. What is not theoretical is the debate about a straight 100 footer vs the putt I described in a real world example. The best you can come up with is “gibberish” which clearly shows you read the description once and were too hurried to think it through. You were to excited thinking about how awesomely sweet you were going to look from your MORTAL COMBAT FINISHING MOVE comment or perhaps how great one of your absurd gif’s would be received.

As far as the bet is actually concerned I have stated I think the bogey golfer is a dog in this bet. Furthermore, I also acknowledge I very well could be wrong with regards to that. I certainly performed much better than I expected in my small sample size trial.

However, what is funny is that you don’t even open yourself up to the notion that you *could* be wrong. What is sad is that you seem to not possess the ability to take the description of the putt I hit and show where I am wrong that it has the luxury of both going in with a perfect putt AND the occasional backdoor out of luckily hitting a line and speed that I didn’t intend to yet being rewarded with a make, the straight putt does not have that option.

As for your fantasy land world question of “is a perfectly flat non uphill or downhill putt easier than a breaking putt” I will agree with you that a straight AND FLAT putt is easier from inside 8 feet than a breaking putt. However, your putt does not exist in reality. 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. I’ll drop to your level of awesomeness with THAT IS MY MORTAL COMBAT DEATH PUNCH and agree that your and mentality is clearly aligned with a video game world that does not exist, congrats.

The Gibberish comment is what is making you look incredibly ignorant and even worse, unable to take an opposing argument and consider the implications. Again, Brockton is to be commended for his ability to think outside the box and consider alternate possibilities.

I also agree with your comment the putt doesn’t care what line it is coming in at the hole as dead center is relevant to the angle the ball is approaching the hole. Which is yet another way you are confirming my argument that both putts if hit perfectly have the same chance of going in. What you seem to be incapable of understanding is that a breaking putt has more than one perfect/ideal/makeable/holeable/sinkable/get-in-da-hole line and speed, something a straight putt does not have in its corner.

I am a firm believer that repetition is the mother of learning which is why I decided to give you one more shot here and repeat this concept many times in hopes that maybe a slightly different wording will make it click for you. If it still hasn’t then I assume you simply can’t grasp the logic. That’s ok, Faldo still thinks you close the clubface in order to hit a hook and he’s probably about a +3 now too.

What golfdoc and I (I did first, lol) state is that you have a larger margin of error if playing a certain shot shape repeatedly, not that one gives you a larger effective zone. Here is where I first posted the concept, in the correct context.

Thanks for thinking. What I still think you are missing is the same phenomenon is present on all breaking putts. Again, I am stating this with the disclaimer that there is no such thing as a straight AND flat 8 foot putt. I should also state that this is based on a putt that breaks within reason. I can concede that a straight 15 footer is likely easier than a pin high 8 footer on #9 at Augusta. If we want to join NXT in fantasy land with a perfectly flat putt then that is a separate argument. Golf course design simply does not allow a 16 foot dead flat circle to occur. Blame God if you must.

As for the analogy of hole in one (which I never said had the same odds) a ball in the air does not have the same benefit I am describing with the breaking putt. The analogy I would say might be similar would be an argument that a hole in one is hit more often than by a ball rolling and landing. The ball that flies in the hole is a truly perfect shot yet a ball *could* be bladed and land and roll in the hole as well. The bladed ball, assuming it meets the criteria of heading toward the hole and makes it to the hole can go in the hole as well. And without having any data whatsoever I might venture to guess that more poor shots as described result in hole in ones than ones that fly directly into the hole.

Note what happens here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDGwbk1dtE4

On the one hand the whole premise is kinda LOL because there is no putt I can imagine outside of Tiger Woods Golf that is both 100 ft and dead straight.

And a lot of the arugements for wanting a slight left to right 12 or 15 footer don't really apply for two reasons.

The first is that on a 15 footer you can visualize every turn of the ball and bump into the hole. This is pretty much impossible with a 100 footer. At some point you're just picking a general line and speed and rolling based on the feedback of previous putts, but you're not "putting to the picture" in the same sense that you're able to visualize the ball in it's whole path.

The second is that most of those quotes\arguments are about a golf hole that you need to play out. The straight putt hit too firmly on a good line still has a good chance to bang into the back of the hole and drop. Of course that is a dumb strategy when you have to make the ones coming back because the ones that miss go farther by, but it is completely different in this scenario where you get many chances and the only thing that matters is did you make one or not.

This is why I have been very clear in stating this argument is fully theoretical. Obviously there is not a dead straight putt from 100 feet, but in this argument NXT and others are taking the side that if there was it would be easier than my putt.

The tolerance of how hard a ball can hit a hole and still have a chance to go in is somewhat proven within reason. From 100 feet you have about a 4-5% window of speed that will result in a make. Harder than that and it simply won't drop.

What's funny to me is that I believe that notion actually helps NXT's argument that a dead straight putt does in fact have a slightly wider speed range than a breaking putt to go in, but he actually argued counter to that. I didn't see the need to help his argument so I let it pass. The straight putts larger speed cone is a similar concept as the idea a breaking putt has more combinations of line and speed to go in. However, the breaking putt has more combinations than simply a wider tolerance of speed.

And this is why I stopped posting. I can't explain it any better than all my posts. You simply don't seem to under the relationship between speed and line.

If you get more lines, your speed requirements on each line on average is reduced.

Think of it this way, a straight putt may have 5 simple lines with each line averaging 6 speeds they can go in on. So in a very simplified example you have 30 combos of speed and line that will find the bottom of the hole.

A breaking putt may open your world to 5 more lines for a total of 10, but instead of each line averaging 6 speeds that will go in the speed and line have to match more perfectly. Now there are on average 3 speeds for each of the 10 lines. Again you have a total of 30 combos of putts that will fall.

You see how this relationship works? Line is the most important thing on relatively straight putts as your speed can vary more. Each line of a breaking putt requires a more exact matching of speed and line.

If you still can't understand this then the discussion is over. I'm not deviating in my thoughts bc I couldn't be more sure that I am right. Take that as you wish.

On a side note, if you think you are so right I'm quite sure you could win a Nobel Prize in physics if you were able to "prove" the phenomenon you are describing which appears to be a breaking putt has a better chance of going in than a straight putt. And to take it a step further you would have to think that a putt that breaks 6" is harder to make than a putt that breaks 1 foot bc the putt that breaks 1 foot has "more lines" to go in.

Do you really not see how stupid this is? You are literally describing defying the laws of physics. But hey that cool!

Yes, I read the description of the putt, but it seems relatively insignificant to me and only bolsters the position of the OP in accepting the prop bet. And I DO enjoy looking at myself in the mirror, so thanks for that bit of helpful advice.

My post that you quoted was in regards to the OP. So far, of the people who have tried this "experiment", no one has failed to do it, yet a couple of die-hards cling to the belief that the putter has the worst of the prop bet.

I am not really interested in the "breaking putt is easier" de-rail as any 100-foot putt will have some break in it. But, for the sake of argument, if you were offered the same prop bet as OP, but with fewer attempts allowed due to your renowned putting skills, and allowed to select the putt, what would be your ideal putt? A typical 100-footer with a few gentle breaks, a severely breaking right-to-lefter, a double- or triple-breaker with severe slopes, or something else?

It has been interesting, but not entirely unpredictable, that the posters who were quickly proved mistaken on the originally question quickly de-railed the thread to the argument of a proposition in which they chose their side first.

Only two have tried it with a 100 ft putt and both were +3 or better. OP claims to be an average putter for a bogey golfer (and we know what that means) which makes a huge difference.

BO

GO OUT AND WIN THAT NOBEL PRIZE DOG

Um, maybe you missed that I made 2 of 25 LEFT HANDED. I'm not a natural left handed putter and nowhere near a bogey golfer left handed.

This. I was going to post something like this earlier but figured it would be futile, or it would open up a bunch of new tangent arguments that keep him from answering the question.

More line+speed combos doesn't mean anything, because hitting one of the right combos is lower probability, so it's a wash. He doesn't seem to grasp that "more lines" is resolved in the physics world by "more fickle speed for each line".

Had Ship answered my direct question about the red marble in the box, he may have realized his error. But he didn't - because he doesn't respond to questions which incriminate his position.

In Box B, there are twice as many ways to choose the red marble, but there are also twice as many ways to choose the blue marble. It's a wash. But I bet he would swear that Box B is better because 2 marbles are better than 1.

Who cares about the Nobel Prize. Alfred Nobel probably sucked at golf. No Swede has ever won a major.