Agree, see what Reid just posted.


Not sure, probably due to lack of asking the right question. Trackman is obviously incredible with spin and impact data. We would really need to see how they used it. I can see where it is possible they never even asked the question potentially, just had Iron Byron ripping straight balls…that was his purpose after all, perfect repetition.


Quoted for those saying I avoid questions. I might have missed some, but I have answered all that have been asked I *think* at this point. Yet nobody has taken even an incorrect stab at this one or my main thesis.


Oh the irony of this post. A Rod you are truly incredible. You rag on BO like a ****ing 2 year old with this and then YOU ACTUALLY CHALLENGE ME TO WHAT YOU IMPLY WOULD MAKE HIM LOOK STUPID. NXT, this is the kid on your side. Amazing.

There are times this is not true due to traveling on the higher apex before losing speed and taking a harder break at the end. You see it ALL the time at Augusta, the real world Augusta, not the video game version.

I truly believe you owe me an apology for all of this. It is completely off base and as I think most can eventually see incorrect. I am not a “usual suspect” of high and mighty prowess. I would think that most agree I do not come off in that light. Do I sometimes? Certainly, but guess what, I might just understand more about this game than most here. I have a pretty solid working knowledge of poker, but I am quite certain I could not carry on a conversation with Durrrr and not instantly be picked apart as a donkey. No offense, but as an analogy I am closer to Durrr in golf than myself in poker. So while I probably don’t get some things that Tiger thinks I can at least appreciate I could learn more from him than not.

So, as you say, please take a step back and read the novel I just posted. Show me where I am wrong. Show me where the expectation to hit the inner most 5.5% (I can’t believe I am granting that big of a window here) will happen about 30% of the time to make enough putts. It is truly amazing this many intelligent people believe this. It is your conviction bias that WANTS me to be wrong. It would help you feel good to say “ha ****er, told you!” But in this instance it is not the case. If you want to do that, quote my first assertion that the person taking the bet would be wrong and say it. But not with regards to the debate. Of course I’ll just repost that I was the first one to admit I was wrong, however I did it in better language than you would likely choose.

I only posted that because BO has challenged me before (I think - if not IQ test then some form of knowledge test) and I declined him (I think he'd beat me). It's not too hard to know which posters are smarter than you if you are paying attention. There are plenty itt that I'm fully aware are smarter than me. But since BO likes to be Mr. Third Man In, I expected him to jump to the chance to get the same bet against me that I was offering you. He won't.

This thread is minutes away from Nazi accusations. Then, it will truly have run its course.

Def understand your thoughts regarding parabolas. I mean, it applies directly to what we are talking about here, I just wanted to ask the question in a different way.

Your assertion is that a straight putt, at a given speed, at say 10 feet from the hole has a 4 inch window it has to roll through for the putt to go in. If it is outside that window it's obv not going in. And that some specific breaking putts, at that same speed, actually have say, a 6 inch window to roll through at that same point, based on the idea that the vertical forces of the slope (and by that I mean the vector that's impacting the speed the ball is rolling) work to narrow the distribution of the resultant path.

Is that right?

I'm still waiting to be told why Tiger's Sawgrass17 putt was good. Looks super easy to me. All he had to do was hit it in some general area toward the hole, at any speed, and I'm sure it would have gone in.

Arbitrary numbers notwithstanding, this is generally what I'm thinking. Again, I could be totally wrong and have zero ACTUAL MATH/PHYSICS to make such claims and I totally understand that. I am just trying to add to the discussion.

The fact that you just used the phrase "the vector that's impacting the speed the ball is rolling" leads me to believe that we are definitely on the same page and that you have the intelligence to totally understand what I'm trying to convey I wish I knew all the equations for all the forces involved because it would be pretty easy to just throw them into one big multivariable equation in MATLAB or something and plot all the different paths and we'd actually be able to come up with a definitive answer.

Arod, I know you think you're making a point, but you're really not. No one is saying that reading a breaking putt is part of the argument. We're saying that if you know a line and speed that works, there is a little more cushion to miss than that of a straight putt. We're talking about margin of error in the physical stroke, not the ability to read a putt. Your posting of what I just quoted shows that you don't really understand the argument at all.


You will undoubtedly go back and find some snippit of what Ship said earlier in the thread and try to use that and say "Nu uh! He was saying...." blah blah blah. I'll be the first to say that there was a lot of misunderstanding of everyone's argument throughout the thread but I think we're all getting close to being on the same page (thanks for Brock's latest post about defining the argument)

Even if Tiger knew the line of that putt, he didn't "know" the speed, though.*

But yeah let's just pretend knowing the line on a breaker makes it as easy as hitting the correct speed on a straight putt.

*Hitting a putt "through the break" is an actual thing.

Here's is my belief.

A straight putt is always at least as easy if not easier than a putt of equal distance that introduces slope to the equation. Basically a breaking putt can never be easier than it's straight counterpart.

Here is my reasoning. Whether or not a golf ball falls into a hole is dictated solely by physics. The speed that the ball is traveling when it gets to the cup has to in relate in such a way that the ball has enough time to fall below the lip of the cup and remain in the hole.

When the golf ball finally arrives at the hole, whatever that golf ball did prior to getting to the hole is irrelevant, it is an independent event governed by the laws of physics. As long as the speed + line match it's going in.


Here is a big issue. When it is your opinion that A SINGLE breaking putt is easier than it's counterpart straight putt because of the fact that you have access to "more lines", then you are arguing that ALL breaking putts.

YOU HAVE TO BE

ALL BREAKING PUTTS HAVE MORE LINES THAN THEIR COUNTEPART STRAIGHT PUTTS

Except now you like to use big words like inflection points, and use a number of 15'(which you completely pulled out of your ass, as you have not shown a single piece of quantifiable data to back up this claim) as the point at which breaking putts suddenly become easier than straight putts.

So if you are standing over a 14' 11" putt, you want it to be straight but if you have a 15' 1" put you want some break in it? Prove that to me, please. The only possible explanation would be that adding break somehow gives you a better shot a making the 15' 1" putt. I would then counter than why not add some break to the 14' 11" putt to up your chances as well.

And before anyone starts nitting it up about me choosing such nitty distances ask Ship(since he's the expert) how inflection points work. Because that is literally how the work.

Let me give you some real scenarios of inflection points.

Inflection point #1

The distance at which PGA Tour players is just as likely to 1 putt as he is to 2 or 3 putt is 7' 10". On average they make 50% of these putts. Any putt inside 7'10" PGA Tour players make them on average more than 50% of the time, outside 7'10" hey make them less than 50%.

Inflection point #2

The distance at which PGA Tour players are more likely to 3 putt than 1 putt is just a hari shy of 33 feet. At 33 feet Tour pros 1 putt 6% of the time and 3 putt 6% of the time. So any distance inside 33 feet a Tour pro will average 2 or fewer putts, any distance outside of that they will average more than 2 putts.

These are "real" inflection points, backed up my million and millions of shots gathered by ShotLink. Your inflection point is made up.

Now I don't have time right now to go through all of Ship's above posts and point out the inaccuracies.

I will just leave you with one final example. Again I will use a short putt for simplicity.

You have a 5 footer. Your make % on that dead straight 5 footer is X. Now I think we can all agree that a straight 5 footer is easier than a 5 footer that breaks 4 feet? Can we all agree on that? Ok, good(hopefully). Your make % on that 5 footer with 4 feet of break is Y

X > Y

The difference between X and Y is directly correlated with the amount of slope and X is the highest make % possible. As you move away from the straight putt your chances of making the putt decrease until you eventually get to 4 feet of break and are left with Y. It is not possible that as you begin adding break your chances increase more than X until some arbitrary "inflection point" as Ship loves to say. For example, your chances of making the putt don't magically improve all the way up until 6" of break and then start to decrease again.

IF you think they do magically fluctuate like that I will be forced to ask you to please quantify the difference between the amount of break on either side of your "imaginary" inflection point and show me how once you get to that # your make percentage goes from increasing, increasing, increasing to all of a sudden decreasing.


One last think. Ship keeps talking about this 3.5% area of dispersion on a 100 foot putt and a 25% chance that you hit the putt with the correct pace to go in. (I think these are the numbers he's using, not gonna go back and look for them again)


Well simple math would allow you to arrive at a make % of .875 if that was your margin of error.

Some more complicated math(binomial distributions) would then allow you to figure out that if that I your make % on each individual trial, over a sample of 100 putts you would make 1 or more putts 58.5% of the time. This would result in a +EV of $17 for every $100 you wager.

For the record, the post you quoted above these words to NXT was written by me, not NXT.

EDIT: Also worth noting, the part you quoted was me getting angry by what I perceived to be my words about a specific situation being applied to an overall stance in the broader argument. I think this is a theme in this thread on both sides and hopefully it will be less common going forward.

That's ok. Not the first time he has miss quoted somebody to help his side of the argument. Notice how he has conveniently not replied to my accusation of misquoting Tiger Woods

Real world example, no math involved....

Right handed PGA Tour pro putting two different putts. First putt, 15 feet, reads two inches outside the right edge. Second putt, 15 feet, reads two inches outside the left edge. Will he hole each putt equally? Why or why not.

BO

Hahahahahaha

HAHAHAHAHA

So now 2 putrs with the exact same amount of break can differ in difficulty depending on the break direction?

At least you're right in that it's not a math problem, it's a psychological one, which is totally irrelevant to this discussion

Such an adult response. Awesome.

BO

If you asked an adult question, you would get an adult response.

As NXT said, this is a psychological question, not a physics one. My imaginary ball rolling machine makes both at exactly the same rate.

That's the relevant way to think when it comes to a 100 foot putt. It's essentially randomly rolling balls at the hole, a personal preference would be irrelevant at this distance.

You're right, I did forget to get to your comment since I was running outbid one to go shopping.

In all honesty I can't believe I posted a quote to which you showed his quote from a random different interview and deduced I was making up what Tiger said. It might be a shock that Tiger has in fact given multiple interviews over the last decade. The more you speak the more people will realize how truly dumb you are. I even feel foolish for at one time thinking you were intelligent.

I'd say keep pointing out posts i miss while avoiding the quite direct question that has been asked of you a million times.

More later, but I'm shopping.

Exactly, and that was my point. For actual golfers on actual greens there is some psychology involved, it's just not 100% math.

BO

lolol

no

it is 100% math, whether one is psychologically affected or not

And that is 100% irrelevant to the discussion itt.

What a weird non sequitur though. It's like, and I don't mean this in a dick way, you have no idea what's going on itt.

These two posts are the entirety of the straight vs breaking argument.

As I've said a couple times before, it's simply a math/physics problem, and until someone smarter than me can do the work, we aren't going to get anywhere.

In college, I had an argument with a poker buddy about the Monty Hall problem. After talking it out and using pen and paper, we were both convinced we were right and no words or equations were going to change that. So I offered him a bet.

He could take a joker, joker, and an Ace, shuffle them and put them face down. I pick a card. He looks at the two cards I didn't pick and removes one that is not an ace. I have the option to keep my original pick or switch cards, and I agreed to always switch. If my pick ended up being a joker, I owed him $15. I my pick ended up being the Ace, I made $10.

He thought it was a 50-50 game and he would average $2.50 per game, and instead I was up a good amount after 30 minutes of this and he quit, unsure of whether I got lucky or not.

If only there was a way we could design a similar bet for this debate. It wouldn't prove anything in a mathematical sense, but it's pretty safe to say the first side that quits needs to rethink it's position.

I believe NXT's hypothesis is that a putt with more break will always be harder to make than a relatively flat putt of the same distance (assuming no funnel like characteristics, and same green quality and speed).

I propose we get a neutral third party (Reid?) to do the following:

1. Go to a putting green, find the flattest 20 foot putt you can and mark the spot. Video yourself rolling some putts from that spot.
2. Move a few feet one way or the other until you have a putt where you think the line is (a ball?) outside the cup. Video yourself rolling some putts from that spot too.
3. Find some volunteers.
4. Video tape the volunteer taking 2-3 practice putts from each spot.
5. Video tape the same person taking 10 real putts from each spot. (Also record their handicap).
6. One at a time, paste a video of their practice shots, and give the thread a day to get bets down.
7. Once bets are down, paste the video of their actual 10 putts from each spot.

This way, people can decline to bet if the situation isn't to their liking (not the right amount of break, not the right inflection point, doesn't count for this 36 handicapper, etc.)

Obviously getting a college team to try hundreds of putts would be a better sample size, but there's no sweat for most of us, and one side could say "well that's not the type of putt I was talking about" like in the academic paper that was posted.

Seeing as Ship has mentioned AimPoint in this thread and appears to at least believe in some of it I figured I would share this article from it's founder, Mark Sweeney.

http://aimpointgolf.wordpress.com/20...r-than-you-do/

Here are some highlights!

The opening couple of sentences

"How is it that every known object in the universe obeys a prescribed set of rules for motion, but we as humans think we know better? The path that a putted golf ball travels on is pre-dertermined even before you hit it. It loyally obeys gravity, slope, and time and could care less what we as players see, think, or feel."

Ouch


"We get behind a putt and think that our faulty sense of vision and incredibly poor understanding of physics are a reliable method for predicting break."

"Once you’ve hit the ball, it has only one master–the laws of physics. In that sense the ball is the ultimate master of AimPoint. It will break precisely how much slope and time tell it to, a formula which is engraved into it’s very being."

"This is what AimPoint is all about, aligning our minds as closely as possible with the laws of nature so that we can be good stewards of the putt. So that we can truly enjoy the game and play with the laws of physics rather than against them."

Of course I have been saying all of these things in slightly different words over the past few days but Ship still doesn't get that the laws of physics are hard set rules that cannot be altered just by adding break to a putt.

I have read a lot of AimPoint literature over the past couple days, just skimming to see if they every utter something similar to "breaking putts are/can be easier than straight putts" and they don't mention it once. NOT ONCE.

Remember when you said NXT didn't do the putt drill and called him a liar? That was funny

I am skeptical that he stated it as you say he did in another interview. Tiger is the king of saying the exact same thing over and over again in multiple interviews. But feel free to prove me wrong. Find the source! I have already produced a transcript directly from PGA.com that has him saying that they weren't afraid of downhillers as much bc the greens werent fast, not that he PREFERED downhillers.

See this is how back and forth arguments work.

You say something without any proof to back it up.

I provide evidence pointing to the inaccuracies of what you said.

Now it is your turn to counter. But rather than counter you have decided to just call me dumb.

What direct question have I been avoiding? I have a feeling it's your 3.5% margin of error on line(aka 4.25"s of hole over a 10' dispersion pattern) where 25% of the putts you hit have the speed to go in. I already showed above that if those are your parameters, the bet is still +EV, and quite significantly so. If that is not the direct question I have supposedly been avoiding, I haven't been avoiding many of the alley-oops you have been tossing but please post it again in a very clear manner and I will not post again until I answer it.

Another great aimpoint article

http://aimpointgolf.wordpress.com/20...s-and-birdies/

More highlights:

When I play a game of catch I know that I have to release, or start, the ball at a certain height above my partner’s head if I want to hit him in the chest. Why? Gravity of course, in exactly the same way that we manage break in putting.

When a baseball is thrown it falls vertically in response to gravity and traces a downward arc through the air towards the plate. Similarly as a putt rolls to the hole it falls also, just closer to a horizontal plane, and traces an arc sideways towards the hole. The amount of drop for a baseball is largely controlled by time, the same way as the break of a putt. The harder your throw a baseball the less drop you have to account for, and the harder you hit a putt the less break you have to account for.

While putting we have a little bit of flexibility to change speed, but unlike baseball, when we increase the speed of the putt we make the target smaller so we are penalized for doing so. In fact at a certain speed the hole completely disappears because the ball is moving too fast to fall in.

Throwing a baseball is a parallel with putting, because your initial target is different from the final target because the ball is being acted on by gravity along its journey.

Throwing a ball to a specific target and putting across a slope into a 4″ wide hole are both exercises in balancing ball speed and the drop of gravity, and challenge the players ability to both predict the correct starting line and actually start the ball on this line. Knowing the correct target before hitting the putt will dramatically increase your accuracy, that’s where AimPoint starts.

AimPoint is entirely about green reading and thus aiming better. They consider there to be 4 variables to putting(green reading, aiming, line, and speed). By teaching you how to read greens better they hope you are able to align yourself more accurately, thus improving 2 of the 4 variables that must match up for a putt to go in.

Here is another gem from this article on the putting equation

http://aimpointgolf.wordpress.com/20...ting-equation/

My goal in teaching is to make as many variables constant as possible. If I can make someones green reading consistent and accurate, A is now constant and there are only 3 variables left. Now if they can read greens AND aim their putter, the equation has been simplified even more, with only two variables to solve. Taking it one step further, if we can teach them to start the ball on line, we have created a player who only has to solve for the correct speed to make the putt. As you can see, the FEWER VARIABLES we have to solve for, the better chance we have to be a good putter. As A, B, C and D get closer to zero, not only do we become better putters, but we become more CONSISTENT putters.

So again I ask the dissenters, if you have the choice between a straight putt or a breaking putt, you would rather choose the breaking putt despite the fact that it adds another variable to the equation?