Side note: multiple people (including 6+ year veterans) have told me they didn't know those menus existed... as they were trying to manually calculate "points behind" in the standings.
I wanted to see if "difficult" courses produced certain winners, while eliminating specific players before the day even begins. And is it opposite for "easy" courses?
Side note #2: nobody should ever call a course "easy." Courses should be "difficult" or "fun." Golf is never easy — and courses where you shoot near your best round ever are always fun.
I feel the best way to gauge the difficulty of a course in our league is to look at the "Median to Net Par (MnP)." After all, we play 100% handicapped. So theoretically as a group we should be around even par... unless the USGA ratings and slopes are out of whack (we could do an entire post about this).
Look at Heritage Harbor. On average, our members shoot +7.5 over net-par, making it near the top in difficult. But the median net-par is only +5.5 — still near the top but not as drastically difficult.
This tells us HALF the league has finished over +5.5, and HALF the league has finished under +5.5 net to par. And those that do shoot more than +5.5 usually shoot WAY MORE than that number, skewing the average net-par number up two points. When things go bad on Heritage Harbor... they really go bad.
Accepting that the "Median to Net Par" provides an un-skewed difficulty rating, we can average the MnP for every victory per person in history — giving us a sense of who plays better on what type of course.
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| % of Wins per Difficulty Level — League History |
Lots to digest here, but in general — Geoff wins more on difficult courses, whereas Casey wins on "fun" courses.
To get a complete picture we'd need to analyze everyone's average finishing position against the field for every round played, not just victories. But this should do the same job in a lot less time. I also grouped courses into three buckets: "Hard" - MnP is +5.0 or higher, "Fun" - MnP is lower than +1.0, "Medium" - everything else.
It makes sense that lower handicaps like myself, Gary, Dave, Ho, and Faz all have very few victories on "Fun" courses. When the net winning score is going to be -8, it's nearly impossible for us to get down to that number.
But what's interesting is people like Darren and Geoff with a bunch of victories but none on the "Fun" layouts. Why not? Because their handicap index is probably always about as low as their current skill level will allow. They don't have an extra gear allowing Darren to shoot 78 or Geoff an 83. They're just very consistent at being themselves... swinging their swings.
The higher handicaps like JW, Brendan and Gorecki who historically have huge blow-ups in each round struggle on "Difficult" tracks. They're joined by guys like Reid, John, and Buchert who can be wild off the tee — a round killer on tough courses. The most "Fun" layouts have huge fairways: ChampionsGate CC, Buffalo Creek, Lakewood National, Reunion (Palmer) etc. Wild drivers of the ball score well at those places.
Finally... there's Danny. Who is the ultimate Big Game Hunter. If half the field isn't shooting +5.5 or higher... he's not interested.
This is very interesting. I'm still not 100% sure what it means for my game, but It's fun to see a new statistic that says I'm better on hard courses. If that's what it's saying...
ReplyDeleteIt could be saying you can’t score even when it’s easy, but you can avoid blowups when it’s hard and you’re getting a bunch of strokes. Your bogeys are better than most everyone else’s bogeys. It could also be small sample size and dated statistics, the latter especially in your case the former pretty clearly in mine.
ReplyDeleteI like the rabbit hole it’s going down, though. I wish I was better at spreadsheets and actually kept them to be able to play with it. I agree that median is generally a better way to view mid-tier performance, but I don’t think wins tell you enough. I don’t know if there’s a strokes gained to MnP or something, but that could help clear the “which courses are better for which golfers” question.
Can't wait to move on to my next golfing life...#FreedomFairways #havingmorefunbetter
ReplyDeleteJW is right in all his analysis. I’ll keep looking into getting a better picture. But high level, for Geoff... I’d say he’s not good enough on “fun” wide open courses to WIN. But on hard courses with lots of penalties... he’s good enough to keep his blow-ups to a “normal” amount (for him) to shoot a decent number compared to the field.
ReplyDeleteIt definitely exposes guys who should be afraid of hard courses.
I don’t see a connection with my wins and your so called “fun” courses. I can see that I tend to play better at BGR rated 4 and 5 beer rated courses! If that’s what you meant by “fun” courses?
ReplyDeleteYou have no wins on “fun” courses. So your BGR correlation is probably accurate.
ReplyDeleteGreat point, Brendan. Quail Hollow isn’t rated by the BGR, but being our introduction to the golf cart fanny pack would have earned them at least a 4, likely 5.
ReplyDelete