These guys are good - but how good?

I notice that a chap called Hunter Mahan is tied for 2nd at the early stages of the FBR Open, whatever that is.

I'm not picking on Hunter at all but I wanted to use him as an example just to canvass opinion on a subject.

The PGA website records a huge amount of stats on each player so I thought I'd find out a little more about Hunter because he's not familiar to me. Hunter's currently ranked 133 in the world and in 2004 he played 30 tournaments. His best result was 2nd in the Reno-Tahoe open (were any of the top players in the field?). He had two other top tens, made the cut 16 times. His prize money netted him a cool $800,000.

Now obviously to even play on the PGA tour this guy is a fine golfer; but does anyone think that his achievements do not justify the prize money?

Just to re-emphasis, I'm not picking on Hunter I just harbour a suspicion that with a lot of the top players being quite selective now on the tournaments they play that there are lots of PGA events with big purses but average fields.

There are many un know players but they still have to be good to be playing the pga tour!

I can't really explain to you just how good the PGA tour players are. It's something you have to see for yourself. I've been there up close many times and when I say the less-than-average PGA tour pro would beat a good scratch player hands down I mean it. To sit and watch them practice, talk to them and so on then you see how good they really are.

Well to help you along when Hunter turned pro his handicap was +5. He was America's best amateur in 2003 and an All-American college player for 3 yearsin a row and lost the US Am to Ricky Barnes. So he's no chopper but a near-zero on the PGA tour! He made the cut in the Masters as an amateur.

This might put it into perspective how good they actually are:
The average SSS (in America: USGA rating) for the golf courses setup for the PGA tour would be around 75.20 according to a stats company in the US who keep various golf stats for the golfing industry. Now check this: Hunter scored 71.31 in 2004, so that makes him a +4 handicap and 116 players scored better than him on average.

So, take it that the average player on the US tour is a +4 or +5 handicap at a minimum. Vijay, Phil and Ernie are around +8.

__________________
Golf is easy ... once you know how.
Graham Arnott, teaching professional
Kelrosa Golf Studios
www.kelrosagolf.com
Class 'A' PGA Member
Full Member: World Golf Teachers Federation (GB&I)

Why are there handicaps higher than other players? like you sed regs are +5 but why are they +8

When you get into '+' handicaps it means they shoot that much under par. On a par 72 course (with a 72 course rating) with a +8 handicap they should be shooting 64.

Ok thanks gord just seemed abit strange

That's awesome, I played a round with a guy who is +1, and this guy was awesome. I can only vision myself getting as good as him. I asked this guy why he wasn't playing as a pro and he said he would never make a cut cause he ain't good enough. mind blowing isn't it.

Yeah - even guys at scratch are pretty ridiculous to play with.

One of the guys that was a member where I used to work was a +3 and he had a hard time placing in the top 10 in the BC Amateur.

I'm just waiting till the big bucks reach my regions amateur coffers


I know a guy off +1 and hes a quality act. Everything he does is just better. I can hit the ball as well as him (not as far tho) and putt and so on but he does it well every time.
A stinking round for him is 72 (SSS of our course is70) and thats when he cant find his arse with either hand, when I play like that I consider myself lucky with 78.

His best round of our course is 64 (he has only been a member 6 months now) in about 7 years of play my best is 68!!!

He freely admits that there are guys out there in the amateur game in our area that enjoy the same gap to him as he does to me. Thats truly scary, his mate came down and tore out course apart at his first go (63 equalled course record, and Sam Snead has played our course!!!) so it just shows you.

I agree that tour purses are extraordinary these days nut a lot of these guys are working hard at it. Besides imagine being able to say that only 132 guys IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!!!! are better than you.

D.

only 132, are better than me, damm I forgot to put the 6 0's in that figure.

Yeah, scratch players are very good. By the key to their "goodness" ins't just 1 thing though, they do everything well. They hit the fairways, hit the greens often, they putt well, chip well, get out of bunkers well ... time after time. For a scratch player to like 75 or 76 ins't that great, which would thrill the pants off most handicap golfers!

On the European Tour for example, level par golf every round would be enough to keep your card. Level par on the US tour every round wouldn't have got you anywhere at all, in fact you wouldn't have even got through stage 2 of Tour school - at least 500 golfers would have beaten you at the Tour school alone!

But, according to a US research company, in 2003 if you had a handicap of:
1. 14 you're within the top 4 million golfers in the world
2. 9 you're within the top 2 million
3. 5 you're within the top 1 million
4. sratch you're around 400,000th
5. +3 you're around 100,000th

As many as 1/4 of all the world golfers never break 100. So, if you break 100 on a regular basis you're in the top 25% of the world's golfers!

__________________
Golf is easy ... once you know how.
Graham Arnott, teaching professional
Kelrosa Golf Studios
www.kelrosagolf.com
Class 'A' PGA Member
Full Member: World Golf Teachers Federation (GB&I)

My name is Paul vd Berg, a mate of Graham's. I'm a touring professional and comparing "us" lower leaugue professional golfers to PGA Tour players would be like comparing our street car driving to Michael Schumacher ... you just can't compare!

That's about right I think.

Just an addendum to my comment about my mate off plus 1. He went out today and shot 65 round our course, I played ok but missed a ton of putts and shot 72. I reckon I hit the ball well today and still the best I could have hoped for with a few putts dropping was probably 68 maybe 69. Thats the difference, now imagine that difference away from him to the very top amateurs then the same gap again to the average tour pro then the same gap again to the top tour pro's.


Its pretty sickening innit and not a little frightening

D.