Golden Tee’s site gives you a nice little graph showing the expected performance of each ball in regards to 4 factors: distance, backspin, curve, and loft.  So, at a high level, you can glance at the charts and see roughly how they compare, but I wanted to find out the numbers behind those charts.

When measured closely, you’ll find that the performance ratings vary quite a bit more than meets the eye.  Click here to open this spreadsheet in a new window.  In terms of pixels, the raw numbers you see in column D represent the length of each bar.  In the top center is a grid displaying the raw ratings.  Now, if you assume that the stock ball has average performance in each category, as seems to be indicated by the graph, then the stock ball should have a rating of 5.0 on a scale of 0 to 10.  Using this as our base, we get a better performance rating grid, as seen in the upper right.

From there, you can break down each of the 4 categories, sorted by highest-performing at the top (or left of the chart).  Now you can see more accurately how each of these balls stack up against each other in each category.

So, what categories are the most important to consider when choosing your ball?  In my opinion, distance is king and must be considered first.  Extra distance on straight shots alone can make the biggest difference in your score.  Curve is probably next — you want your ball to be able to curve sharply on your A1 and C3-type shots to give you even more potential to reach locations not otherwise possible with a lesser-performing ball.  Backspin is also important, but you’re probably looking for something in the middle — too much backspin can be hard to control, and not enough makes it difficult to stick some greens.  Finally, loft doesn’t seem to be much of a factor when choosing a ball.  You will learn loft much more from club selection than you will by changing balls.

Moving back to the grid in the upper-right, you can also see why most players choose Hurtles as their ball of choice.  They are among the longest in distance, and they have decent backspin and curve ratings.  According to the chart, they don’t have much loft at all, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, or a significant factor, when playing them.

Of course, all this analysis is contingent on the data being accurate, and according to many pros, some of the data is off base.  The distance ratings are solid — you can see proof of that with your distance marker off the tee as you change between balls.  Curve ratings should be pretty close.  For backspin, many believe the Hurtles rating should be higher (at least in the middle), while the Straight Jackets spin more than the Streaks.  Finally, the loft ratings seem to be off, lending even more support to the argument that this factor shouldn’t much be considered.  The Air-Os seem to have lower loft, while the Streaks and Hurtles have plenty of loft, it seems.  And there’s the final point why most of you should be playing the Hurtles in 2012 — they are long and don’t seem to have any weaknesses.

Bite essentially causes your ball to stop and settle once it hits the ground.  You’ll notice that it stop/skips twice on contact, and then it rolls out from there.  But how much will it behave like backspin, and where will it roll afterwards?

Let’s focus on the backspin portion first.  If you haven’t noticed already, bite is more like backspin when you hit the ball hard, and more like a check-up when you hit it smooth.  So, the harder you hit the ball with bite applied, the more like backspin it will behave.  But how much?  Here are some guidelines:

Using a no pull back, regular thumb shot, you will get about 10% of normal backspin. This is not much at all.  So when thumbing a shot into a green with bite, keep this in mind.

With a hard thumbs, no pullback shot, or a smooth push shot, you will get 15-20% of regular backspin.

Using a pull back, smooth palm shot, you will get 20-25% of normal backspin.

Pulling back and hitting it hard will get you about 33% of regular backspin.

So, that should help you know what to expect when the ball first hits the green.  You probably have a feel for what backspin is going to do already, so keep these percentages in mind when thinking of how bite is going to behave differently.

Now, where is the ball going to end up after it’s done biting?  First, let’s talk about the loft of your club.  Keep in mind that bite, just as with backspin, is stronger with higher lofted clubs.  The percentages at the top still hold true, but a lob wedge into a headwind with bite will certainly come backwards, whereas a 2-hybrid would actually continue forward after the bite is done.  It’s due to forward momentum — a lob wedge would be coming straight down, while a 2-hybrid will still have strong forward velocity.  These concepts were the same with backspin, so if you have a handle on backspin in regards to loft, you can carry this knowledge forward with bite.

That being said, wind and slope are the other two main factors, so let’s focus on those and look at some examples of how bite would behave with something like a 5-iron:

1) Tailwind into a flat green — expect the ball to end up slightly forward of where it lands.  The momentum of the wind is more than a couple skips of bite can overcome.

2) Headwind into a flat green — expect the ball to come back slightly backwards of where it lands.  The combination of wind and bite should overcome the forward momentum of the ball.

3) Bite into an upslope — expect the ball to come back slightly backwards of where it lands.  The combination of bite and slope should overcome the forward momentum of the ball.

4) Bite into a downslope — expect the ball to end up slightly forward of where it lands.  The momentum of the ball and slope of the green are more than a couple skips of bite can overcome.

5) Tailwind into an upslope — expect the ball to come backward just a bit.  The wind will be carrying the ball forward into the green, giving it forward momentum, but the bite and upslope will cause the ball to stop and settle backwards a bit once it hits the green.

6) Tailwind into a downslope — the ball’s distance will only be slowed a few yards.  This can be a great shot into a green where the pin is in the back.  Where backspin would bring the ball back up the slope, bite just causes it to settle and still roll down a bit towards the pin.

7) Headwind into an upslope — your shot will look like it has backspin on it.  This can sometimes be a good option into a big green where the pin is in the front.  Whereas backspin would pull the ball back off the green, bite gives you a softer roll back down towards the cup.

8 ) Headwind into a downslope — expect the ball to come backward just a bit.  The wind will be slowing the ball’s forward momentum into the green, and the bite will cause temporary backspin, but then the slope of the green will cause the ball to settle forward a bit more.

9) Wind blowing left, slope going right — if you don’t cut the ball into the wind, expect the ball to end up just short of where it lands.  The wind gives the ball momentum left, and bite will initially pull the ball left as well, but then those factors expire and the slope pulls the ball right again, settling just short of where you land.

10) Wind blowing left, slope going left — this can be a great use for bite if the pin is also on the left.  Land the ball just slightly above the hole to the right, and the bite and slope will cause a slow movement back towards the cup.

As a final note, just picture what backspin would do — if you don’t quite like it, then consider the slope and wind factors and decide if bite is a better option for you instead!

Too many people chalk it up to just having a bad day or a bad weekend.  After all, we all have good games and bad games, but mine just happened all at once.

In reality, there are a lot of reasons you didn’t play as well as you should.  Let’s take a look at some of the things you can’t control, and then we’ll focus on what you can control so that you do better next time!

First, you’re in a foreign venue surrounded by lots of players who are better than you.  This is intimidating.  You might not have pedestals with flat-screen TVs in your local bar, and you certainly don’t have them set up everywhere.  Even if you do, the elevation and size of the monitor will certainly differ.  And you can bet that pedestal has a trackball that rolls smoother than anything you play on.  SO, get there early, bang out a few games on several different machines, and get comfortable with the surroundings — you’ll be here a while!

QUALIFYING:
When the action gets underway, you’ll usually be paired with 2 or 3 other guys to play each course of the qualifier.  You will have several dangerous tendencies here — mainly your desire to show off your skills to others in your group or to try to mask your weaknesses.  You won’t even realize what’s happening until you’re completely embarrassed by shooting a score that you never would have shot back home.

BE YOURSELF.  Play your own game.  Don’t go pin-hunting just to try to show off; give yourself a putt.  Don’t try to do what someone else just did if you aren’t comfortable with it.  You’ll see a lot of new shots here that you haven’t even tried yet — don’t try something for the first time in a tournament!  Save it for next time.  Don’t lay up in a particular spot just because everyone else did.  Don’t hit a bump-and-run chip just because you see everyone else doing it.  If you do make a mistake, even a blow-up hole, shake it off!  There’s a long way to go, and you’ll see soon enough that everyone else makes mistakes too.  Qualifying won’t matter for most of us amateurs, because we’re not going to make the cut with the top guys anyway.  Allow qualifying to settle some nerves and give you confidence that you belong to be here.

MATCH PLAY:
Most of us amateurs will end up in the “Purple” bracket, meaning we didn’t make the top 32.  This is a good thing!  Now you get to play matches against other players who are of a similar skill level.  It’s a lot of fun to win matches, and you can do it if you are mentally tough!  More so than before, your opponent is going to make mistakes.  Your goal is now not to have a blowup hole or any dumb mistakes.  Play safe and smart.  Give yourself putts and don’t press until you absolutely need to.  Your opponent will be nervous too!  Have fun, be respectful, and play your game — you’ll do fine.

I’ve been to many tournaments and have my own experiences as well as those of other tourney amateurs I’ve seen, and there’s just something about a tournament that causes inexperienced players to be off their game.  Learn from my experiences in this and other tourney articles on this site, and you’ll be ready to go enjoy one yourself!

Many pros believe that spin absolutely has an affect on the putt.  Some players are completely sure that applying roll on a putt helps it out of the fringe.  Others believe applying roll to a putt reduces the chance of a rollover on a steep downhill putt.  Some believe that backspin helps slow a putt and gives you a better chance of reducing rollovers.  And many pros just laugh because they think that spin simply has no effect on the putt.  The stance from IT has been that spin SHOULD NOT have any affect on the putt, because spin has not been programmed into the game to affect the putt differently.  Yet the pros are the ones playing on a daily basis, so their opinions and results are certainly basis for this debate!

Finally, many pros believe that distance balls putt faster and farther than normal balls.  The evidence behind this is pretty easy to see by doing a couple tests.  I haven’t heard IT refute this one.

THE TAKEAWAY: Do what “you believe” helps you.  If you think that you make more putts by applying spin, then by all means, continue doing so.  But know that there is no true evidence to support this behavior, at least from the programming point of view!  Also know that the farther your ball goes off the tee, the farther it will go on the green during a putt, albeit not a very significant amount.
PLAYER CLAIM: Pulling back to A or C on downhill putts helps prevent rollovers.
IT CLAIM: This behavior has some affect, but it’s not programmatical.

It’s widely believed that you need to pull the trackball back to A or C on downhill putts to help prevent the chance of a rollover.  I follow this advice and I believe in it.  However, IT also claims that nothing is programmed into the game to support this theory.  IT did bend on this claim for another reason, though.

Due to the trackball design, it’s possible that a pullback to A, but especially C, slows down the putt due to the design of the trackball.  Angled pullbacks create different reads on the sensors of the trackball, so the evidence supporting this theory may just be physical, due to the design of the trackball and NOT the programming of the game.

In addition, most players hit downhill putts with less force anyway.  When you slow the putt down, it’s got the best chance to go in.

THE TAKEAWAY: Continue pulling back to C on your downhill putts of 5 or more, and try to hit them softer than normal putts.  The combination of the physics of the trackball with the slower velocity should certainly help you minimize your rollovers.
PLAYER CLAIM: Backspin adds elevation to your shot, while roll reduces it.
IT CLAIM: Spin has no effect on the height of your shot.

This one isn’t much of a debate.  While IT says that backspin and roll have not been programmed to alter the height of your shot, there’s overwhelming evidence supporting the contrary.  Specific player tests have proven that backspin gives you a little more elevation on your shot, while roll makes your shot fly a bit lower than with no spin applied.

THE TAKEAWAY: If you are ever in need of a bit of extra elevation, put backspin on your shot.  To reduce the height of your shot, apply roll.  This is, of course, considering distance and the function of the spin itself in addition to elevation.

We’re now recruiting players to join the GTF Tour with a chance to compete, compile statistics, and win prize money in handicapped league play each week!

Signup Instructions:

Simply visit http://goldenteefan.com/league/. From here, you can view a link to all the league rules, make a deposit to fund your account, and email us with your account details.  We’ll take it from there!

Each week of play begins on Thursday!  Sign-ups will be accepted until Wednesday the night before, and you can join any time for each successive week of play!

The first quarter of play will run through October 5, with the next quarter starting on October 6.

Please feel free to email us questions or post suggestions on how to make this league a more enjoyable experience for you and everyone – thanks!!

Yes, it’s data heavy, but it will certainly be beneficial to those of us still learning the game.  It’s true that you develop a feel for shots as your experience improves, but while you are still struggling for consistency, check out this analysis to see which aspects might apply to your game!

Thanks Jeremy for the awesome write-up and analysis!

Golden Tee Principles of Alignment

Click here for the GTF Tip sheet — a printable 5-page guide to the absolute best tips that I’ve collected over the years to help all of us get better!  Armed with this knowledge and the write-ups of how to play each hole in Golden Tee 2011, you’ll be on your way to beating your friends in no time!

With the introduction of Golden Tees, we now have more flexibility to fill those gaps!  You don’t often think of changing the tee height with high-lofted clubs, but it can be extremely beneficial in some cases and save you a stroke or two.

Let’s talk through a couple examples where I applied this strategy recently.  First, I had a setup on Timber #8 where the flag was on the front left, narrow portion of that green about 90 yards out, with a wind of 10 in my face.  I had to use a 9-iron, but I couldn’t use backspin with that wind, otherwise the wind + spin would suck the ball right into the water.  I was also uncomfortable not using backspin, because that shot would require perfect distance control for me to have a short putt.

My solution was a high-teed 9-iron with backspin.  I knew that as long as I landed anywhere on the green with this combo, the ball would back up just slightly.  I knew the ball would go a bit farther, and I knew there’d be just a few feet of backspin once the ball landed.  Sure enough, I landed towards the back of the green and saw the ball back up to the center, leaving an easy birdie putt.

Here’s an even better example from Timber #16.  I had the pin at the front of the front circle of this awful green, 80 yards away, with a tail wind of 10.  SW sets up at 60 yards to land short in the water, and 9I sets up at 100 yards to land long on the hill.  I knew that I’d be able to hammer the SW and reach that first circle, but I had no idea if the ball would stop on the green since that portion is so small.  I’d have to just barely land the front of the green with no backspin and hope it stopped — a very difficult task.  9I was also a bad option because it would be hard to thumb it softly enough to land short of the hill on the green.

The solution here was a low-teed 9I with backspin.  I knew the low tee would take off distance to keep from carrying all the way to the hill, and backspin was a must to draw the ball back towards that tough pin spot.  Sure enough, that shot landed just short of the hill and spun back in the middle of the green, giving me an open birdie putt.

Keep in mind that Golden Tees also allow you to move backwards, and sometimes forwards, to further assist with distance control.

Finally, it’s worth reminding that you can also take off a bit of distance by playing a B1 or B3-type shot.  When you aim for a target straight ahead but start the ball our towards 1 or 3, you can expect to drop a few yards in distance.  Of course, it’s harder to control your accuracy and these shots require practice.  Keep in mind that a typical B1 shot with a high lofted club will NOT return all the way to center, so you’ll have to pull back a bit left of center to stay on target (revisit the “schwerve” article here).  This shot should be another one you keep in your back pocket when you need it.

SO, the next time you’re faced with a tough, short par 3, keep in mind all the ways that you can alter your distance and shot type to give yourself the safest shot possible in that situation!

Better yet, wouldn’t it be nice to know for sure if laying up for birdie on a tough par 4 will net you a better overall score than if you alternate between the tough eagle and the disastrous par or worse?  If an average player knew that a good player only eagles certain holes a small % of the time, he could decide to play the odds and take the safe birdie.

Well, a short while back I was approached by Jeremy Olson, a statistical analyst from Chicago who plays under the name NIGHTRAIN !.  He had developed a model to handicap each hole on the course based on certain variables and the scores he was shooting on them, but he needed a larger data set.  With the help of the GTF community, we’ve gotten many volunteers to give us access to their hole-by-hole scores on the 2011 courses, and with this data, Jeremy has been able to develop some awesome-looking spreadsheets and dashboards with great statistics for each hole!

SO, let’s take a look at some data!  These statistics are from 7-8 players whose handicap ranges from 15 to 21, which turned out the be the ideal audience for this type of analysis.  Also, the first few rounds played on these courses and any obvious outliers (blow-up rounds at 2AM, for example) were excluded.

First, pop open this spreadsheet and browse over the first tab.  Each course has all its holes classified into one of 5 categories, as defined below (remember that GT Par is the best score you can normally shoot without holing out — we used a slight modification of GT Par and called it “Potential”):

Easy:  75% handicap or better.  Only unforced errors can lead to dropped strokes.
Moderate:  50-75%.  Player is NOT faced with a decision whether or not to lay up.  Probability of GT par is reduced because of course variables, but chance of a penalty stroke is minimal.
Risk/Reward:  40-55%.  Player IS faced with a decision whether or not to go for GT par. Average score should be within +/- 0.10 of birdie (meaning the risk of getting Eagle is in balance with the penalty of par).
Professional:  40% or less. GT par is very difficult.  Risk of bogey outweighs benefit of Eagle.
Difficult:  50% or less.  No option to lay up with significant danger.  Probability of GT par is negative.  Chance of bogey high.

The % column shows how often players score the potential value (normally GT Par) on these holes, and the Avg. Score column shows that value for these holes.  You may find that “Potential”  is flexed a little bit towards what average/good players can realistically be expected to shoot on particular holes.

Now, click the Scorecards tab.  Here you see the hole-by-hole breakdowns for each course.  You’ll see an additional column for Handicap — the holes have been handicapped based off players’ percentage of realized Potential on those holes (again, you can also think about this as the ranking of a player’s average score on this hole relative to GT Par).  We didn’t always want to use GT Par as the standard for handicap because there are certain holes like Alpine #7 that may have a low GT Par %, but they are not necessarily difficult to birdie.  Now you truly know which holes are causing players in the 15 to 21 handicap range the most trouble!  You can use this knowledge to help with course management, and you can also use these ratings when playing with your buddies to know where to give strokes if you want to even things up based on your handicaps!

That’s the overview, but it gets bigger and better — each hole is analyzed in further detail in the write-up for each course!  Alpine and Grizzly are done and will be published soon, so be ready to head on over to those sections to see even more detail.  I’ll also soon be rolling these stats into a new format for each hole’s write-up!

Finally, we’ll be updating these statistics at various times throughout the year to keep them up to date, so hopefully this data can help your scores improve!  We’ll normally be pulling the 100 most recent games to get a good representation of how all our volunteers are currently performing.  Thanks big time to Jeremy for putting in the effort to gather up this valuable data for us!

Here are his notes — notice how many of these differ from the published ratings:

Spinnys hook 50% more than Hurtle, Streak, and Maniax (conclusion — amateurs shouldn’t use these since they are hard to control)
Straight Jackets hook 50% less (making this ball virtually unusable as well, since A1s and C3s act more like B1s and B3s) and also appear to go lower than Hurtle and Streak.

**At this point, we can eliminate these two from being good options. Now let’s take a look at the Trackers, Maniax, Hurtles and Streaks.

They all appear to go the same distance when teed high.
Tracker has a slightly lower trajectory than the other three.
Hurtles go a tad further on thumb shots and have noticeably more backspin than Maniax.
Maniax actually appear to travel the same distance as Trackers.
Streaks and Hurtles appear close to the same in most aspects (except for the Streaks having a lot less backspin and roll, actually making them the balls to use when using the Ripper clubs), while Maniax and Trackers also seem to be about the same.

Applying these notes to the base ratings from Golden Tee, we now find that the balls compare more closely to the ratings below:

CONCLUSION — Everyone with a handicap of +22 or worse should stick with the Hawk clubs and the Hurtle balls for all 5 courses in 2011 since they offer the best ratings for distance, control and consistency.

Timber Bay #15
Grizzly Flats #7
Falcon Sands #6
Falcon Sands #7

I don’t even have examples of shots from Timber Bay #2 and #14 and Laurel Park #2 and #6, which can also be driven straight in some cases.  And don’t forget about some of the par 5s where the extra distance off the tee can help you reach the green in two!

After seeing these examples, it’s pretty tempting to want to change to the Air-O balls and show off with these long drives in front of your friends!  But not so fast – let’s take a look at how these balls can both help and potentially hurt your game.

First, you have to understand how the Air-O balls work.  Introduced last year (as the red box balls), these balls have all the same properties as stock balls except for one important difference – if you hit a straight 180 shot off the tee, you get a big distance boost, resulting in somewhere around a 10-15% increase based off the club you select.  The driver, for example, can average around 50 more yards than if you hit the normal stock balls.  So, all of a sudden your 350-yard drives are now going 400 yards!

It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, though – you have to be very accurate with your pull back and follow through to trigger the distance increase.  If you don’t create a straight line from your pull back angle through your follow-through angle within a degree or two, you won’t get the distance boost.  I’d say pros trigger the boost 90-95% of the time, but players like you and me might only be in the 75-80% range, especially when you are trying to angle the shot off to the side (actually, sometimes straight back and straight forward can be challenging too)!

When you consider the fact that the penalty (water and par) can exceed the reward (an eagle putt) in some cases, you might second-think that shot – how confident are you?  It certainly adds a fun but potentially stressful aspect to the game!

And here’s another issue you’ll come to discover – the balls can be a hindrance on par 3s and normally drivable par 4s.  How so?  Well, you may be put in a spot where you really want to hit a B2 shot with a particular club – but, now you have to adjust your strategy because that B2 could trigger a distance boost where you’ll overshoot the green!  You either have to hit the same club with a little bit of cut, club up and thumb the shot, or club down and hit the B2 planning to use the boost.  While having to learn and use different kinds of shots can help amateurs get better down the road, it’s certainly frustrating to have to veer from your comfort zone.

Finally, since the Air-Os act like stock balls in every other situation, you may be losing back to the field in several other situations – especially cut shots and some approach shots.  This deduction is not significant enough to figure in for amateurs, but you could theoretically drop another fraction of a stroke from the benefit shown for pros.

All of a sudden, the Air-Os might not seem like the best option for amateur players, but how can we know for sure?  Let’s break down each course to see if the potential benefits outweigh the downfalls that these balls can cause.

Click here to view a breakdown of each course and how amateur players might see their scores change as opposed to pro players using the Air-Os.  The sheet makes the following assumptions:

• You won’t always get a setup where you can take advantage of the extra distance.  Column D is my best guess for how often the hole sets up to potentially give you a stroke advantage.  As you can see, some holes very rarely set up for it, so you’ll only get the chance to benefit every once in a while.
• On some holes, the Air-Os may offer a significantly easier approach shot (a chush, for example) without risk of getting in trouble.  Where this is the case, I’m assuming that’s worth a quarter stroke.
• If the balls give you a shot at an easier approach but come with risk of losing a stroke, I’m assuming you’ll be smart and lay up, so there’s no advantage there.
• Judging from the surroundings, a missed boost could cost you either 0, 1 or 2 strokes.  If it could be one or the other, I’ll average those instances.
• Column I assesses the impact on amateurs who effectively trigger the boost 75% of the time.  I’ll also assume that even if you trigger the boost, you’ll only accurately nail the landing area you need 75% of the time.  Pros get 90% for both.  I also have a column of the accuracy required to break even, and what you could expect if you were perfect 100% of the time.
• For normal par 3s and normally straight drivable par 4s, amateurs will be penalized a quarter stroke if you could lose 1 stroke, and you’ll be penalized a half stroke if you could lose two strokes.  This is assuming you’ll have to adjust from your normal B2 shot half the time, and half of that time you’ll lose a stroke or two because of it.  Pros lose a tenth of a stroke for 1 and two tenths for 2.

So, let’s take a look at row 5 for Alpine hole #4.  This hole offers one of the most significant advantages on any course if you have the Air-Os.  I’m guessing that 80% of the time you’ll have a shot to stick this green where people using other balls won’t.  However, there’s chance of a snow plug or even water if you mishit the shot, so it could cost you a stroke (water and par) or nothing (snow plug or long with a chip and a birdie).

Let’s say you play this hole 100 times and use birdie as the base.  It sets up 80% of the time for the boost shot, so you’re at +80.  Of those 80 attempts, you’ll miss the boost 25% of the time (20 times), with it costing you par half of those and birdie (no harm) the other half.  So that’s -10 more, putting you at +70.  Now, even when you do hit the boost correctly the other 60 times, you’ll be inaccurate 25% of the time (15 times), putting you at +55.  So, in summary, you can expect to eagle 55% of the time when others are getting birdies.

Pros are 90% accurate, so when you plug in 10% and 90% instead, they gain a stroke 69% of the time they play the hole with the Air-Os.

In summary, this grid shows how amateurs and pros may expect their scores to differ on each course by using the Air-Os.  You’ll also see how accurate you have to be with your shot-making just to break even using these balls, and how you could potentially benefit if you had perfect control of this shot!

So, while it may be fun to play a few rounds with the Air-Os, you’ll likely see your game suffer over the long haul.  Stick with the Hawks or Flares and the Maniax and continue to focus on shot-making!