The Fitting | The New Sticks

I made the decision over the winter that I was going to make an equipment upgrade this year.  I'm more than happy with my irons, but my hybrids were old and outdated, and in the past year I've found that I haven't hit them with the same consistency I used to.  Moreover, my driver had a lot of swings in it, and it seemed like it was time to take advantage of some of the new face and shaft technology available.

With that in mind, last weekend I went to Joe & Leigh's Golf Performance Center in Easton, MA for a fitting.  Joe & Leigh's has been famous a few times; it was the site of Golf Digest's cover article a few years back touting the benefits of club fitting for all players, and also was where Jim Furyk famously bought a used putter that he had in the bag when he won the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup in 2011.

My current driver is a Titleist 907 (so 8 years old).  After doing my homework (primarily on mygolfspy.com's Most Wanted Driver list and data set), I settled on testing the new Titleist 915 D2 and D3; the Callaway Big Bertha Alpha DBD; and the Cobra Fly-Z+.  I also wanted to get in a good number of shots with my old driver on the launch monitor just to see if making a change was really worthwhile.

You can see the map of all the shots I hit below (excluding severe outliers).  You can see right away that my old driver (the 907) is still a pretty good club, with the best drive hit at over 300 yards and just right of center.  But all the shots are right of center, which highlights the problem I have with it -- keeping it straight.

With even just a cursory scan of the shots, the Cobra quickly stands out for having the 4 longest drives of the day, all of which are relatively on-line.

It doesn't take a long look at the detailed view to determine that the Cobra Fly-Z+ is the easy winner.  Both the D2 and D3 Titleist models are maybe a little bit more consistent in terms of accuracy -- but not by much -- and the Cobra is easily the longest.  Not only that, but set up on neutral and with the Grafalloy Blue 75 shaft my fitter set me up with, I was hitting a slight draw (manifest by mild negative side spin) instead of the old power fade (see the high positive side spin on the 907) that hasn't been as consistent as I would like.

After deciding on the driver, it was relatively easy to pick the matching Fly-Z+ and FlyZ fairway wood and hybrid -- both are adjustable within a 4-degree range, and both were carrying 10-15 yards longer than my current 1-hybrid and 2-hybrid.

I ordered everything custom from the Cobra website that night.  Just 3 days later the wife sent me this via text:

Can't wait to really put them in action.

The Update

Just a quick post to point out a new feature to the blog: at the bottom of each page you can find all my rounds going back to 2007, with graphics that show score to par, adjusted shot efficiency, and short game statistics, including median and upper and lower quartile ranges.  It's fun to scroll through (for me, anyway).

The Hole-in-One Odds

I've never had a hole-in-one.

I don't check my Facebook feed that often, but I happened across this post today:

Unfortunately that means I now hate that guy.  I also hate my dad (3 aces in the last decade) and my brother (x2).  At this rate I won't have anyone to golf with that I actually like in a few years.

The odds of making a hole-in-one are surprisingly hard to find.  A lot of that probably comes from the fact that it's an infrequent enough event that it's hard to study.  But Golf Digest has been trying to keep track and published some of the data in 2013.  According to their numbers, a "low handicapper" has about a 5000:1 chance on a par 3 (pros: 2500:1; high handicappers: 12,500:1).  If there are 4 par-3's on a standard track, then a low handicapper should have about a 1 in 1250 chance of writing "1" on the scorecard in any round.

But of course not all par-3's are created equally, and it stands to reason that it's a lot easier to make an ace on a 90 yard pitch than it is trying to fly in a 3-iron 220 yards over a wetlands preserve.  I couldn't find much data out there about different odds for different distances; the only odds I found were for "average golfers" on a 200 yard hole -- 150,000:1.

Using those numbers I estimated the odds for a low handicapper on a 200 yard hole at about 62,500:1.

Now I play most of my golf on my home course, which has 7 par-3's over 27 holes, ranging from 140 yards (from the blue tees) to 242 yards (from the black tees); the majority, are in the 170-200 yard range.  I'll spare you the details, but if we assume I play about 50% of my rounds from the blue tees and 50% from the blacks, then my true odds of getting a hole-in-one in any given round are about 1564:1.

So...if I play 20 rounds a year it will only take 78 years to guarantee an ace.

Sigh.

The Alps

It's still winter.

I ventured up to the home course last week.  This is what it looked like at sunset:

With nothing else on the horizon, it reminds me more of a mountain landscape than a golf course.  And the only mountains I want associated with golf are the "Alps."

The (US) Resorts

There's almost 100 inches of snow on the ground in my front yard, and so naturally the only thing on my mind is...golf.

The new Golf Digest list(s) of "America's Greatest Courses" is out.  Obviously any one ranking of courses is going to be incomplete and imperfect, but this is the one that carries the most weight in the golf community.  For 2014-15, they have five different rankings: the Top 100, the "2nd 100" (i.e. numbers 101-200; why it's not the "top 200," I don't know), the Best in State, the Best in Canada, and the Top 100 Public.  The Top 100 itself is dominated by courses that are private (1-2-3 are Augusta National, Pine Valley, and Cypress Point, which are all famous both for their awesomeness and their exclusivity), and there isn't a public course until #7 (Pebble Beach).  You don't see another public until #18 (Pacific Dunes).  I've only played one course on the list: #43, Bethpage State Park (Black).

Ultimately it's the Top 100 Public list that I'm most interested in.  This year I happened to take note of the courses from the same property or resort that show up on the list -- probably because the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was on TV at the time, and they were playing on 3 of the top 100.  So this got me thinking: what are the best golf resorts in the country using the top 100 rankings as a metric of quality?

As best as I can tell, there are six resorts that have more than one course in the Top 100 Public ranking:

Pebble Beach: Pebble Beach Golf Links (1), Spyglass Hill G.C. (11), and The Links at Spanish Bay (49)
Bandon Dunes: Pacific Dunes (2), Bandon Dunes (7), Old Macdonald (12), and Bandon Trails (14)
Kohler/American Club Resort: Whistling Straits (Straits) (4), Blackwolf Run (River) (16), Whistling Straits (Irish) (47), and Blackwolf Run (Meadow Valleys) (72)
Pinehurst Resort: No. 2 (5), No. 4 (59), and No. 8 (80)
Streamsong Resort: Streamsong (Red) (18) and Streamsong (Blue) (24)
Turning Stone: Atunyote G.C. (52) and Kaluhyat G.C. (82)

Limiting ourselves to those criteria (more than one course in the Top 100 Public), then we can use the scores within the rankings to determine which is the most desirable resort to go to (from a strictly golf perspective).*  I looked at the numbers three ways: the average score across the courses at each resort (more uniformly high quality = better), the total score for each resort (more courses = more variety = better), and the top ranking course at each site (a standout "must-play" course = better).

*This doesn't quite tell the whole picture of these resorts, as we're only looking at the courses that are ranked in the top 100.  Pinehurst, for example, has 6 additional courses that may all be of high quality, but not quite good enough for the rankings.

I look at the those 3 characteristics as all being equal.  To compare the resorts, I took the z-score for each category and added those up to get a total score.  Here's how it breaks down:

PEBBLE BEACH			BANDON DUNES			KOHLER
COURSE	GD SCORE		COURSE	GD SCORE		COURSE	GD SCORE
Pebble Beach	67.6226		Pacific Dunes	65.1785		Straits	64.7478
Spyglass Hill	62.7138		Bandon Dunes	63.4556		River	61.0936
Spanish Bay	57.6485		Old Macdonald	62.4879		Irish	57.7387
			Bandon Trails	61.5480		Meadow Valley	56.5514
AVERAGE	62.6616		AVERAGE	63.1675		AVERAGE	60.032875
TOTAL	187.9849		TOTAL	252.6700		TOTAL	240.1315
TOT Z-SCORE	2.264		TOT Z-SCORE	2.914		TOT Z-SCORE	1.223

PINEHURST			STREAMSONG			TURNING STONE
COURSE	GD SCORE		COURSE	GD SCORE		COURSE	GD SCORE
No. 2	64.2727		Red	60.7601		Atunyote	57.5788
No. 4	57.1474		Blue	60.1842		Kaluhyat	56.0961
No. 8	56.1970
AVERAGE	59.2057		AVERAGE	60.4722		AVERAGE	56.83745
TOTAL	177.6171		TOTAL	120.9443		TOTAL	113.6749
TOT Z-SCORE	-0.335		TOT Z-SCORE	-1.746		TOT Z-SCORE	-4.321

In both the average and total ranking categories, Bandon comes out as the clear winner -- unsurprising, since all 4 of it's courses fall in the top 14 overall; that's strong enough to place first in the total ranking.  Pebble Beach carries the "top ranking course" category, but that isn't enough to overtake Bandon overall.  Kohler finishes 3rd; having a 4th course on the list helps out here, since the numbers are otherwise very similar to Pinehurst.  With just two courses each, Streamsong and Turning Stone can't quite keep up with the bigger names, though they still have very strong averages.

Naturally, when it comes to resort destinations there are other things to consider beyond just the golf. The setting at Pebble Beach -- including the accommodations and the other activities available -- could easily be argued as enough to push it back ahead of Bandon.  On the other hand, it's hard to ignore the cost:

Cost figures are based on peak season rates.

Here it's quite clear that Bandon has a huge advantage over Pebble; in fact it appears that Bandon and Streamsong are relative steals compared to the other resorts.  And this doesn't even take into account the cost of accomodations, which is nearly twice as much at Pebble as it is at any of the other sites (and hotel reservations are required to make a tee time).  Bottom line: at this point, if I could go anywhere, it's definitely Bandon.

Also not factored in here is the cost of a caddie, which may not be required at every course, but where available they are certainly recommended.  (As far as I can tell, caddies are not available at Pebble or Turning Stone.)  When you factor that in, something very interesting happens:

Amazingly, they all fall nearly exactly on the trendline of the aggregate data -- in short, it costs just about $6 per Golf Digest point to play golf at each of these resorts.  

Two lessons learned here: (1) You probably can't go wrong at any of these resorts, and (2) Golf Digest's "America's Greatest Courses" probably drives the cost of golf far more than we realize.