I recently came across an interesting DataGolf article which asks, “Who benefits from wide fairways?” The logic was a little difficult for me to follow, but I’ll do my best to summarize the premise and conclusions without delving too deep into the details.
The author set out to examine the counterintuitive claim by some golf pundits that wider fairways actually benefit short and accurate players, while narrow fairways surrounded by deep rough benefit long and inaccurate players.
This is supposedly the case for two reasons:
- Short and accurate golfers can’t leverage that advantage when everyone is hitting from the rough due to narrow fairways.
- The “cost” of losing distance is greater from the rough than the fairway. In other words, not only do short and accurate hitters have more distance to make up, but being in the rough compounds the situation for them.
In my opinion, the term “accurate” may be a bit misleading as used in this context. They can’t be that accurate if they aren’t hitting the ball onto the fairway, although I accept that it may be more difficult for everyone to hit narrow fairways.
Here are some findings from the analysis:
- Accurate golfers (as defined by DataGolf) hit about 14% more fairways per round than inaccurate golfers.
- Except on extreme days when no one is hitting the fairway or everyone is, the accurate golfers’ advantage is not adversely affected by fairway width.
- Short and accurate golfers are not “penalized” disproportionately more for hitting the ball in the rough than long and inaccurate golfers are.
- Surprisingly, long and inaccurate golfers score worse as the fairway gets easier to hit, while short and accurate golfers score better. This is likely because easier-to-hit fairways are often shorter holes with more severe costs for missing the fairway.
- Long and inaccurate golfers perform better on longer holes, while short and accurate golfers benefit from holes that impose steep “penalties” for missing the fairway.
- Fairway width alone does not seem to favor either group of golfers. You have to take into account the costs of missing the fairway before differences emerge.