When using the GC, you may sometimes question whether a shot outcome is realistic. Examples of this could be short approach shots that end up in unlikely locations, weird tree shot results, and even some bunker shots that go backwards.
You may wonder, “Would a shot like that ever happen in real life?” Maybe not, but remember, APBA Golf isn’t the real thing. I am sometimes struck by hole notes on the APBA course boards that create the possibility of very strange things occurring. I’ll ignore the fact that the course note for my edition of hole #9 at Magnolia says “Shots that land on the green and short of pin 2 roll back 10 years.” Typos happen. I get it.
But there are other situations in APBA that the pros seldom, if ever, face. For example, a course note for the 107-yard, cliffside hole #7 at Seaside instructs you to: “Double any wind effects on all tee shots.” That means on a blustery day you could have 60 yards of ball movement by way of gusts in your face or at your back. With the possibility of a variable (2nd roll) tailwind of that magnitude, you might opt to tee off with a 50-yard approach shot. The other thing about Seaside is that it carries a “J” wind rating, which means there is NEVER a calm day. I’ve watched enough golf at Pebble Beach on tv to know that’s not the case.
Speaking of approach shots, the way APBA handles these is different from how Wood and Iron (W/I) shots work. With W/I shots you have carry and roll. That roll may be positive, negative, or zero, but it’s still part of the shot. With approach shots, you only know where the ball ends up. You don’t know the path it took to get there. That’s perfectly OK with me, but it can result in the occasional approach shot ending up in a place you wouldn’t have thought possible given the terrain in between and the laws of physics.
Another scenario in which highly unusual things can happen is when you are playing aggressively from the trees. The APBA Tree Lie Chart instructions say: “All results are calculated from the centerline.” With a bad “2nd roll,” this can sometimes result in a ball ricocheting from a thicket of trees on one side of the fairway deep into another coppice on the opposite side. I’m not saying that’s impossible in real golf, but I’ve never seen it happen.
This is why the GC includes a POV tool on the Lies tab. When set to “Original,” errant tree shots are applied relative to the centerline (CL). To change the perspective to “Player,” click on it BEFORE hitting from the trees. Any aggressive tree shots that have an absolute outcome (e.g., 50 Yds Backwards 30 Left) will be applied relative to where the player hit from, not the CL.
A third situation in which you can get a strange, and perhaps confusing, result is when you are way off the CL and miss-hit a shot from a fairway bunker (FB). Let’s say you are sitting at 240 L60 in a FB. Using a 2-iron, you get a Player Result Number (PRN) of 22. From the sand on the 2-iron Board, that result is a 10 Carry. The GC is going to place you at 230 on the CL.
Wait, what? Yes, you have gone backwards 10 yards but you are now on the CL. How can that be? Because you were 60 yards off the CL, you lose 20 yards of Carry distance (5 yards for every 15 yards off the CL):
10 yards Carry – 20 yards CL adjustment = -10 yards
240 yards – 10 yards = 230 yards
Even though you were trying to hit the ball north (towards the green), your shot actually went 10 yards south coming out of the trap.
Why did that happen? It’s because APBA orients all W/I shots with respect to the CL. Most of the time that works quite well, but every once in a while that causes strange results. This is a case where the math makes perfect sense, but it doesn’t necessarily align with the logic or physics of golf.
Personally, I don’t let stuff like this bother me too much. In the long run, it doesn’t have much impact on scoring from what I can tell. I just play and have fun and let the GC worry about the math.