[Ed. Note: This post by ishmail66 is in response to an earlier post, “Tendencies and Probabilities” by me.]
Understanding the Left and Right tendencies of a player can really help hitting the smaller greens on some courses and getting it close to the pin on others. I’ve also noticed something else with the more recent APBA card sets that must deal with increases in modern player hitting distances.
This involves the increased use of 31’s-36’s and, in particular, 31’s and 32’s. While these ratings have been with the game since the beginning, I’ve noticed that they are being used more and more. It seems like more than two or three 31 or 32 Player Result Numbers (PRNs) are no longer an unusual event, especially for the longest hitters.
For these bombers, when using Average W as the shot-planning metric, I’ve noticed a few things worth mentioning from a review of the boards. First, from the FW, the PRN 31 for clubs 3W through 4I carries much like a 1 and occasionally a 2, yet roll a bit more. The carry for a PRN of 32 behaves more closely to that of a 3. In general, 33’s and 34’s carry much like the results 4 or 5 and roll a bit more as well. Let’s look at just two examples for 31’s and 32’s.
The 2022 card for DeChambeau, based on the 2021 season, has six 31’s and four 32’s. He also has five 1’s and six 2’s and is rated with an Average W of 1 for Woods (which includes long irons of course). That also means using an Average W of 1 for DeChambeau for clubs 3W through 4I from the FW will leave the shot short at least half the time. That may be OK depending on the risk-reward for coming up short. I just note that using his Average W for shot planning tends to leave him short and very seldom long.
On the other hand, the W3-rated Cameron Davis, has 11 PRNs as either 31, 32, 1, or 2. Using an Average W of 3 as the shot-planning metric for clubs 3W through 4I results in about 30 percent of his shots going long. Again, whether or not that variation is important depends on the consequences of hitting past the intended target.
He also has only five 3’s on his card compared to six 4, 5, and 6’s. Hence, when playing with Davis I expect to be somewhat long or short of my Average W most of the time and pick my target to minimize the consequences of either result.
Had a conversation with Dr Cline about this. I believe this should be handled in a similar way to the baseball game. APBA Baseball uses the C Pitcher as a base to determine batter’s cards. In my opinion, each golf season should determine the average driving distance and use that number for the “5”. Either use a different set of charts for each season depending on the 5 (too expensive) or use a modifier of a plus or minus number as designated by the season.