tiger, why?

[Brian Manzella]

Nobody wants to admit...

How important PUTTING is.

When Tiger putts poorly, he is simply an Above Average PGA Tour Player, one who would finish about 50th on the money list.

If Tiger just PUTTED for me, on an average day, he'd cut me by 6-10 shots!!!

Trust me, if you are teacher teaching a tournament player, you want one that is a GREAT putter. It'll mask whatever deficiency you or they have ball-striking wise.

 

[birdie_man]

Grinding schmine-ding.



...

Trust me, if you are teacher teaching a tournament player, you want one that is a GREAT putter. It'll mask whatever deficiency you or they have ball-striking wise.

Hahaha.

 

[birdie_man]

He has something Physical going on - a tight/tender muscle or joint somewhere perhaps the scapula that bothered him a couple of years ago or his knee. Something. He'll probably work it out with a few days rest and some range work. But he will be working out a physical problem (he may not even know it)

Bah......he says that???

 

[birdie_man]

I would just like to stress AGAIN, there really isn't that much luck involved in poker

I agree Jim....

In any given hand there is luck.......but your take a bunch of hands.....and it takes a lot of that away. ODDS man.

 

[Chris Sturgess]

I think you guys are a little confused with the luck issue here. Just because there are calculated odds doesn't mean there isn't still a lot of luck, unless those odds come out to be 99% in your favor or something, which in poker they rarely do. Sure in poker the best players will rise to the top in the long term. But that doesn't actually mean anything as far as luck is involved, nobody is saying poker is 100% luck. One any particular day or especially any particular hand there is a huge amount of luck involved in poker, you can do everything short of being psychic and still only have a slightly above 50% chance of winning a hand. In golf, if you do everything right, there are only very few cases where a bad result will occur like hitting a pin and bouncing off the green, the chances of the shot being good are more like 97% or something near 100. There is way more luck involved in poker than golf. In golf it's harder to control what you do to a high level of consistency, but that isn't luck, because that's within your control. In poker you can control what you do to a much higher degree than golf but you what happens after that is very much more uncertain, aka more luck.

 

[FloydPT38]

Bah......he says that???

Yep
Just like Brian talks about what he sees all day-very clear to him
I talk about what I see all day. Very clear to me

 

[self-mastery]

curious, I dont know much about poker
tiger is the best in the world and his winning percentage is something like one out of every four tourneys or one of 5, someone has the numbers on that.
anyway, do you think the best poker player in the world had a winning percentage such as that?

Tourneys or Cash games?

Tourneys definitely NO, there's too many people in the field and tourneys are high varience games. 1 out of 4 in tourneys would be godly. If you changed it to how many times a good player "cashes" in tourneys, there are several players that make the money in poker tourneys, which is similar to making the cut in golf, but with a higher roi.

Cash depends on game selection (who you choose to play against, what games, and at what stakes. 1 out of 4 session would be unacceptable in a cash game, unless you beat the game insanely that one time out of 4. I wouldn't have survived my last two years of college with a profit rate of 1 out of 4 sessions.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

I think you guys are a little confused with the luck issue here. Just because there are calculated odds doesn't mean there isn't still a lot of luck, unless those odds come out to be 99% in your favor or something, which in poker they rarely do. Sure in poker the best players will rise to the top in the long term. But that doesn't actually mean anything as far as luck is involved, nobody is saying poker is 100% luck. One any particular day or especially any particular hand there is a huge amount of luck involved in poker, you can do everything short of being psychic and still only have a slightly above 50% chance of winning a hand. In golf, if you do everything right, there are only very few cases where a bad result will occur like hitting a pin and bouncing off the green, the chances of the shot being good are more like 97% or something near 100. There is way more luck involved in poker than golf. In golf it's harder to control what you do to a high level of consistency, but that isn't luck, because that's within your control. In poker you can control what you do to a much higher degree than golf but you what happens after that is very much more uncertain, aka more luck.

From this post i can tell you have never played very competively. You could sit down with a player who is slightly above average and he'd clean you out just like putting up a a 20 handicap versus a 5 handicap.

 

[Chris Sturgess]

Haha, that's not true but why do you think that? What logic in my post do you disagree with?

 

[birdie_man]

Yep
Just like Brian talks about what he sees all day-very clear to him
I talk about what I see all day. Very clear to me

Fair enough....but I was asking whether: that (the diagnosis of why he played badly) was YOUR opinion......or whether Tiger said something was bothering him.

...

BTW with this poker thing...for the record- I agree that at least over the long term luck isn't nearly as much of a factor........don't know about there being more luck in golf vs. poker tho.

 

[FloydPT38]

Fair enough....but I was asking whether: that (the diagnosis of why he played badly) was YOUR opinion......or whether Tiger said something was bothering him.

...
Yes, completely my opinion. I have not heard him or anyone else say that he had a physical issue this weekend. My strong belief is that with all golfers - esp professionals, when they have variations in their swing it is due in a large part to something going on physically (unless they are going through a purposeful swing change.) The body is a master at compensation due to tightness or pain- even when you are not consciously aware of it. With most golf discussions it is an elephant in the room that is ignored. It may not be the only reason for swing variations but I promise you it plays some role.
The better your swing- or the better player you are - the more you can get away with any physical issue but it factors into the mix.

 

[self-mastery]

Haha, that's not true but why do you think that? What logic in my post do you disagree with?

You mentioned that on any hand that a player might be 50/50, but you leave out all the elements that allow a player to win (skill?) You also do not mention at what point of the hand you are 50/50 to win. Is it preflop, or postflop. Is it even a game with a flop?

The PGA tour: a game of evenly matched players with a few standouts. Where you can only control how well you play, and have little effect on how your opponents play. Not really a sport.

Cash game poker (NL/ PLO): With game selection, a player can put himself into situations where he is the absolute best player at the table giving himself an unquestionable advantage over his opponents. A game where you have some element of control how players play against you.


Two fun games

I agree with your comments on golf, but not poker.

 

[birdie_man]

Yes, completely my opinion. I have not heard him or anyone else say that he had a physical issue this weekend. My strong belief is that with all golfers - esp professionals, when they have variations in their swing it is due in a large part to something going on physically (unless they are going through a purposeful swing change.) The body is a master at compensation due to tightness or pain- even when you are not consciously aware of it. With most golf discussions it is an elephant in the room that is ignored. It may not be the only reason for swing variations but I promise you it plays some role.
The better your swing- or the better player you are - the more you can get away with any physical issue but it factors into the mix.

I've never talked about this before....but it has crossed my mind. I think you have a point. (in general)

As for Tiger and all this.....still not sure about Tiger but it (the physical) very well could have been a contributing factor. Who really knows.

....

But ya....everyone's experienced it before....."something's different today"....."something's on"....."something's off".....

Most people just chalk it up to some kind of mystery. "That's golf."

I can see your point and I don't see why it wouldn't be a possibility.

BTW I don't care....I'm open to talk about this. (I know what you mean about people ignoring things like this)

There also is the mental side of things....what's "on your plate"......the anxiety issue....etc. Cause I know when my allergies are bad or I'm "off" in some other way (and the anxiety is up- cause that's the real issue if you ask me...that and physical fatigue)....man sometimes I feel like I can't hit a shot to save my life. "Out of sync." But you just manage I guess. And forget control....manage.

And of course like you said good mechanics will get you through a lot of the bad times.....but if you've got something on your plate you've got something on your plate.

Would be cool to ask a guy like Hogan or Moe Norman if in their prime they had noticeably off days......and how off were they?.....or did they more or less flush it all the time?.....or were their misses just better?.....or did they know how to get it back when it went bad?.......or did they just manage themselves and their games so well that people thought they were "on" all the time?

Hmmmm....interesting topic.

 

[FloydPT38]

YES!! Birdie Man - you get it or at least are open to it. I read a lot here but haven't posted because the swing talk is over my head. I'm gradually catching up or at least getting more but I thought I knew a decent amount about the swing- shoot in the mid to high 70's (but don't practice much) very similar to otto6457

http://www.brianmanzella.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8011
but captain of the high school golf team was as far as I went.

So I still feel like a kid with a pencil writing down notes from everyone here. However, swing compensations due to pain/tightness etc is right up my alley- I'm a Physical therapist and work with many golfers coming back from surgeries or with sore shoulders backs etc. This I can talk about- Everyone sees what they work with -what they do.

So, HYPOTHETICALLY with tiger- His left knee had surgery a few years ago. If it was sore - not necessarily killing him but sore then he is going to have some difficulty transferring his weight- His body will be just a bit off doing so. If it's minor he may shake it off once the adrenaline starts but he may not. He knows what his swing is supposed to do so he will compensate somewhere else for the decreased weight transfer and down that lovely path he goes

OR
He has also had some scapula problems in the past - this comes into his swing plane- he will go off plane much more easily because his body is avoiding the painful areas and so down that lovely path.

Anyway, these are a couple of ways it could happen with tiger- If not tiger certainly with any of us.

 

[Brian Manzella]

Injuries.

If you are HURT it sucks.

Tiger's knee? Mike Finney has had TWO TOTAL Reconstructions.

Look at his swing.

P U T T I N G!

The next time Tiger finishes OUT of the top 20, and has a GOOD (doesn't have to be great) putting week, I'll take Floyd to Flemming's!

 

[FloydPT38]

__________________

Hey – please take me anyway – but I don’t think it was ALL putting and tiger is the best player in the world but he is still human. In most cases, he will be able to post a good score swinging one handed. But IF (and a big IF) his knee was sore when he was starting the downswing his body will fight fully transferring his weight or perhaps his scapula issue as mentioned above- I was just throwing out a couple of things that are known to have sidelined tiger in the past.

In regards to knee replacments - I work with guys all the time with knee replacements, shoulder surgery etc and often they go back out and shoot better scores (at least for a while) because they slow down- don’t rush etc and often their knees feel better than they have in a long while after a replacement.

Hogan said that after the car crash he knew his hips cost him 10 yards. When I watched that home video of him in 1977 what I saw was how stiff his hips were when he walked around- that’s what I do- I could have got him at least 5 more yards by manually working on him and improving his hip motion. Now, I doubt anybody in history could have adapted better than Hogan after the accident but if your hips are limited by motion or pain it will affect your swing. Maybe you lose just a few yards and nobody knows or you might be a regular joe and it wrecks you for a while. –

What I’m saying is that if an ankle, knee, hip, shoulder, spine rotation is sore/painful/stiff then you cannot make your best swing. The better your mechanics and knowledge then the better you will do- it might not even make a difference on your scorecard but HOW you score may be different. What I have found is that with the vast majority of golfers it makes more of a difference than they realize.

 

[shootin4par]

friday he hit 3 of his first ten greens, hard to putt from the rough, and he hit 2 or 3 into the water between frida and sunday, hard to putt from there to.

 

[FloydPT38]

Bingo

 

[birdie_man]

However, swing compensations due to pain/tightness etc is right up my alley- I'm a Physical therapist and work with many golfers coming back from surgeries or with sore shoulders backs etc. This I can talk about- Everyone sees what they work with -what they do.

I figured you were a doctor or something like that.

I've had problems with the left side of my neck and my left shoulder lately. (I'm right handed)

Common?

It's startin to worry me.......that I have some kind of tear or something.

...

Anyway ya......I dunno about Tiger specifically but I can see how it could contribute to hitting it worse.

Ideally your muscles aren't supposed to be tight or damaged or w/e.....if some ARE then why wouldn't it affect things? I guess you could equate it no not oiling an engine.....or having a bent part in your engine......no good.

Again tho....I dunno about Tiger......although I do realize you're being hypothetical.

 

[FloydPT38]

I've had problems with the left side of my neck and my left shoulder lately. (I'm right handed)

Common?

It's startin to worry me.......that I have some kind of tear or something.
.

Good case study - HYPOTHETICALLY and how it can affect your golf swing.

will write more later