Quite an interesting week, and sure suffered from bad putting on the greens! I think I'll make the cut, but then my weekend rounds were abysmal.
-6, -8, -2, -5 = -21 That will be a mid-pack finish if -14 makes the cut, but I think it will by one stroke.
So here's an interesting lesson from the above. In R2 Eric set his FPS to lock at 30 and his swings were phenomenal, solid swing lines and a whopping 85% perfect downswing tempos which I would consider a fantastic tempo round for myself (PS4 players get 77% on average). Basically, Eric's execution in R2 of this week's web event was elite level, as good as that of the best players in the game, yet he only scored -8. Which is a decent score on this course, don't get me wrong, but with that outstanding execution it could have been a lot lower.
I bring this up because I see a lot of people on the forum (mainly CC level to be fair, and obviously not you Eric, I'm highlighting your round because it acts as a perfect experimental control since your swing execution was close to perfection) repeatedly saying how the top players must just hit every shot straight and with perfect tempo to score such "unrealistically" low scores. The implication when they say this is that if they could also nail straight and perfect tempo shots, they'd also shoot -12 or better consistently.
No, no they wouldn't. Not unless they put in serious study hours. Scoring low in this game is more than 50% knowledge with the rest being execution, and the importance balance is shifted even more towards knowledge on trickier, slopier, firmer and faster greens.
Sorry to highlight your round as an example Eric but I've had another watch and you could absolutely have had -12 or better with the same execution if your estimations were better on approaches. Some consistent errors I noticed:
- not accounting for green firmness and speed (in this course's case firm and very fast, meaning a big first bounce and more rollout). Examples:
1. Your hole 5 approach (pin @ 187, 3ft uphill so pin was 188 away) should have been a delofted 7 iron because of how firm and fast (187) the greens are, even with the slight uphill slope towards the pin a 7 iron landing at around 178 would have got very close to the hole. You went with a stock 6 iron which landed about 5 yards before the pin (exactly as you'd expect given that the 6 iron carry is 183 and the pin was effectively 188!), but with these green conditions you're looking at 12 yards of bounce and roll with that club. You were saved from having to chip or flop by the mild backstop at the edge of the green but even so that was totally the wrong club (not sure adding loft would have done that much for a 6 iron either but that might have been another option).
2. hole 7, you said "I don't have the club for this distance" and de-lofted thinking it wouldn't even reach, but it went long. Stock 5 iron was pretty much perfect for that hole because of the firmness conditions (which you didn't check before going into round 2, dude I beg you please back out and check the green conditions before every new round, it's unbelievably important!)
- not considering the slopes around the pin enough. Example:
hole 6 approach had a significant downslope about 3-4 yards in front of the hole, you put some deloft on which would have been perfect for a flat, moderate firmness green, but this was a firm green with a downslope at the landing point area, meaning a big ole bounce and rolling way past the pin. You needed to add a couple of notches of loft here to land about 3 yards shorter than your actual estimate.
- miscalculating wind
Wind is tricky and needs systematic practice (which you can do now thanks to the conditions options, just pick a par 3 course and set wind direction and speed and take note of the effect compared to your estimate for a few holes with different clubs, then exit and restart with different wind direction, you'll get the knack for it soon), but take hole 1 for example. The fill meter isn't linear, so that probably looked like about 7-8mph to you I'm guessing, but it's actually more like 4-5mph, and at about 7.30pm so much less effect, plus headwind doesn't affect wedges as much as short/mid irons. Pin was 101 yards + 6ft = 103, add only a couple of yards to account for headwind = 105 to the pin, so your landing target should be 104 to account for the first large (due to greens being firm) bounce, at which point it'll stop because it's a sand wedge and you've got a bit of a headwind and a slight upslope by the pin to counteract the firm and very fast green. With the sand wedge, 102 carry needs loft to line up with the top of the F of fade (more loft than you'd think!) so to hit 104 you should have added loft around halfway up between default and the top of the F of fade. You didn't change loft, presumably because you thought the wind would have a stronger effect, so you landed about 3-4 yards too long.
- flimsy taps on putts. On PC (not sure about other platforms), how firmly you push the stick forward makes a difference, for me personally the roll seems to behave as I'd expect when I move the stick firmly (you can hear how loudly I hit the stick on putts on my vids), whereas if I give it a weak flicky tap it starts breaking much sooner or the break has more of an effect than I'd expect. I got the impression (actually from previous streams of yours as well) that you were hitting the stick weakly on some of your putts. Try giving your putts a more firm and thumpy motion, I'm certain you'll see the benefits.
As a final note, since this post has ballooned into an impromptu trips and tricks lesson lol, I've heard a few people, including top players, say that the objective on approaches is to leave yourself uphill putts. As lovely and wise as that sounds, it's unrealistic in this game because you usually have to be extremely precise and clever to get an uphill putt, and on many pins, e.g. with very consistent breaks, you either won't get an uphill putt or the closest uphill putt will be 20+ft away! My method is to
minimise the margin of error,
by using the slope to get close, taking into account green firmness and speed (and wind which impacts spin and therefore rollout), to get as close as possible to the hole. On most greens if you use this method, even if your swing is wonky or you misjudge distance by a yard or two, you'll still get close because the slope will guide the ball along. It's a method that allows for some error in execution, you can get away with being slightly off with your swing and still get close, whereas you have to be a hypertalented genius to leave uphill putts every single time. So I often have slightly downhill putts, because I choose to use the slope going towards the pin and err on the side of finishing short, but often those are tap-ins anyway if I've judged distance correctly, and I'd rather have an 8ft downhiller than a 20ft uphiller!
Ok that's the end of Professor Dangler's lecture for today, homework for next week is to consciously factor green conditions (bounce, rollout and slope) when estimating every approach, and if your proximity to the hole stat is 5ft closer than this week, you get a gold star