Looking at some API data and determining Fair Play
Jul 24, 2017 20:37:55 GMT -5
coruler2, CongoGB, and 20 more like this
Post by SmilingGoats on Jul 24, 2017 20:37:55 GMT -5
There has been a lot of discussions lately about what is fair and what is not, what is cheating and what is not. Much of what has been said are opinions based on observation, but all of what has been said has been without the benefit of the data that Scott, Tim, and I are able to see and upon which we will make our policy decisions.
We can't share all of the data that we have with you. If we did, there would be those that would try to find ways to subvert that data and "cheat" without getting caught. So we can't share all of it. But we can share enough of it to have a real conversation, one based on data and not just opinion, about what we want for our tours.
We hope that by sharing this information we'll accomplish two goals:
1) To relax fears about whether or not we're going to be able to police fair play
2) To receive constructive feedback on what should constitute fair play.
We get a lot of data. Much, much more than we had in TGC 1. We get tons of data for every single shot you take in any of our society events. Again, I can't share all of it, but let's look at one piece of this data.
For each shot that you take, we get a number that tells us if you were to the left or the right of the y-axis with your swing. If the y-axis is zero, we get a decimal value carried out to eleven decimal places that tells us where that shot was along the y-axis. Negative numbers are to the left of y-axis, Positive numbers are the right of y-axis.
Let's take a look at this graph:
The areas in blue are shots that are greater than 0.035 away from the center axis. This number roughly represents the edge of the red cone. So shots that would appear in this blue area are shots that are outside the cone or near to the edge. The yellow areas are areas that are shots that would be represented in the game to you as within the cone. The orange area would appear on screen as perfectly straight. If you hit a dead shot straight in the game, you would likely be in the orange area. The red area is any shot that shows no deviation from the axis at all...the great majority of players never hit the red zone. Those that do are typically players we know to be 3rd party controller users, mouse users that haven't yet adjusted their settings, and known straight-shooters...though there have been a few odd occurrences from players who have indicated they are using stock controllers. These, though, are extremely rare.
Note that for all images below, we're excluding pitches, chips, and putts. We have that data but we look at it separately.
A normal round would look something like this:
This is one of Doyley's recent rounds in the PGA Magnolia event. If I were to show you a chart for 95% of all players, it would look similar. It would show a concentration of shots to the outside of the chart, very little to nothing toward the middle. Now, some players tend to miss more to one side than the other, but still nothing near the middle. Doyley happens to be an equal-opportunity misser.
You can see he has shots at various ranges in the middle, edge, and outside of the cone. But he hit nothing that registers near zero.
We have thousands of rounds like this. Rounds that show that the majority of players rarely hit near middle, have a range of shots, and some shots which are on the edge or outside the cone. I can't post thousands, but here are 18 more (all top players but level of player really doesn't matter):
You can see, some guys left, some guys right, some are nearer to the middle than others, but none are hitting that red zone. There are a range of shots, and it is common to hit near the edge or outside the cone in many cases.
With the above being our baseline as to what is normal, it becomes pretty easy to spot a cheater when we find a chart that looks like this:
Player A:
We know those kinds of guys should be eliminated from play. And they have been. Even without all this data, those guys were easy to spot in TGC 1.
But how about this chart?
Player B:
Player B hit 6 shots (again we're excluding pitches, chips, and putts) that had zero deviation from axis. And his worst shot was in the -0.015 to -0.0175 range. Should Player B be allowed to play or should we exclude rounds like this?
Let's take a look at Player C:
Player C doesn't get anywhere near the middle so all good there. But he misses between 0.175 and 0.25 every time. Should player C be allowed play, or should we exclude rounds like this?
How about Player D:
Similar to Player C, this player isn't near the middle, but his shots are all in the same place. Should Player D be allowed to play, or should we exclude rounds like this?
What's your opinion on a round like Player E?
Or how about Player F?
Or Player G?:
Or Player H?:
Player I:
Player J:
I've posted a lot of different types of shot charts above. Keep in mind that 90+% of them look like the ones at the top of this post. The one's I've called out individually are outliers to what is most common. Those are the ones that we'd like to receive (civil) feedback from the community. Scott and I have our opinions but we're willing to listen to what the community thinks.
One final important note:
Not everyone who is an outlier is cheating. We know this. But we also know that some controllers, and many mouse configuration, are much easier to play with than what the majority of our players are playing with (stock controllers). That said, it is also possible to get abnormal results with a stock controller.
There are some of our users, some that are represented in the charts above, that have an artificial advantage, and it isn't their fault. That doesn't make them a cheater. It does mean they have an advantage.
After studying the above, feel free to provide feedback.
But, please...I'm begging you...please keep responses to this thread civil. We will delete any posts that we feel are not adding to the productive conversation for which this thread is intended. That includes anything that isn't asking a question or posting an opinion. If you just want post a gif or say you agree with the poster above...just don't. Productive conversation only.
And finally, do not make accusations of cheating (or unfair advantage) against another member publicly. If you have concerns about another player, those concerns are to be expressed privately to commish@tgctours.com...absolutely no exceptions!!!
DOYLEY EDIT - This was posted on Page 7 but important enough I didn't want it skipped over
Just want to make it clear on what the charts are showing
1. Jeff's charts are accurate for all flat shots off a tee/fairway (ie best case scenario)
2. If you are on a red slope fairway bunker/rough shot - it will take your swing data and add a multiplying factor to it effectively shrinking the yellow zone the worse the lie
So then you get a chart that could look like this for those shots. Notice now how the blue zone (the first and last zone) is much larger. So now a shot (say 0.028) that would have just a minor draw/fade off a tee is now a shank from a tough lie. So those that have less sensitive controllers are at a major advantage because they can recover from these types of shots much easier.
TOUGH LIE/RED SLOPE BUNKER
VS
OFF TEE/FLAT SHOT
We can't share all of the data that we have with you. If we did, there would be those that would try to find ways to subvert that data and "cheat" without getting caught. So we can't share all of it. But we can share enough of it to have a real conversation, one based on data and not just opinion, about what we want for our tours.
We hope that by sharing this information we'll accomplish two goals:
1) To relax fears about whether or not we're going to be able to police fair play
2) To receive constructive feedback on what should constitute fair play.
We get a lot of data. Much, much more than we had in TGC 1. We get tons of data for every single shot you take in any of our society events. Again, I can't share all of it, but let's look at one piece of this data.
For each shot that you take, we get a number that tells us if you were to the left or the right of the y-axis with your swing. If the y-axis is zero, we get a decimal value carried out to eleven decimal places that tells us where that shot was along the y-axis. Negative numbers are to the left of y-axis, Positive numbers are the right of y-axis.
Let's take a look at this graph:
The areas in blue are shots that are greater than 0.035 away from the center axis. This number roughly represents the edge of the red cone. So shots that would appear in this blue area are shots that are outside the cone or near to the edge. The yellow areas are areas that are shots that would be represented in the game to you as within the cone. The orange area would appear on screen as perfectly straight. If you hit a dead shot straight in the game, you would likely be in the orange area. The red area is any shot that shows no deviation from the axis at all...the great majority of players never hit the red zone. Those that do are typically players we know to be 3rd party controller users, mouse users that haven't yet adjusted their settings, and known straight-shooters...though there have been a few odd occurrences from players who have indicated they are using stock controllers. These, though, are extremely rare.
Note that for all images below, we're excluding pitches, chips, and putts. We have that data but we look at it separately.
A normal round would look something like this:
This is one of Doyley's recent rounds in the PGA Magnolia event. If I were to show you a chart for 95% of all players, it would look similar. It would show a concentration of shots to the outside of the chart, very little to nothing toward the middle. Now, some players tend to miss more to one side than the other, but still nothing near the middle. Doyley happens to be an equal-opportunity misser.
You can see he has shots at various ranges in the middle, edge, and outside of the cone. But he hit nothing that registers near zero.
We have thousands of rounds like this. Rounds that show that the majority of players rarely hit near middle, have a range of shots, and some shots which are on the edge or outside the cone. I can't post thousands, but here are 18 more (all top players but level of player really doesn't matter):
You can see, some guys left, some guys right, some are nearer to the middle than others, but none are hitting that red zone. There are a range of shots, and it is common to hit near the edge or outside the cone in many cases.
With the above being our baseline as to what is normal, it becomes pretty easy to spot a cheater when we find a chart that looks like this:
Player A:
We know those kinds of guys should be eliminated from play. And they have been. Even without all this data, those guys were easy to spot in TGC 1.
But how about this chart?
Player B:
Player B hit 6 shots (again we're excluding pitches, chips, and putts) that had zero deviation from axis. And his worst shot was in the -0.015 to -0.0175 range. Should Player B be allowed to play or should we exclude rounds like this?
Let's take a look at Player C:
Player C doesn't get anywhere near the middle so all good there. But he misses between 0.175 and 0.25 every time. Should player C be allowed play, or should we exclude rounds like this?
How about Player D:
Similar to Player C, this player isn't near the middle, but his shots are all in the same place. Should Player D be allowed to play, or should we exclude rounds like this?
What's your opinion on a round like Player E?
Or how about Player F?
Or Player G?:
Or Player H?:
Player I:
Player J:
I've posted a lot of different types of shot charts above. Keep in mind that 90+% of them look like the ones at the top of this post. The one's I've called out individually are outliers to what is most common. Those are the ones that we'd like to receive (civil) feedback from the community. Scott and I have our opinions but we're willing to listen to what the community thinks.
One final important note:
Not everyone who is an outlier is cheating. We know this. But we also know that some controllers, and many mouse configuration, are much easier to play with than what the majority of our players are playing with (stock controllers). That said, it is also possible to get abnormal results with a stock controller.
There are some of our users, some that are represented in the charts above, that have an artificial advantage, and it isn't their fault. That doesn't make them a cheater. It does mean they have an advantage.
After studying the above, feel free to provide feedback.
But, please...I'm begging you...please keep responses to this thread civil. We will delete any posts that we feel are not adding to the productive conversation for which this thread is intended. That includes anything that isn't asking a question or posting an opinion. If you just want post a gif or say you agree with the poster above...just don't. Productive conversation only.
And finally, do not make accusations of cheating (or unfair advantage) against another member publicly. If you have concerns about another player, those concerns are to be expressed privately to commish@tgctours.com...absolutely no exceptions!!!
DOYLEY EDIT - This was posted on Page 7 but important enough I didn't want it skipped over
Just want to make it clear on what the charts are showing
1. Jeff's charts are accurate for all flat shots off a tee/fairway (ie best case scenario)
2. If you are on a red slope fairway bunker/rough shot - it will take your swing data and add a multiplying factor to it effectively shrinking the yellow zone the worse the lie
So then you get a chart that could look like this for those shots. Notice now how the blue zone (the first and last zone) is much larger. So now a shot (say 0.028) that would have just a minor draw/fade off a tee is now a shank from a tough lie. So those that have less sensitive controllers are at a major advantage because they can recover from these types of shots much easier.
TOUGH LIE/RED SLOPE BUNKER
VS
OFF TEE/FLAT SHOT
Great info but I see three of the colors Blue, Yellow and bunch of gray ha ha ha....Thanks fellas for the info and all the hard work
