KEEP IT REAL

[JMK59]

Real is a moving target. If I had a crystal ball to see into the future, and could see what pins and stimp the Open was going to use for Saturday and Sunday, I would have adjusted my thinking. As it is, I (as the conditions setter) have to predict from the weather forecast what is the best match of conditions.

I'm not taking your comments in a negative way. I value your opinion. As a conditions and pin setter yourself, you know how hard it is to guess in advance what the best combinations of green hardness, stimp, and wind speed to simulate what you see on TV. This doesn't even take into account PG's incorrect physics with regard to wind and bounce/roll out.

Love your post Paul.

John

[Seasider47]

Thanks for your comments John, Yes I know how hard it is to predict the conditions and at the same time satisfy all. Understandably those at the top want really challenging conditions but we must take into account all. Its so frustrating when you end up with +20 or 30 at the end of a tournament and all you really achieve is mamy non finishers I rarely use stimps 14,9 or 8. theres not that many large flat greens to use and I refuse to use courses like Trapmont because of the awful greens, even on stimp 10 lol. John we are all on a learning curve, I must be one of the longest serving setter on PGLS but I'm stilltrying to get it right. I'm a great fan of the PGLS tour so please keep it up.

[JMK59]

I can give everyone my own insight as to how I go abouts setting conditions for a real event such as the Open.

Say we get 60 entrants that play at least 1 round. The top 1/4th (top 15) will shoot lights out no matter what I set. The bottom 1/4th will find it hard to keep up if I set realistic conditions. So my main focus is on the middle 50% (30 players). I would put myself in this group.

If I've set the conditions to represent realistic scores, players 16 to 45 should mimic the real PGA player scores. If they don't, then I've missed what I intended. Sometime I get it spot on - sometimes I don't, but I stick to the process.

[Affo]

I think 15 doesn't get enough love....