Ivey vs. Corey Pavin golf bet

[7n7]

PHIL IS NOT A 15-HANDICAP!! He's worse.

He's not even a 15-handicap on this apparently easier than most course (Summerlin) that he plays quite frequently.

Sorry for the caps, but every time I see Phil and 15-handicap within close proximity of each other, I want to pull my hair out.

Solution? Quit reading this thread, but ... I ... just ... can't.

[fouraces1234]

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4. At Phil’s current skill level, once he’s close enough to physically hit greens in regulation, distance doesn’t matter much anymore.

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This simply isn't true. He's playing a course that might be about 50 yards shorter per hole than he's used to.

Basically it's the difference between approaching from 120 yards or 170 yards.

Given 2 shots, a 15 handicap be within a birdieable distance on the 120 yard approach often. from 170 yards, he can't hope for anything better than par the majority of the time. given how easy this course is, he'll rarely be approaching from more than 120 yards (the par fives being the exception, where he'll often be approaching the gren on his second shot)

and when he has two putts from each spot, he'll be making those 5-20 foot birdies a lot more often.

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You continually believe high handicappers are good players. They are not. A 10 handicapper will make a birdie once every 2-4 rounds. Not being a golfer you and others just dont understand how bad a 10 handicap is.
Most tour pros avg. 2 a round....Tiger/Phil and the other Greats avg. around 3-4 birdies/round. And they are playing the hardest courses in the world. Not your local muni.

[stinkypete]

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You continually believe high handicappers are good players. They are not. A 10 handicapper will make a birdie once every 2-4 rounds. Not being a golfer you and others just dont understand how bad a 10 handicap is.
Most tour pros avg. 2 a round....Tiger/Phil and the other Greats avg. around 3-4 birdies/round. And they are playing the hardest courses in the world. Not your local muni.

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summerlin from the forward tees isn't your local muni. it's a retardedly easy course. easier than the reds at many munis.

having been a 10 handicap for about a year, and having played similar but not quite as easy courses, i can promise you a 10 handicapper would average about 2-3 birdies a round on that course. let him scramble 2 balls and it becomes more like 5-7.

just go play a 5400 yard course and you'll understand.

tiger or phil on that course would hit at least 17 greens in regulation on average and shoot something like 12-14 under.

[stinkypete]

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PHIL IS NOT A 15-HANDICAP!! He's worse.

He's not even a 15-handicap on this apparently easier than most course (Summerlin) that he plays quite frequently.

Sorry for the caps, but every time I see Phil and 15-handicap within close proximity of each other, I want to pull my hair out.

Solution? Quit reading this thread, but ... I ... just ... can't.


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so how much worse is he?

nobody's saying summerlin is a particularly easy course. it's just easy when you play it 100 yards/hole shorter than it's meant to be played.

[True North]

He's probably a good 10-15 shots worse. From everything I've seen and heard, he sounds like he's around my skill level, and I'm a 25 right now.

[7n7]

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so how much worse is he?

nobody's saying summerlin is a particularly easy course. it's just easy when you play it 100 yards/hole shorter than it's meant to be played.

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We don't know how much worse. But it's definitely worse than 15.

Again, I threw out 3 hypotheticals in my OP (10, 15, and 20). I guess my wording was, "assume he's a 15...how about 10 or 20...", so posters seemed to have locked onto the 15 number.

This thread has basically morphed into you and 4Aces trading barbs at one another. Outside of you guys getting your argument settled, I guess there's not going to be much more discussion on the Ivey bet itself.

Fyi, if you do ever agree to any of the bets being thrown about, please post the results (separate thread though). I'd be interested.

Best of luck!

[bpc009]

If Pavin and Ivey do finalize this bet, and we have word before hand, I would be willing to put money on Pavin... whatever the terms are they agree upon.

I'll go as high as 5k.

[fsuplayer]

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Given 2 shots, a 15 handicap be within a birdieable distance on the 120 yard approach often.

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this, pete, is where i think ur going wrong. this simply is not true. at all. id bet there is less than a 25% chance they get one ball within 20ft from this distance on any given hole throughout the course of a round.

also, if u think that just bc they get two trys, that all of a sudden they will be dropping lots of 10-20ft putts, well, that is way off too. i mean, these are guys that cant break 90 half the time they play.


from a university study from sydney:

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The end result is that professional golfers sink only about half of 6 ft putts, about 1/4 of 10 ft putts and only about 10% of 20 ft putts.

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i would guess that a 15 handicap makes about half that %, maybe a bit more. and if ivy is considered a good putter, maybe 75% of those stats.

[apefish]

FSU- yes- it is largely a wrong assumption that somehow Ivey makes many more birdies because of the bet conditions.
He saves his strokes off the tee, on penalties, on 3 putts and once in a while on a birdie putt. His advantage overall is in negotiating the course- not in birdie making.
While his average distance to a pin comes down due to the extra attempts and his average distance from the pin for putts will come down- nothing suggests that he somehow now is sticking 120 yard shots say 10-15 feet and in where his extra putts may matter.

Also- I think anyone putting money down on either side without really understanding the details of the bet and or knowing the actual indexes of the two players and the ratings they will be playing at is asking for trouble.
But if it is only a two shot thing for Ivey and he is north of a 15 there are few circumstances under which pavin wouldnt be a favorite and solidly so.
That said- my guess is that Ivey is the one who has made more bets like this in his life and has to have some idea of how he thinks he would perform in it.
Unless of course he doesnt care and it is advertising that sets up future plays.

[stinkypete]

he doesn't need to make a lot of birdies to break par though. he probably averages close to 2 birdies on the par fives alone, and if he can make about 2 more on top of that, breaking par isn't that tough.

most of his approaches will be from less than 120 yards anyway.

anyway, the poitn of that post wasn't to discuss his chances of making a birdie from 120 yards, but to show how big of an advatange shooting from the reds is. in a scramble, he's practically guaranteed par or better from 120 yards. sometimes he'll make birdie. from 170 yards he'll almost never make birdie and often make a bogey.

the same argument applies for other distances. whether it's 80-130 or 140-190, it doesn't really matter. if he's a 15 handicap on the longer course, he's under a 10 on the shorter one.

and for the record, i haven't at any point said that i would take ivey over pavin. i think that would be a bad bet, though it's fairly close. (give him 3 balls though, and i'll take him in a second)