One of the key advantages professional golfers gain on any golf course is preparation.
They are undoubtedly excellent golfers and much more skilled than amateurs, but how they prepare to play on a golf course is another important differentiator from regular players and a vital aspect of that for many tour professionals. it is the information and notes that they have in their yards. book.
You are reading: Professional golfer yardage books
As a whole, professionals have information on wind direction, distances to and from various targets, fairway and green elevation changes, and hole pictures and diagrams in their distance books. . pros also add reminder notes specific to their own game and details collected during practice rounds or previous tournaments on the same course.
The depth of information that pga tour professionals have in their yardage books is incredible and, to the layman, can often seem like a bewildering series of numbers and notes that belong more in an academic textbook than in any other. a golf notebook.
The volume of information in professional yardage books has also become increasingly complex over the years and added to this myriad of numbers that already come in a yardage book issued at a pga tour event. . individual caddies and players will then add their own notes. based on past experience and your practice rounds.
In fact, some players, like the great tiger forest, add notes based on where the tv towers and stands were placed in previous tournaments.
however, the rules about what players can and cannot write in their yardage books have changed and may change again in the future.
also different professionals have different relationships with yardage books.
While some feel they can’t live without them, others prefer not to wear them because they believe they do more harm than good.
“i don’t know if i could really play the golf course (the old st andrews course) without the tv towers because in all my yardage books everything is based on bleachers and tv towers for alignment. we check them as we play our practice rounds to make sure they are in exactly the same places they were. if not, you change your lines [of aim].”
pga tour distance books are accurate to the nearest half inch!
The yardage books that the pros carry in their back pocket have come a long way.
In the 1970s, no one had any real measurements to carry around in notebooks, and often it just depended on the timing of certain shots.
then caddies like pete coleman, who worked for many major champions including bernhard langer, greg norman and seve ballesteros, began to bring their experience outside of golf to the game and used measuring wheels to put together much more precise sets and reliable. yardage books.
Since then, the technological revolution that has hit golf clubs has also affected the world of yardage books and today multiple devices, including drones and high-tech surveying instruments, are used to put together notebooks containing all the details about a golf course. professionals might wish.
On the pga tour, fred funk’s former caddy distance books have been trusted by professionals and caddies for over 20 years and contain an incredible amount of information, including:
- photo of the hole from the tee
- alternative overview diagram of the tees, fairway and green
- wind direction compass
- measures to and from various areas to the front, middle, and other specifically identified points on the green.
- different elevation points
- close-ups of greens illustrating contours and distances.
In fact, professional distance books are so accurate that the detail included for each hole is unique, as different points are used to provide reference distance points.
“[pga tour yardage books] are accurate to within half an inch…. we have to map the golf course and there are different sources of information. we may use an aerial photo from time to time. we can fly a drone to get information. we have topographical instruments; that’s the main. we literally walk around and map the contour of a street or map sprinkler heads and things like that. everything that comes out of a (computer-designed) program.”
There is now so much data and information available about golf courses on the pga tour that in recent times separate “greens books” have been produced, in addition to the full hole yardage books, to provide exact details on the contours of each and every one of the greens. .
Examples of the images included in these “greens books” are shown below, and amazingly, they are combined through the use of a laser that measures each green to within an eighth of an inch.
And the quest for the perfect information in pro yardage books does not end there as every year these books are updated to record any changes that have been made at the course since the tournament was played the season before.
See Also: What Book of the Bible Should I Read First? 10 Great Places To Start
This also doesn’t mention the ‘pin sheet’ provided to pros each day of tournament play, which includes how far the pin is from the center of the green and how close it is to the green as well!
[editor’s note: yardage books at augusta for masters are different from the pga tour standard and only give a distance from specific points on the fairway to the front of the green]However, things don’t end there when it comes to the information the pros have in their yardage books.
The yardage books that are issued on the pga tour for each event are just the beginning. each individual player and each caddy can start adding more specific notes to them about how they want to play the hole.
In its most basic form, some pros and caddies will simply transfer information from the day’s pin sheet to the yardage book, while others will make important reminders they don’t want to forget when they hit that hole.
a great example of this is the following image from collin morikawa’s yardage book for the famous par 3 12th hole at augusta, where he clearly doesn’t want to forget that many great players have found a grave of water by pointing too far right on that green!
others, including the great tiger forest, will add notes to their yardage books relative to where they want to target based on the location of grandstands and tv towers and then check to see if they have moved from the tournament when they return a year or several years later.
As a consequence, some professional yardage books can be viewed as a kind of time capsule recording yardage, how a course was established, and what different clubs and hole approaches took in a specific tournament and year.
In fact, some pros like Ian Poulter have made a feature of all their yardage books at home! Check out the video below!
different professionals use yardage books in different ways
A yardage book is issued to each pro and caddy at the beginning of each tournament.
and given the detailed information they include, you might think that all professionals carry them in their back pocket and refer to them constantly during their round.
However, just as every pro stroke is different, individual pros use yardage books in different ways.
some professionals trust them totally, see them as a vital tool and will add a lot of extra notes to the already huge amount of data they already include when it’s delivered.
“my head is in [my yardage book]. I’m always looking at yardage books… I feel like the yardage book is really crucial to knowing where you want to put the golf ball, how far you want to hit off the tee, and what club you need to use.” /p>
Former masters champion patrick reed, for example, says he is constantly looking at his yardage book, while former uspga champion keegan bradley uses it as a key part of his routine, pulling it out and checking it for every shot.
He also uses it as a guide and adds extra notes to it, like “one shot at a time”, to remind him to stay focused.
Others including two time pga tour winner matt jones not only use them as much as they can but also use them in coordination with their caddies and they both use their own individual notebooks on each hole to get a distance and then check your numbers to confirm they are correct.
However, there are other groups of professionals who don’t actually use their yardage books at all and rely entirely on their caddies to get the correct distance and details for every shot they play.
Two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson, former British Open champion Shane Lowry and four-time Grand Slam winner Brooks Koepka are examples of professionals who don’t keep a yardage book for a variety of reasons.
>
Brooks Koepka, for example, used to keep a yardage book, but stopped doing so because he felt as a result he was too detail-oriented and that led him to focus too much on the negatives, like where all the players were. bunkers and obstacles, before. each take.
bubba watson doesn’t carry one in the meantime because he feels he remembers everything well enough in his head from previous tournaments and in fact proves himself in every tournament against his caddy who keeps a yardage book complete with details of the last 5 years.
“I don’t keep a yardage book. teddy (caddy) carries that thing. Teddy writes for the last 5 years or so until a new yard book comes out, but I remember everything. I can tell her 7 years ago which stick we hit, which way the wind was going and she’ll look in her book and she’ll walk away. yes, you are right.”
See Also: EastonFranklinBooks.com – 100 Greatest Books of All Time
and the different habits and quirks between the pros and their yardage books don’t end there.
the great tiger woods, for example, will always carry his yardage book in his right back pocket, but if he only carries a pin sheet without a yardage book, he will put the pin sheet in the left front pocket!
so, as you can see, while all the pros and their caddies are given yardage books, they all use them in the way they think will allow them to play their best.
has changed what the pros can write in the yardage books
Technology, just as it has with golf clubs, has transformed the yardage books used by professionals.
High-tech surveying instruments, lasers and even drones are now used to put together the extremely detailed yardage books kept by pga tour professionals and their caddies, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the additional notes players and caddies add to their notebooks.
However much information they may have contained from the past to the present, professionals and caddies have always written additional notes in their yardage books.
As a general rule, golfers write notes in their distance books that are specific to their playing strategy and course. additional details include wind strength and direction, clubs played, club speeds and spin rates recorded from practice rounds and previous years’ events. Reminder notes on how to play the hole are also often written.
However, much like the debate over distance in golf, many people have been concerned about the level of detail now included and available to be added as notes to yardage books, believing it reduces the amount skill required.
As a result, in 2022, the pga tour introduced a new ‘player-driven’ rule that not only reduced the information available to professional golfers and their caddies about the greens on a course, but also the type of notes written by hand that they would be allowed to add to their yardage books.
Beginning in 2022, pga tour professionals and their caddies will receive a “tour-approved” distance book at every event they play and, while it will contain the same information from tee to green, the data provided in As far as the greens are concerned it has been greatly reduced.
All of the detailed information shown in the previous example green images has been removed and the green diagrams in the new yardage books only include the shape and depth of a green, as well as small lines and arrows that slopes that measure 4.5% or more are highlighted.
also, pros can only add handwritten notes on greens that appear “directly to the naked eye”.
as a result, golfers and caddies can add handwritten notes on greens and slopes only if they have been collected with their own eyes and not if told to them by someone else or collected with the help of reading technology of earrings. .
This rule change on handwritten notes has proven particularly controversial, as lasers, launch monitors and other technology can still be used anywhere other than the greens to measure and add distance notes or the percentage of slope or any other data that the professional wishes.
“The purpose of this rule is to return to a position where players and caddies use only their skill, judgment and sense along with any information gained through experience, preparation and practice to read the line of sight. play on the green,” read a memo the pga tour sent to players.
However, many, including golf magazine’s “America’s 100 Best Teachers” youngest member, chris como, and renowned putting coach phil kenyon, have questioned the point of the new rule of thumbs. handwritten notes on the basis that it only applies to putting and golf. the greens and not in other areas of the course.
“what a ridiculous rule. it’s stupid actually. it is useless. in fact, it is a limiting ability.” kenyon wrote on twitter and this comment was quickly taken up by bryson dechambeau who has long been a big believer in a data driven approach to golf.
chris as he added: “anything that prevents innovation of thought or practices takes away from the beauty of the game. I think it’s a mistake to go down the rabbit hole of ‘if you’re going to do it by putting it across the board’. just don’t do it!!! one of the great joys of this game is the endless treasure hunt of finding little edges that add up over time.”
Whether the rule is upheld or not, but one thing is clear.
Pros and their caddies will continue to write handwritten notes in their distance books that they feel will help their game and are within the rules of the game.
Other great articles related to this topic:
See Also: Mary Higgins Clark – Audio Books, Best Sellers, Author Bio | Audible.com
- Are there pros on the pga tour without a hole in one?
- What percentage of putts do pros make? TV doesn’t tell the story
- how often do professionals hit the driver? Not as far as you think!
- How far do professional golfers go with each club? a 2022 guide
- what clubs do professional golfers use? guide to the top 100 players on the pga tour
- the most popular driver on the lpga tour? Top 50 Players Guide
- Do Golf Pros Use Metal Spikes? but they are prohibited!
- what is considered a long golf course? the long and short of it
- go the distance? How far should beginners hit a golf ball?
- Top 10 golf stats to track. start with ‘big mistakes’
- good putt numbers: it’s about 3 putts, not putts per round