Opinion & Analysis
Are PGA Tour players too conservative when they lay up?
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Rich Hunt’s 2015 Pro Golf Synopsis, which can be purchased here for $10. Stylistic changes were made to the story for online publication.
Last year, I wrote an article Study: Why do Tour players make more par putts than birdie putts? examining the phenomenon of “loss aversion” with putting. This was based on a study conducted and published in February 2011 in the American Economic Review by authors Devin Pope and Maurice Schweitzer titled Is Tiger Woods Loss Averse? Persistent Bias in the Face of Experience, Competition, and High Stake.
Loss aversion is an economics term, but in golf it refers to players who have more of a bias toward avoiding bogey than they do toward making a birdie. Pope and Schweitzer came to the conclusion that loss aversion exists on the PGA Tour through the following findings in their study:
1) The vast majority of golfers on Tour make a higher percentage of par or worse putts than birdie putts from the same distance.
For example, a Tour player may make 50 percent of all of their putts from 7-feet. But, when examining the data they may make 45 percent of their birdie putts from that distance and 55 percent of their par putts from that distance.
2) Tour players miss a much higher percentage of their birdie putts short of the hole, and therefore their par putt misses are more likely to miss long of the hole.
This lends credence to their theory of loss aversion, as they believed that the mentality of a loss aversion player was to not hit the ball too hard on their birdie putt so they would not potentially leave themselves with a longer comeback putt.
3) Tour players not only miss fewer birdie putts later in an event, but a lower percentage of their birdie misses end up short of the cup later in the event.
Let’s imagine we have the player who makes 15 percent of his birdie putts from 15 feet and in during Round 1. Furthermore, he leaves them short 40 percent of the time in Round 1. Pope and Schweitzer noticed that in Round 2 the player is more likely to increase his make percentage on birdie putts from 15 feet (we’ll say 20 percent) and leave a smaller percentage of those missed birdie putts short of the hole (we’ll say 30 percent). The same trend is likely to happen in Round 3 (i.e. making 25 percent of the putts and leaving 25 percent of the misses short of the hole) as well as Round 3 (i.e. 30 percent made putts, 20 percent of misses left short).
Pope and Schweitzer believed that this further substantiated their claim. They surmised that as the event progresses, not making a birdie putt in Round 4 had a similar effect to missing a par-save in Round 1. Thus, the player developed a bias to not lose strokes to the field and they started to make more birdie putts and leave less of their misses short of the hole as the event went along.
Can similar conclusions be made about when players lay up?
I perform statistical consulting for players, coaches and caddies on Tour each week. Part of my consultation service includes examining holes on the course and how the players have played those holes in previous seasons. After performing this service for a couple of seasons, I started to notice some similar traits when Tour players had to lay up, either off the tee or on the second shot on a Par-5, as I saw when players were demonstrating loss aversion on the putting green.
I will determine where the best lay-up distance (and at times, location) is for a player based on previous data. One of the very first factors I found on lay-ups is that distance to the hole is generally the most important factor when it comes to playing the numbers for an ideal lay-up range. Obviously, a player does not want to lay-up to an ideal distance but be hitting from a fairway bunker or even the rough. But in general, that is a small issue since if a Tour player is laying up off the tee, he is most likely to find the fairway since the lay-up shot is usually a short shot that is easy to execute. And rarely have I come across a situation where laying-up to one side of the fairway was statistically better than laying-up to another side of the fairway provided the following approach shot is from the same distance.
Another factor is that rarely is being closer to the hole off a lay-up disadvantageous to a Tour player. If a player can have a fairway shot from 50 yards to the hole, it is almost always better than a fairway shot from 75 yards to the hole. There is a bit of a myth that laying up to one’s “money yardage” is better than having a significantly closer shot (20 yards or more) on Tour. Tour players rarely have an issue with half-swing wedges over longer, full-swing wedge shots. The only issue with hitting a lay-up shot closer to the hole is on the lay-up shot itself. The lay-up shot is now longer and it increases that lay-up shot’s level of difficulty.
I determined ideal lay-up ranges based on historical data and how close to the hole the subsequent approach shot was hit to the hole. For example, there may be a par-5 where the lay-up shots were hit to 70 to 130 yards. I may break down the information and see that from 70-90 yards, the subsequent shot was hit to a median value of 13.2 feet to the hole. Shots from 90-100 yards were hit to a median value of 17.5 feet to the hole and from 100-110 yards those shots were hit to a median value of 19.8 feet to the hole. Therefore, the ideal lay-up range on this particular hole would be to 70-90 yards to the hole.
Over time, I saw that not only did my own clients continue to miss these ideal lay-up ranges, but the field as a whole missed these ideal lay-up ranges the vast majority of the time. And the misses were almost all short of the ideal range, just like with Birdie Putts missing short of the hole.
PGA Tour tournament study: Lay ups
I wanted to see how big of a problem missing these lay-up shots short of the ideal range was on Tour. I examined a variety of Par-4s and Par-5s where lay-up shots were more likely to happen. I feel that the Par-4 lay-up holes are more telling because players are hitting from a perfect lie and everybody is hitting from the same distance. I discarded players on Par-5s that either hit a terrible drive and had a statistically significant farther distance to the lay-up range than the rest of the field, or if they were hitting a shot out of a fairway bunker or an area that is known for having a bad lie. I also discarded terrible lay-up shots that ended up outside the first cut of rough or in another fairway bunker, the water, trees, etc.
Hole No. 4, Pebble Beach: 331 yards, Par-4
One of the things that was noticeable and needed to be taken into account was that the players who made the cut, but finished in the bottom-10, had a higher percentage of finding the ideal lay-up range. It is apparent that those who barely make the cut or fall back on Sunday decide to be more aggressive because they have little to lose. It could be argued that this skews the data. But the other thing that I started to find interesting was the players who finished in the top-10 were finding the ideal lay-up range more often than the rest of the field.
Hole No. 1, PGA National: 365 yards, Par-4
The ideal lay-up range is large on this hole. It’s shown between the yellow lines (40 yards long). Despite the size of this lay-up range, only 28 percent of the field found it. But the top-10 finishers still hit the ideal lay-up range more often than the non-bottom 10 finishers.
Hole No. 3, TPC Southwinds: 554 yards, Par-5
Here we see the top-10 finishers were hitting the ideal lay-up range more than the bottom-10 players. This is because this is a reachable par-5, so the “what do we have to lose” mentality was directed toward going for the green in two instead of laying up.
Conclusions
These were just a few examples of the holes I analyzed. The rest of the holes I analyzed followed the same pattern of the field missing short of the ideal lay-up range the majority of the time and the top-10 finishers finding the ideal lay-up range more often than the rest of the field. I believe that this analysis shows an indication of players being loss averse on lay-up shots.
I can concede the potential flaws in this study, such as a player may erroneously determine an ideal lay-up range that is different from the actual ideal lay-up range. For instance, the ideal lay-up range on hole No. 9 at Harbour Town is to 80-105 yards and a player may believe that it should be to 105-125 yards. However, if that is the case then we could argue that this is still an indication of loss aversion as they are choosing an ideal lay-up range that is short of the actual ideal lay-up range.
The study does show two important findings.
- The top-10 finishers hit the actual ideal lay-up range more often when they lay-up than the rest of the field. This indicates that the top-10 finishers were less loss averse that week.
- When looking at the lay-up data and the putting data, there were two players that stood out as a combination of being the least loss averse: Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth.
At the very least, these studies should make golfers question just how much loss aversion plays a role in their performance. For example, we have always heard the old adage of “take an extra club on approach shots because you are more likely to miss short of the hole than long of the hole.” Perhaps that is another instance of loss aversion affecting a golfer’s performance.
I also have to wonder if McIlroy and Spieth have a different view of golf than most everybody else. Perhaps they are thinking more about accumulating good golf shots in a round instead of focusing on avoiding bad golf shots. And maybe the golf world has to change its outlook on golf, choosing an offensive instead of defensive mindset in order to break the barriers Spieth and McIlroy have in recent years.
As the editor-in-chief of this website and an observer of the GolfWRX forums and other online golf equipment discourse for over a decade, I’m pretty well attuned to the grunts and grumbles of a significant portion of the golf equipment purchasing spectrum. And before you accuse me of lording above all in some digital ivory tower, I’d like to offer that I worked at golf courses (public and private) for years prior to picking up my pen, so I’m well-versed in the non-degenerate golf equipment consumers out there. I touched (green)grass (retail)!
Complaints about the ills of and related to the OEMs usually follow some version of: Product cycles are too short for real innovation, tour equipment isn’t the same as retail (which is largely not true, by the way), too much is invested in marketing and not enough in R&D, top staffer X hasn’t even put the new driver in play, so it’s obviously not superior to the previous generation, prices are too high, and on and on.
Without digging into the merits of any of these claims, which I believe are mostly red herrings, I’d like to bring into view of our rangefinder what I believe to be the two primary difficulties golf equipment companies face.
One: As Terry Koehler, back when he was the CEO of Ben Hogan, told me at the time of the Ft Worth irons launch, if you can’t regularly hit the golf ball in a coin-sized area in the middle of the face, there’s not a ton that iron technology can do for you. Now, this is less true now with respect to irons than when he said it, and is less and less true by degrees as the clubs get larger (utilities, fairways, hybrids, drivers), but there remains a great deal of golf equipment truth in that statement. Think about it — which is to say, in TL;DR fashion, get lessons from a qualified instructor who will teach you about the fundamentals of repeatable impact and how the golf swing works, not just offer band-aid fixes. If you can’t repeatably deliver the golf club to the golf ball in something resembling the manner it was designed for, how can you expect to be getting the most out of the club — put another way, the maximum value from your investment?
Similarly, game improvement equipment can only improve your game if you game it. In other words, get fit for the clubs you ought to be playing rather than filling the bag with the ones you wish you could hit or used to be able to hit. Of course, don’t do this if you don’t care about performance and just want to hit a forged blade while playing off an 18 handicap. That’s absolutely fine. There were plenty of members in clubs back in the day playing Hogan Apex or Mizuno MP-32 irons who had no business doing so from a ballstriking standpoint, but they enjoyed their look, feel, and complementary qualities to their Gatsby hats and cashmere sweaters. Do what brings you a measure of joy in this maddening game.
Now, the second issue. This is not a plea for non-conforming equipment; rather, it is a statement of fact. USGA/R&A limits on every facet of golf equipment are detrimental to golf equipment manufacturers. Sure, you know this, but do you think about it as it applies to almost every element of equipment? A 500cc driver would be inherently more forgiving than a 460cc, as one with a COR measurement in excess of 0.83. 50-inch shafts. Box grooves. And on and on.
Would fewer regulations be objectively bad for the game? Would this erode its soul? Fortunately, that’s beside the point of this exercise, which is merely to point out the facts. The fact, in this case, is that equipment restrictions and regulations are the slaughterbench of an abundance of innovation in the golf equipment space. Is this for the best? Well, now I’ve asked the question twice and might as well give a partial response, I guess my answer to that would be, “It depends on what type of golf you’re playing and who you’re playing it with.”
For my part, I don’t mind embarrassing myself with vintage blades and persimmons chasing after the quasi-spiritual elevation of a well-struck shot, but that’s just me. Plenty of folks don’t give a damn if their grooves are conforming. Plenty of folks think the folks in Liberty Corner ought to add a prison to the museum for such offences. And those are just a few of the considerations for the amateur game — which doesn’t get inside the gallery ropes of the pro game…
Different strokes in the game of golf, in my humble opinion.
Anyway, I believe equipment company engineers are genuinely trying to build better equipment year over year. The marketing departments are trying to find ways to make this equipment appeal to the broadest segment of the golf market possible. All of this against (1) the backdrop of — at least for now — firm product cycles. And golfers who, with their ~15 average handicap (men), for the most part, are not striping the golf ball like Tiger in his prime and seem to have less and less time year over year to practice and improve. (2) Regulations that massively restrict what they’re able to do…
That’s the landscape as I see it and the real headwinds for golf equipment companies. No doubt, there’s more I haven’t considered, but I think the previous is a better — and better faith — point of departure when formulating any serious commentary on the golf equipment world than some of the more cynical and conspiratorial takes I hear.
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m worthy of an Adam Hadwin-esque security guard tackle? Let me know in the comments.
@golfoncbs The infamous Adam Hadwin tackle ? #golf #fyp #canada #pgatour #adamhadwin ? Ghibli-style nostalgic waltz – MaSssuguMusic
Episode #16 brings us Cliff McKinney. Cliff is the founder of Old Charlie Golf Club, a new club, and concept, to be built in the Florida panhandle. The model is quite interesting and aims to make great, private golf more affordable. We hope you enjoy the show!
Last week, I came across a reel from BBC Sport on Instagram featuring Scottie Scheffler speaking to the media ahead of The Open at Royal Portrush. In it, he shared that he often wonders what the point is of wanting to win tournaments so badly — especially when he knows, deep down, that it doesn’t lead to a truly fulfilling life.
View this post on Instagram
“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport,” Scheffler said. “To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”
Ironically — or perhaps perfectly — he went on to win the claret jug.
That question — what’s the point of winning? — cuts straight to the heart of the human journey.
As someone who’s spent over two decades in the trenches of professional golf, and in deep study of the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the game, I see Scottie’s inner conflict as a sign of soul evolution in motion.
I came to golf late. I wasn’t a junior standout or college All-American. At 27, I left a steady corporate job to see if I could be on the PGA Tour starting as a 14-handicap, average-length hitter. Over the years, my journey has been defined less by trophies and more by the relentless effort to navigate the deeply inequitable and gated system of professional golf — an effort that ultimately turned inward and helped me evolve as both a golfer and a person.
One perspective that helped me make sense of this inner dissonance around competition and our culture’s tendency to overvalue winning is the idea of soul evolution.
The University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies has done extensive research on reincarnation, and Netflix’s Surviving Death (Episode 6) explores the topic, too. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, the idea that we’re on a long arc of growth — from beginner to sage elder — offers a profound perspective.
If you accept the premise literally, then terms like “young soul” and “old soul” start to hold meaning. However, even if we set the word “soul” aside, it’s easy to see that different levels of life experience produce different worldviews.
Newer souls — or people in earlier stages of their development — may be curious and kind but still lack discernment or depth. There is a naivety, and they don’t yet question as deeply, tending to see things in black and white, partly because certainty feels safer than confronting the unknown.
As we gain more experience, we begin to experiment. We test limits. We chase extreme external goals — sometimes at the expense of health, relationships, or inner peace — still operating from hunger, ambition, and the fragility of the ego.
It’s a necessary stage, but often a turbulent and unfulfilling one.
David Duval fell off the map after reaching World No. 1. Bubba Watson had his own “Is this it?” moment with his caddie, Ted Scott, after winning the Masters.
In Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, reflecting on his 2011 Super Bowl win, Rodgers said:
“Now I’ve accomplished the only thing that I really, really wanted to do in my life. Now what? I was like, ‘Did I aim at the wrong thing? Did I spend too much time thinking about stuff that ultimately doesn’t give you true happiness?’”
Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Eventually, though, something shifts.
We begin to see in shades of gray. Winning, dominating, accumulating—these pursuits lose their shine. The rewards feel more fleeting. Living in a constant state of fight-or-flight makes us feel alive, yes, but not happy and joyful.
Compassion begins to replace ambition. Love, presence, and gratitude become more fulfilling than status, profits, or trophies. We crave balance over burnout. Collaboration over competition. Meaning over metrics.
Interestingly, if we zoom out, we can apply this same model to nations and cultures. Countries, like people, have a collective “soul stage” made up of the individuals within them.
Take the United States, for example. I’d place it as a mid-level soul: highly competitive and deeply driven, but still learning emotional maturity. Still uncomfortable with nuance. Still believing that more is always better. Despite its global wins, the U.S. currently ranks just 23rd in happiness (as of 2025). You might liken it to a gifted teenager—bold, eager, and ambitious, but angsty and still figuring out how to live well and in balance. As much as a parent wants to protect their child, sometimes the child has to make their own mistakes to truly grow.
So when Scottie Scheffler wonders what the point of winning is, I don’t see someone losing strength.
I see someone evolving.
He’s beginning to look beyond the leaderboard. Beyond metrics of success that carry a lower vibration. And yet, in a poetic twist, Scheffler did go on to win The Open. But that only reinforces the point: even at the pinnacle, the question remains. And if more of us in the golf and sports world — and in U.S. culture at large — started asking similar questions, we might discover that the more meaningful trophy isn’t about accumulating or beating others at all costs.
It’s about awakening and evolving to something more than winning could ever promise.
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binu
Feb 11, 2016 at 11:36 pm
The pros play the percentage shot most of the time unless there is something on the line (etc – final round on the back nine). These guys are all number crunching machines for the most part.
David Ober
Feb 5, 2016 at 10:40 am
I’ve often heard you remark that “closer is better” for the pros, but I’m more interested in the times when it is not. When greens get extremely firm and downwind, I’ve always wondered how many pros would chose a 30 – 40 yard shot over an 80 yard shot to a front pin cut over a bunker on a downwind firm green.
My guess is very few. I’d be interested to know the average strokes to get down from both positions over a large sample, but the types of pin positions I’m talking about are very particular, but they do occur with regularity in tournaments where the greens are very, very firm.
Richie Hunt
Feb 10, 2016 at 4:50 pm
David – The most common instance I have found when it is better to lay-back more is on back pin locations. There’s a variety of reasons that can account for this. On Par-5’s, one of the common issues is the bunker shots. For Tour players, they are fairly competent and better off with a bunker shot from 25 yards and in than they would be to lay-up to their ‘money yardage.’ But once they get outside of 25-yards with a bunker shot…they would be better off laying-up. The performance drops dramatically once outside 25-yards. So, if you have a large green and the pin location is in back, you may find a greenside bunker where you have a bunker shot longer than 25-yards. However, if the pin was in front or the middle and you were in that bunker, the bunker shot could likely be less than 25-yards.
#10 at Riviera is another example. That’s more about getting the ball to hold onto the green. That’s a quirky hole and a Tour player can hit driver to that back pin location at get blocked off by the left greenside bunker or find the right greenside bunker which is usually jail. But, if they lay-up, they can have a wedge into the hole and generate more spin to get the ball to hold.
#17 at Scottsdale is better to lay-up on that back pin location as well. That’s more of an angle issue. I wouldn’t lay-up too far back. It’s more about trying to get as close to the green as you can without reaching the green because it’s too small of a landing area once you get to the green in order to put yourself in good position to get to that back pin location.
John
Feb 4, 2016 at 12:23 pm
Really interesting article Richie! I know I am guilty of this. I don’t like laying up because I feel defensive. Whenever I hit a lay up shot, I feel like I am trying to steer the ball and not hit a bad one. When I get the chance to attack my attitude and focus are better. I think there is absolutely something to the “loss aversion” idea. As you pointed out, it can be seen with par putts and birdie putts, and I think you could also find it with chips and pitches. I would be interested to see if the pros get up and down from say 30-40 yards more often for birdie on a par 5 or up and down for par on a par 4 from the same distance.
Alex
Feb 4, 2016 at 8:19 am
If a PGA Tour pro thinks he’s got to lay up, then he’s got to lay up.
Tour pros make more par putts than birdie putts. And so do single digit amateurs. It’s the nature of the game. I’ve played the game for over 30 years and it’s always been so. I don’t think a statistics guru must say so.
emb
Feb 3, 2016 at 10:55 pm
While I love reading your articles on statistics and find golf stats to be particularly interesting, I just can’t agree with the findings of this article when the top 10 players % of laying up to “ideal” yardage ranges from 37-54%. Yes, it may be higher than the non top/bottom 10 finishing players but, when only roughly 4 of the top 10 players are hitting the ideal yardages does that really translate into a quantifiable performance difference? Half or more of the top 10 aren’t hitting the ideal range either and they’re doing just fine.
Other Paul
Feb 3, 2016 at 8:28 pm
Im pretty sure i almost never lay up, unless its an accident. I live by the driver and die by it to.
Double Mocha Man
Feb 3, 2016 at 4:12 pm
I’m going to play two rounds of golf in the next two days. On the first day I’m going to be daring and go for par 5 greens in two, cut doglegs, go at all the pins… take calculated chances everywhere, including hitting out from the woods between those two trees. On day two I’m going to lay up on par 5’s and try to hit greens, just to get the GIR. I will see how it goes. See how it feels. See which style my genetic makeup prefers.
Fahgdat
Feb 4, 2016 at 3:35 am
What about pin placement, doofus?
Double Mocha Man
Feb 4, 2016 at 11:51 am
What about it? I don’t get your point. On day 2 it’s just about getting on greens and two- putting or getting lucky and one-putting. I know you play to a plus handicap; I only play to a 3.5 so this little experiment is practical for me. I’m doing Part 1 today.
Lawrence
Feb 3, 2016 at 2:29 pm
Zach Johnson laid-up on all the par 5s when he won the Masters.
Richie Hunt
Feb 3, 2016 at 2:40 pm
The issue is not about laying up, although it is important. It’s about where the players are laying up to. On Par-5’s, most of the time the best lay-up spots were to about 70-90 yards while the majority of pros were laying up to 90-110 yards. Also, when Zach won the Masters he did it in record low temperatures and very breezy conditions. The amount of ‘go for its’ that year’s Master’s was extraordinarily low compared to previous Masters and Masters afterwards.
West
Feb 3, 2016 at 1:30 pm
huh?
Nick
Feb 3, 2016 at 12:37 pm
I will admit that I fall into this trap when I play tournaments. I always try to take on the least amount of risk that I can when laying-up. I will say though when I have played well and won tournaments, I have the feeling that I can hit any shot; thus, I am more aggressive on all my shots. It also doesn’t help that in college my coach taught us to only be aggressive if we had 8-iron or less into greens.
Jacob
Feb 3, 2016 at 12:34 pm
As far as making par putts vs making birdie putts, I think you ignored what happens before making a par putt. They are more likely to have just missed a previous putt, or chipped on to the green compared to when they are going for a birdie putt. This would mean they get a better view of the line, assuming they’re paying attention.
Richie Hunt
Feb 3, 2016 at 1:32 pm
The study on par vs. birdie putts indicated loss aversion was coming into play because not only were they missing birdie putts more often from the same distance, but a higher percentage of birdie putt misses were missed short of the hole. And this was happening more frequently earlier in the event (more in round 1 than in round 2 than in round 3 than in round 4). The researchers took that into account, but their conclusions were that because of the short misses on birdie putts and it occurring more often earlier in the event, that in all likelihood reading the previous putt had little to do with par putting performance.
Tom
Feb 3, 2016 at 8:55 pm
But surely a counter argument to that is that missing short is a ‘misread’ of speed. Having had a look at not only the break but also the speed of a putt, therefore more likely to get the speed ‘correct’. Comparing par and birdie putts are like oranges and grapefruit – close enough to be confused, but different enough that it’s hard to directly compare.
devilsadvocate
Feb 3, 2016 at 1:32 pm
I was planning on posting this as I read… Thankfully someone else has some common sense
Fahgdat
Feb 3, 2016 at 12:18 pm
Worthless article without the yardages that those top-10 players mostly hit on average with each club, comfortably. Situationally, of course they decide the best course of action, but percentages of likelihood with their yardages for accuracy comes into play.
So how about a WITB with yardages for each club of these players, and their GIR percentages and proximity to the greens with each club?
Fahgdat
Feb 3, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Sorry meant to say proximity to the pin
munichop
Feb 3, 2016 at 12:03 pm
This kind of study results in a chicken or egg analysis for golfers. For example are JS and RM making these decisions because they evaluate risk differently or are they just more confident in their ability to hit the shot that is required that they play with less fear. It is the old Ken Venturi insight – to paraphrase- a player must decide what his ego would like him to do, what his brain tells him to do and what his nerves allow him to do. I think an interesting thing to investigate is how players vary this approach when they play match play vs stroke play. Guys like Monty and Poulter I would expect to be much different in the two formats.
Richie Hunt
Feb 3, 2016 at 2:49 pm
I agree that there is chicken or the egg, that is why I did not try to take a strong stance in the end (or at least I hope I didn’t come off like I was taking a strong stance). I found the results interesting and it started to give me a different perspective on the game when I saw the ‘aggressiveness’ of McIlroy and Spieth. I do know from a Tour client of mine that Rory is just extremely confident and aggressive on the course and isn’t afraid to tell people this and how he believes in being aggressive. I also know that Spieth works with Scott Fawcett on strategy and Fawcett’s data concurs with my findings on ‘aggressiveness’ in golf.
I was also watching the documentary on mafia hitman Richard Kuklinski (aka The Iceman) with world renowned psychologist, Dr. Park Dietz. Dr. Dietz said that Kuklinski’s daring nature was like genetic in his case. So, part of that ‘aggressiveness’ with players like McIlroy and Spieth may be part of a genetic makeup that most people do not have. So trying to create a mindset of not being loss averse may not actually work if you don’t have the genetic makeup for it.
Philip
Feb 3, 2016 at 9:58 pm
I can see that. I do not classify myself as a risk taker, however, I do embrace the rush that comes from being on the edge and pushing myself just beyond my best – I say I am an adrenaline junkie.