Howdy speedgolf family!

You're reading This Week in Speedgolf.

Here's what's happening in speedgolf this week.

---

Scottie Scheffler vs. Rory McIlroy -- in speedgolf?

Was the Grant Horvat + Bryan Bros speedgolf relay just an appetizer before the main dish?

That's what it's starting to look like, seeing the recent announcement of the Optum Golf Channel Games, which will air live December 17th from Trump National GC Jupiter. Hat tip to astute reader Ryan Bank for passing this along.

Reading through the announcement, I can't help but notice they keep using this word... "timed".

• Timed Drive (2:00)
• Timed Short Game (3:00)
• 14-Club Challenge
• Timed Shootout

From the release:

Timed shootout: A four-player alternate shot on four holes with teammates staged on the tee (1), in the fairway (1), and around the green (2). Finish with the best score in the shortest amount of time...the clock is running!

Rory McIlroy teams up with the other big bearded Irishman -- Shane Lowry -- plus Luke Donald and Haotong Li.

Scottie Scheffler rides his golf cart into battle with Keegan Bradley, Sam Burns, and Luke Clanton.

This is exciting, of course. But honestly this teaser leaves me with a lot of questions about format.

First, is this three holes of continuous play (like Grant Horvat + Bryan Bros)? Or will the teams 'reset' after each hole, making it a three-peat of the single-hole speedgolf challenges we've seen over the years?

Let's be optimistic for a moment and assume it's continuous play. That means teams will finish the first hole in 30-45 seconds. Assuming holes 2-3 will be less organized than the first, they are probably still finishing the challenge in under 4 minutes and hitting 10-13 strokes.

In this scenario, traditional speedgolf scoring doesn't work. If one stroke = one minute, then the golf score will be the only thing that matters. The only way we'll see a 60+ second difference is if a team has a disaster hole (which will swing their golf score so far it doesn't matter).

On a challenge like this, I want to see them reward speed, so I would push for 1 stroke = 10 seconds.

Now, I don't know how the Golf Channel is organizing this, since they didn't ask me. But someday maybe they will.

Until that day, I'll just be one of many highly-opinionated viewers.

---

A speedgolf strategy tool for you to break

Lately, I've been part of some spirited debates trying to answer the question: what is the ideal club to hit off the tee in speedgolf?

From what I've seen, there are three schools of thought:

Driver. Your Driver has the biggest face, it's the most forgiving, and -- most important -- it hits the ball the farthest. Proximity to the hole is the only thing that matters in golf, so just hit driver.

3-wood. 3-wood goes almost as far as driver, but critically (a) you don't have to tee it up, saving valuable seconds and (b) you can hit it off the deck, giving you more flexibility on long approach shots. You'll be closer on par 5s, so just hit 3-wood.

Hybrid/Driving iron. A Driver is just a tool that turns otherwise-good golf swings into penalty strokes. With hybrid/driving iron, you'll hit more fairways. As long as you can hit the ball ~240y and know where it's going, you'll keep big numbers off the card, so just hit hybrid/driving iron.

In trying to settle this debate, I collected an interesting data set:

Above, you'll see the top 15 Open division finishers at the 2024 Speedgolf World Championships. A couple of things stick out:

• Five of the top six finishers hit 3-wood. The only exception was Jamie Reid, who hits Driver
• Only two of the top 15 hit anything shorter than 3-wood (Luke Bone with 5-wood and Stan Masson with a driving iron -- both are long hitters with any club)

(By the way, if you see yourself on this list and I've mis-classfied you, hit 'Reply' and let me know.)

Now, this gets to an interesting question of cause and effect. Do the best players hit 3-wood because it's the best choice? Entirely possible. But maybe 3-wood looks good in their hands because these guys are already elite ball-strikers. Hell, maybe Bernie Smith (no relation to World #1 Robin Smith, mind you!) would have been your World Champion had he carried driver...

To try and answer this question for myself, I did what I always do. I built a computer simulation. Try it yourself if you want to:

👉 Speedgolf Baby Tee Shot Calculator

Works best on desktop, but should be usable on mobile devices, too.

If you follow that link, you'll see a simple golf hole -- a 400y par 4. And you can try some scenarios to see expected speedgolf score, relative to a 250y drive down the middle.

• You can try a 275y drive in the rough vs. a 225 drive in the fairway (less than 2 seconds difference in expected score)
• You can compare a 300y drive OB vs. a 170y layup (300y drive OB is only 11 seconds worse by my math, so the risk may be worth the reward if that's the situation you're faced with)

If you decide to try it, be sure to hit 'Reply' and tell me what you learn. And with so many of you reading, I'm sure you'll come up with bugs and edge cases I never would have anticipated.

Oh, and if you like this more tactical stuff, let me know. There are a million speedgolf topics that would benefit from a tactical deep dive.

---

This week in speedgolf media

Golf Digest: Is it wrong to want to play at a leisurely pace? I'm actually on board with this piece. My preferred pace for slow golf is 3:20 for 18 holes (walking), but I'm not going to get bent out of shape if somebody wants to read a 5-foot putt for a minute. Every stroke counts, after all.

SpeedgolfApp: Best FPV camera for speedgolf is DJI Nano. Watch the video to see elite anti-shake processing.

Speedgolf Australia: Tuesday night speedgolf at Club Tocumwal. Just a week after I highlighted the Social Series by Speedgolf Taranaki, we see the same playbook at Club Tocumwal. If you run a casual speedgolf meetup, just copy/paste this. And post it every. single. week.

Speedgolf Japan: Japan Speedgolf Open sizzle reel. If you were at Worlds 2024, you'll see a lot of familiar faces!

bennymikes on Instagram: Speedgolf on skis. If your golf course is 100% downhill, this looks amazing! Stay out of the water, though.

---

That's all, folks

Until next week, keep it in the short grass!

Adam

---

Adam Lorton

👕 Buy Merch → https://speedgolf.baby/store​

🍎 Subscribe → https://youtube.com/@SpeedgolfBaby​

​❤️ Follow → https://www.instagram.com/speedgolf.baby

​⛳ Grow the game → https://playspeedgolf.com