Sunday's golf

You may have heard this:

Something seemed very wrong when Brian Davis of England summoned a rules official immediately after hitting his pitch from the hazard near Calibogue Sound in Sunday’s playoff with Jim Furyk for the Verizon Heritage title. Actually, something was very right.

As most of the golf world knows by now, Davis called a two-stroke penalty on himself that cost him the tournament.

He had ever-so-slightly nicked a reed during his backswing while trying to recover from the beach left of the 18th green. Barely moved it. To the naked eye, it was almost invisible. But not to Davis, who was pretty sure he knew what had happened and who called Slugger White of the PGA Tour over to verify his judgment.

While the self-imposed penalty is notable, the truth is that even without the penalty Furyk was likely to win. Davis' shot sailed 25 feet past the hole and he was unlikely to make par anyway.

I thought that what may have been more interesting than the penalty was Davis' decision to play the shot from inside the hazard itself.

For those of you who didn't watch, here was the situation in a nutshell. Davis' shot hit the edge of the green, then rolled off the course and onto a sandy beach. Furyk was obliged to putt first and left his ball 6 feet from the hole and was likely carding a 4.

Davis had two choices:

1. Hit from the hazard...a wet sandy lie with no practice swing..or
2. Take a one stroke penalty and then try to chip/putt it from the green side grass maybe 15 feet from the hole.

From there it becomes (or should have become) an evaluation of percentages.

How many times can he chip it in from 15 feet( 35%)

vs

How many times can he hit up up and then make the putt - Which is a combination of; when he chips it to 10 feet ( 30% of the time) he'll make the putt 80% for a total of 24% PLUS when his chips between 10-20 (30%) he'll make the putt 40% for another 12$; and when he chips is more than 20 feet away (60%) he'll only make it 5% of the time, add 3% for a total of 24 + 12 + 3 = 39% of the time he'll score a 2.

As 39% is higher than 35%, he should play it from the hazard.

Of course I'm making all of those numbers up. But the point is that there's a non-intuitive process by which you can ( and perhaps should) make decisions. Many of those decisions occur in your every day life.

That's the foundation of applied game theory, and also the genesis behind a pretty cool book that I've added to my birthday wish list.

DUCY? Exploits, Advice, and Ideas of the Renowned Strategist by David Sklansy
(DUCY is for Do You See Why)