Luck or skill?

Vdub hacking out of the cabbage ...
fantastic result(s) , but why was he in there in the first place ?
- and surely, when he just walks up to it and hits it without really seeming to take much into consideration, this is just massively lucky to come out like it did.
Obviously hes got a great short game, and so is more likely to get a good contact on the ball etc than us mere mortals, but those two shots were basically just VERY lucky.

He did follow them up with great putts tho.

so is he all that ?
Is he really the next big thing ?
and what happened to Russel Henley - he was last springs darling..

There is no such thing as luck.

must be skill then?

Well yeah, of course.
Luck is simply defined as a favourable outcome from a particular act, so you could say it exists, but luck in the "outside Dubuissons control" element, no.

He played the shot, nothing else influenced the outcome to make it favour him.

I love saying you create your own luck...especially after bouncing off a tree into the fairway...

The first shot (cactus) looked very lucky. He look like he'd given up and just slapped the ball in dispair.

The second shot looked like he put it a bit more thought to it. But an element of chance, or luck, was defo there.

PS. s_r in his academic corner today... What would you call rolling a dice? A game of chance, a game of luck, and/or a game where only the player influences the outcome (which clearly he does) and thereby can practise to get better at it?

pedro wrote:...What would you call rolling a dice? A game of chance, a game of luck, and/or a game where only the player influences the outcome (which clearly he does) and thereby can practise to get better at it?

Chance is exactly what it is.

navyblueshorts wrote:

pedro wrote:...What would you call rolling a dice? A game of chance, a game of luck, and/or a game where only the player influences the outcome (which clearly he does) and thereby can practise to get better at it?

Chance is exactly what it is.

But only the player influences the outcome. There's no outside influences. Hence he should be able to get better by practising. (I'm WUMing here, but I'm just talking s_r lingo.)

"Lucky" is just a word I used to describe a "desirable outcome" from a situation where most times this would not happen.
I dont believe that luck exists in the way you are interpeting it.

I got a hole in one and everybody said I was lucky.  Balls to that, I aimed at hole and it went in - where's the luck in that?  Every time you don't hole a tee shot at a par 3 or an approach shot have you been unlucky then?

Exactly Bob, you don't tee it up on a par 3 to miss the target you are aiming at.

So I hit a golf shot and it's heading towards the green. There is a sudden gust of wind which makes the ball flight vary and it hits an overhanging branch. It bounces off the branch loops into the air lands on the green and rolls into the hole. Yes you were aiming at the hole, but the way it got there has to be deemed as lucky.

pedro wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

pedro wrote:...What would you call rolling a dice? A game of chance, a game of luck, and/or a game where only the player influences the outcome (which clearly he does) and thereby can practise to get better at it?

Chance is exactly what it is.

But only the player influences the outcome. There's no outside influences. Hence he should be able to get better by practising. (I'm WUMing here, but I'm just talking s_r lingo.)

Not with dice, no. Assuming all dice are unbiased and, if more than one thrown simultaneously, they're identical. It's chance, pure and simple.

Depends how you define luck.

and I see Russell Henley is on the comeback trail ! DOH!