Virtually Certain

a Greener Golf blog

Virtually Certain (as applied to the game of golf) [USGA]

Virtually certain means more than just possible or probable. It means that either:

There is conclusive evidence that the event in question happened to the player’s ball, such as when the player or other witnesses saw it happen, or
Although there is a very small degree of doubt, all reasonably available information shows that it is at least 95% likely that the event in question happened.

Virtually Certain (as applied to SCIENCE) [IPCC]

Likelihood, as defined in Table 1, provides calibrated language for describing quantified uncertainty. It can be used to express a probabilistic estimate of the occurrence of a single event or of an outcome (e.g., a climate parameter, observed trend, or projected change lying in a given range). Likelihood may be based on statistical or modeling analyses, elicitation of expert views, or other quantitative analyses.