Here's What's Wrong with Golf Stats

Is it fair to say that something is wrong with traditional golf statistics when Henrik Stensen, the guy who blew away the field to win last weekend's TPC tournament, had lukewarm rankings in the major performance areas tracked by the Tour? Here's how he did:

• T 11th - Fairways Hit
• 18th - Driving Distance
• T 14th - Putts per Round
• 32nd - GIR's
• T 12th - Putts per GIR
• T37th - Sand Saves

Stensen's "best" performance came in Fairways Hit, also known as Driving Accuracy, and arguably the least credible of the traditional stats. Think about it - as long as they both end up in the fairway, this stat gives equal credit to a 150 yard blooper and a 295 yard rocket. Or it would have you thinking that blooper in the fairway is preferable to a rocket that ends up off the fairway in the first cut of rough. Or even more distorting, this stat rates a tee shot that lands in the water or out of bounds as no worse than the 275 rocket that is just in the first cut. Neither one is in the fairway, but which one would you rather play???

Stensen's 2nd "best" performance came in Greens in Regulation, which I believe is by far the most useful of the old-world stats. A YES tells us something decisively positive about that hole, and as we all know, we tend not to achieve a "personal best" GIR's/round on a day that we're playing bad golf.

Bottom line, as flawed as they are, I wonder why the PGA Tour continues to compute, publish and rely upon these outdated "indicators" of performance.

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