Rory's Putter Roared the Loudest

Finally, an example of “Tour Stats” bearing a direct relationship to the outcome of a golf tournament! Rory Sabbatini won the HP Byron Nelson Championship last weekend, and his phenomenal putting was ranked #1 in both Putts per GIR and Putts per round. Readers of this blog know how strongly I disagree with these two traditional gems of “statistical golf analysis,” so why now are they correct? Have you heard the one about 10,000 monkeys banging on typewriters eventually producing something coherent? No, it’s not quite that extreme. (And no offense meant to the folks at the PGA Tour - I know many of them and they are highly competent but constrained by the Tour’s traditional stat viewpoint.) But let’s take a closer look at Rory’s putting performance.

The ShotByShot.com View
When I ran the distance of each first putting opportunity and the number of putts needed to hole out on each green through ShotByShot.com’s proprietary models, Rory’s overall performance ranked better than what I typically see from the winners on the Tour. Here's a niblick of truth: of Rory's record 19 strokes under par, over 50% - approximately 10 strokes - are attributable to his fabulous putting.

The Common Sense View
With no 3-putts for the week, Rory managed to 1-putt better than half of the 72 greens (37 to be exact). He also chipped in from off the green twice. His longest one-putt was from 41 feet in the 3rd round, a distance from which the average Tour player will average just over 2 putts. The average distance of Rory’s 37 one-putts was eight feet – coincidently the distance from which the average Tour player will only make 50% of his putts. Finally, it is ironic that over a four day golf tournament, Rory’s only missed putt from 5 feet or closer came on the final hole of the tournament. Fortunately, he only needed a 3-putt to secure his victory.


There's a lot that mere mortals can learn about their putting performance - and the other components of their golf game as well - from ShotByShot.com's analysis. Go to www.ShotByShot.com for more information.