Monday, March 29, 2010

What's with all the HOLE OUTS at Bay Hill?

As I turned on the The Arnold Palmer Golf Invitational on Sunday, the network ran an interesting highlight of shots holed out from off the greens by various players, including two for back-to-back eagles on the same par 5. It was further noted that there had been an unusually high number of such hole outs by the field - 46 to that point.

As I was doing some "homework" anyway, I jotted down the number. which did seem high. And the fireworks continued: Davis Love III holed out his fifth shot of the week, Sam Saunders chipped in on #17, and Ernie Els holed a wedge from 53 yards for birdie on the 10th. What on earth was going on? Had Arnie made the hole larger?

With the final count at 49 shots holed out from off the green, I decided to see if I could gauge exactly how fantastic it was. Using ShotLink, I discovered that the holes at Bay Hill are no larger than those at every other course, nor were the players in this field more talented or more lucky than should be expected. Ever-reliable ShotLink reported that the average PGA Tour player will hole out approximately once in every eight rounds. When I divided the rounds completed by the Bay Hill field by eight, I got 48 (actually the exact number reported by ShotLink for Bay Hill).

Well, I learned something. I hope you did as well. Why the fuss by the commentators? I can only surmise that a producer noticed Davis Love's robust number and ambitiously compiled the highlight package.

A few more points of interest:

1. ShotLink's definition of "Hole Outs" = shots holed out when the player is not on the green or fringe.

2. Steve Stricker leads the Tour in Hole Outs thus far in 2010 with 9 in only 25 rounds. That is one in every 2.7 rounds or almost 2 per event. No wonder his name keeps coming up?

3. The 0 to 2 Handicap golfer in my database will hole out 1 in every 9 rounds. 77% of these will occur in the Chip/Pitch area, 16% full shots (51+ yards) and 7% Greenside Sand.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Furyk's Short Game Tames Copperhead

Certainly not the most difficult golf course played on the PGA Tour, the Copperhead at Innisbrook is at least in the top third. I have had the pleasure, but not quite from 7,340. I found it difficult overall and the greenside complexes and short game shots interesting, to say the least. Mr. Furyk may have benefited slightly from the soaking that the course took during the event but I am still impressed with his short game performance which, by my analysis, was the difference between winning and NOT.

I compared every facet of Jim Furyk's game to my PGA Winner's Profile and he was comparable across the board but four strokes better around the greens. No, it was not better putting. He simply hit the ball consistently closer to the hole. With 18 Chip/Pitch and 5 Sand shots, here are Jim's average putting distances and % saved vs. my 2009 Winners Profile:
  • Chip/Pitch Shots - Avg. putting distance 4.6 feet vs. Winners @ 5.6 feet. That is a very important foot! Furyk saved: 15 (83%) vs. Winners: 71% (call it 13).
  • Sand Shots - Avg. putting distance 5.2 feet vs. Winners 9.6 feet. Jim saved 4 (80%) vs. Winners: 56% (call it 3).
That is where I came up with the 4 shot difference. For perspective, here is how the average 15 - 19 handicap golfer would have fared, and forget about the relative difficulty of the course or the pressure of an event:

Chip/Pitch Shots:
  • Avg. putting distance: 14 feet
  • % Saved: 25%
  • % Errors: 19%
Sand Shots:
  • Avg. putting distance: 14 feet
  • % Saved: 13%
  • % Errors: 33%

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

It is in the Dirt or Sand for Charl Schwartzel


It was nice to see Ernie Els prevail on the Blue Monster and the final round was exciting until the two shot swing on the 17th hole. Ernie made a five foot putt for birdie while Charl missed a four foot, par putt. Game, set, ... as Ernie went to the very difficult 18th with a four shot lead.

Based upon what I saw down the stretch, I would have laid the blame for Schwartzel's demise on, no not his name, his putting. He came so close and seemed to play so well that I decided to compare the two players on ShotByShot.com. It turns out that the real culprit was Charl's poor sand play.

Most importantly, Charl made two ERRORS from the sand that resulted in a double and a bogey. Both were bladed over the green - three shots lost right there. Further, three of the remaining 8 attempts did not breach the 8 foot circle: (29, 13 and 13 feet from the hole respectively). Charl holed one of the 13 foot putts but missed the other two. That raises the total lost from the sand to five strokes.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the Winner's on the PGA Tour do make ERRORS from the sand. Surprisingly, this elite group missed the green in 2009 with 9% of their sand shots. I know it makes me feel better...

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Just a minute MIT - your Putting Stat is not so new!

On March 12th, the Wall Street Journal published an article trumpeting the creation of a "New Way to Measure Putting." It stated that "Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with the PGA Tour, have come up with a way to solve one of golf's biggest conundrums: how to determine who are the truly great putters in the game."

The author, John Paul Newport, appropriately pointed out the major flaws in the Tour's current way of measuring putting performance. He did his homework. As readers of my work know only too well, I refer to these flaws on almost a weekly basis. As I read Mr. Newport's words, I beamed. It was almost as if he has been a follower...

He went on to describe MIT's "discovery," which turns out to be exactly what I discovered almost 20 years ago. My discovery has been the foundation of Shot By Shot analysis and is the precise method of putting analysis contained in ShotByShot.com. In brief, MIT and the PGA Tour have used the extensive ShotLink data to create a "...baseline performance model for putts of every distance up to 100 feet." I did it up to 99 feet, thus keeping the data entry for my subscribers to two digits. "The team calls this baseline "putts to go." I called it "Mr. Scratch" because it represented the precise number of putts taken by the theoretical par shooter from each distance.

Mr. Newport went on to detail a few value points on the model. Well done, MIT - they are consistent with my Mr. Scratch. From 10 feet they got 1.63 putts-to-go, and my Mr. Scratch is 1.7. At around 30 feet, the putts-to-go average starts to exceed two. Mr. Scratch goes over 2.0 at 27 feet. From 40 feet they are at 2.15 while Mr. Scratch is at 2.12. Well, you get the point... their model and ours is virtually the same.

Let me be clear, I am in no way suggesting that the smart researchers at MIT or the PGA Tour stole my invention. Rather, I believe that they dedicated themselves to studying the problem, as I did, and merely arrived at the same brilliant conclusion. And how smart does it make me look to have done it on my own with very limited resources, using ShotByShot subscriber data, AND I did it almost 20 years ago. I am extremely gratified to have MIT and the Tour's ratification of my hard work - this has to be good for my business!

Further, I know Steve Evans, the brains at the PGA Tour behind ShotLink. I made a presentation to him and others in 1995 in which I proposed using this very approach to analyze the new ShotLink (Shot By Shot) data. Bear in mind that I had been using it successfully for 14 years at the time. For somewhat obvious reasons, I did not go into the specifics of my model and as ShotLink was just being launched they were not yet ready to embrace my vision. Believe me, I intend to reconnect with Mr. Evans shortly. If you see this post Steve, please call me!

Bottom line, this "new" way of measuring putting performance is good for my business and good for golf. I have been leading a lonely crusade to drag golf analysis out of the Dark Ages for almost 20 years. I welcome this latest development as the PGA Tour and MIT cavalry charging to aid my cause.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

So much for 3 footers

In my last post, I suggested that the short (2'11") missed putt that kept Camilo Villegas out of the finals of the Accenture match play event might haunt him. After Saturday's round of the Honda Golf Classic, I almost posted: "Beware of the 3 footers on Sunday!" I thought better of it because it seemed negative, and I really like Villegas.

I cringed on Sunday when Camilo missed a short one for par on the 12th hole and ShotLink reported that it was 2' 11". OH NO! Did I jinx him? In fact, it was his second short miss of the event. In Round Two, Camilo missed a putt of 3' 1" on the 16th hole. As discussed in my last post, this is not part of the characteristic performance of a PGA Tour event winner.

How then did Camilo overcome these short missed putts to win by 5 strokes? Let me count the ways:
a. No Tiger breathing down...
b. The rest of his game and his putting was extremely solid. In fact, in spite of the short misses, his overall putting compared favorably to our Winner's profile.

Driving - On a relatively difficult golf course with ample opportunities for penalties, Camilo had no errors off the tee. And Villegas is long!
GIR's - He averaged 13.2 per round, comparable to the 13.6 of our Winner's profile.
Short Game - Camilo's average putting distance following his Chip/Pitch shots was 4" 9", almost a foot closer than our Winner's at 5' 7" and he successfully saved 69%.

How much more will Villegas win if he masters those pesky 3 footers?