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.
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.
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