Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Tour Winners - 70% Rule

I have been noticing this for some time and finally decided it worth mentioning.  As you know, I have been tracking the Winner's on the PGA Tour for quite some time and developed what I believe to be a credible profile.  Three key barometers stand out as displayed in the graph above.  They are all related and inter-twined but emerge week after week.  Simply stated, the winner generally displays a pure mathematical average of 70% across these three indicators.  To the extent that one falls short, the others tend to exceed the 70% mark by enough to bring the overall average to at least 70%.

I am not even talking about the weighted average - just the pure average as if each of these barometers carried exactly the same weight.  It works because they are so closely related.  If the GIR% were to fall below 70%, the Short game and Short putts (4-10 feet) automatically increase in number and importance.  Obviously, the inverse is also true.  As the number of GIR's goes up so does the number and importance of Short game shots and Short putts decrease.  It is a See-Saw of sorts with Greens (the long game) on one side and everything else on the other.

There is also the unseen, ugly under-belly - ERRORS.  Winners make them BUT very, very few.  As my readers know, I view an error to be:
    Tee shot (Drive) -  Hit out of play or into a penalty situation.  Generally no more than 1 in 4 rounds and the vast majority are of the "No Shot" variety.
   Short Game - A shot that misses the green.  Again, no more than 1 in 4 rounds and in the vast majority of these, Winners recover and get down in 3 total shots.
   Putting - A 3-putt or worse from 40 feet and in - no more than 1 per event.

As the graph above shows, Jason Bohn did everything well and with only one Error.  Jason missed the green with a Chip/Pitch but did get down in 3.  His putting was not just exceptional in the 4-10 foot range, his luck extended out to the 16-20 footer where he made 3 of 7 (43%), almost twice our Winners (26%).  He carded a 3-putt but from 70 feet - no mistake there.

Finally for perspective, the average 10 handicap would be playing by a 40% Rule.  More importantly, he would be desparately trying to keep the Error rate to 10% or less.  Put another way, to play to his 10 handicap, usually a Winner, he would not only have to equal the 40% mark on the positive stats  (above) while limiting his errors to 3 or less per round.  See if you can do it and, oh by the way, consider the Putting Error to be a 3-Putt or worse from 30 feet and in.

Friday, April 23, 2010

More Color on the Harbor Town Rules Infraction

Thank goodness the infraction that Brian Davis called on himself in the playoff did not apparently change the outcome.  I was surprised that he noticed the "ticked" straw in the heat of the playoff - it was barely perceptible in close-up, slow motion, in HD (What's better than golf in HD?) My guess is that the players are conditioned to the reality that possible infractions will ALWAYS be caught and REPORTED by zealous, arm chair officials.  Anyway, good for Brian because he did not even pause to think about it - he called it immediately.  I believe he will gain some fans and hopefully win soon.  He certainly has the game.

Did you understand the rule?  
Rule 13-3.  Ball in Hazard:  Prohibited Actions
   a.  Test the condition...
   b.  Touch the ground in the hazard... 
   c.  Touch or move a loose impediment lying in or touching the hazard.
If the straw had been alive (growing), touching it in the take-away or downswing is allowed.

Speaking of Arm Chair Officials
It does help to know the rules.  Years ago, I signed up for a USGA Rules Seminar.  I was competing at more than just the club level (state and local Amateur) and thought it prudent to have a solid foundation.  I was even considering serving as a local rules official.

As a preface to the seminar, I received a copy of the most recent USGA Rules of Golf and a rather substantial rules test.  The test was to be taken "open book" and brought to the seminar to be graded and discussed.  Open Book!?!  Who would miss even a single question, I thought...  and I saved the test to serve as my in-flight entertainment during a five hour return from a west coast business trip (I had a real job in those days).  After a couple of hours on the first 2 questions, it dawned on me why the "Open..." AND that I would never finish in only 5 hours.  I decided a better approach was to relax, close the book, order a drink and rely on my common sense - GUESS - thankfully, it was multiple choice.

The seminar was enlightening, in that I quickly became aware that I was totally out of my league.  It seemed that my fellow participants were all retired lawyers and accountants that lived for the opportunity to debate these rules challenges.  Suffice it to say, I did not pursue the rules official gig; but, I did not give up on my goal of expanding my knowledge of the rules.  Further, I am proud to say that I am one of the guys to whom rulings on the course are referred.  First, I do have a good general knowledge and  second, I am there quite a bit - conducting "field tests."  Here is how I learned the rules.   

Whenever I am confronted by a rule or rules situation where I am in doubt,  I jot it down on my scorecard and look it up when I get home.  The USGA website is an excellent resource and has made the rules quite easy to search.  When appropriate, I will email the results of my search to my playing companions (geek!!!) but, they usually appreciate knowing the right answer.

Recommendations
I do not recommend carrying a rules book in your bag.  If you don't know the rule, chances are you won't find it when under the gun.  Here are two typical types of events:
USGA Amateur competitions - There are always retired lawyers (officials) to interpret the rules for you and they love their job.  
Club competitions - Try to work it out within your group or ask a nearby group.  If you can't reach an agreement, play 2 balls and have the pro settle it after the match.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Harbour Town - A Great Short Golf Course!

Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo mentioned several times how, at only 6,973 yards, Harbour Town Golf Links is short by today's standards. It would be all but extinct if it were not  for its exceptionally narrow, pine tree-lined fairways and tiny, well protected greens. It has been 15 years since I played it and I believe I recognized many of the featured trees - but they are taller, more robust and even more in play.  It is one of the few top golf courses that I have played in which hitting the fairway in no way guaranties an unimpeded shot at the green. 

If there were a course designed for Jim Furyk, this is it.  Furyk is a consistently straight  - not long - driver, an accurate iron player, has a great short game and is a competitive - if not streaky - putter.  Jim was all of that this week, but on the good side of the putting streak - a bounce back of sorts from Augusta.  He averaged only 11 GIR's, well below the ShotByShot Winner's Profile of 13+, but this is due to the extremely small targets.  How small?  Jim's average putting distance when on the GIR was 17 feet.  This is 3 feet less than our Winner's Profile, and a significant difference cumulatively over his total 44 GIR's.

Jim secured his victory on and around the greens.  Around them, he averaged 4.6 feet from the hole with 32 Chip/Pitch shots.  I was surprised to note that this is not as close on average as our Winner Profile, but this was due to a couple of difficult shots that could not be hit close.  What is important is that he had 32 chances (almost twice the average for a Winner @ 17 shots) and Saved 27 (84% vs. 71% for other Winners).

Another skill that Jim Furyk showed was his distance control on the greens.  A few years  ago I did a putting distance control study for which I collected the following data from ShotLink on theTop 5 PGA Tour players for all putts starting at 15 feet or greater:

Average Lag Distance:  Total feet of all finishing distances divided by # of attempts.
Average Lag %:   Total of finish distances divided by total of all start distances.
% Distance Errors:  Lag putts that did not finish with 10% of the start distance or 3 feet.  

                                  2006 Top-5    Jim Furyk, Harbour Town
Avg. Lag Distance:      2.3 feet                  1.4 feet
Average Lag %:             7%                        6.6%  (smaller greens = shorter start distances)
% Distance Errors:         9%                        3%

I recommend that amateurs strive to lag putts within a 10% zone (50 feet to 5, etc.) mainly because the math is considerably easier.  The last thing we need when faced with a difficult lag opportunity is to be distracted by an even more difficult math problem.  You might try recording your finish distances for a few rounds to see how you match up.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Congratulations to Phil - and Me!

Why did I pick Phil to win the Masters?
For the past couple of years I have been the auctioneer of an annual Masters Auction run by a group of friends. I always do some research so that I can toss out niblicks of wisdom on key golfers as they come on the "block" to add some spice to the bidding. This year my research confirmed what I have always believed - that the Masters is by far the toughest of the majors to win. What I mean is that before the first tee shot flies, the list of potential winners is already relatively small.

Why? Because in the past 20 years only one player has won that did not already have at least one victory on the PGA Tour or had already won a major. That player was Ian Woosnam in 1991. Woosie had no US wins but a strong winning record on the European Tour. By contrast, the British Open was won in 2003 by Ben Curtis with only 1 Top 25 finish to his name and in 2004 by Todd Hamilton, with no other wins before or after.

Next, I noticed that 10 of the last 20 Masters have been won by a prior winner or by Tiger (4 wins) or Phil (2). So the odds are 50/50 that the winner will already own a green jacket - a very exclusive club. If I narrowed my pick to prior winners but ruled Tiger out, the winner was fairly evident. Phil is by far the best of those that are still active and have the game that could win.

It was a fun Masters to watch, but then they all are. I forgot to mention that just before the auction started I took a share of the host's action and strongly urged him to buy Phil. Since he took my advice, I will have a nice dinner on Phil, my bit of research and some good luck!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

So Much for Hitting Fairways!

I enjoyed watching Anthony Kim win in a playoff this weekend at the Shell Houston Open. Ironically, he won the playoff hole by hitting both the fairway and the green in regulation and a 2-putt par. The irony being the "fairway" because AK hit fewer fairways, by far, than I have seen from other winners on the PGA Tour - only 41% - or just over 5 of 14 fairways each round. What makes this stat even more remarkable is that Anthony started the event by hitting his first 7 fairways. After that, no so much!

AK's win dramatizes the uselessness of this ancient stat - and when will Johnny Miller get with the program because he continues to refer to it along with the other outdated measures of performance. That said, Johnny has become a fan of the Tour's newish Total Feet of Putts Made stat. While this stat is way better than the hated (mostly by me) Putts/GIR stat, Total Feet still lacks the important perspective of starting distances. It also does not account for 3-putts, or worse. I can't wait for the Tour to implement the "new" MIT approach (go to "Just a Minute MIT..." for an explanation) to see if/how the announcers explain it.

But back to Anthony Kim. Despite his apparent lack of driving accuracy, he still managed to hit over 12 Greens-in-regulation each round. So while he missed fairways, he did not miss so badly that he could not recover. In fact, he made only four Errors off the tee - two Penalties and two "No Shot" situations. (No Shot = a ball driven into a position from which one cannot proceed normally toward their next goal, requiring some sort of advancement shot to put the ball back in play.) This is still uncharacteristic as our PGA Tour Winner's Profile only records a mistake off the tee once in every two rounds, with the vast majority being the No Shot type. A Penalty off the tee creeps into our Winner's game only once every 14 rounds. For perspective, the average 10 handicap golfer drives the ball into trouble more than three times EACH round: No Shot = 2.8 per round; Penalty = .5 per round.

I submit that AK was able to survive these Errors because EVERYONE was making them. The Redstone, Tournament course has more water than my basement (Northeast joke). Taylor Vaughn tied for the lead with an identical number of tee shot errors (2 Penalties, 2 No Shots) and Phil Mickelson made light of the number of tee shots he dunked. I would like to see the averages for the field but the Tour has no such stat - yet.

On the other hand, it must be noted that the rough was cut unusually low, in part to emulate the playing conditions of next week's Masters. This helps account for how AK could hit so many greens from the rough.

Speaking of the Masters, Phil Mickelson is my pick to win. Not a great stretch as he has proved he can do it more than once. Why this year? I was very impressed with his attitude and sense of humor in his post event interview. He seems more relaxed and comfortable than I have seen in the past.