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stat - and when will Johnny Miller get with the program because he continues to refer to it along with the other outdated measures of performance.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.
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.
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