Tuesday, March 29, 2011

What were the odds of a playoff at Bay Hill?

Three  things struck me as I enjoyed Arnie's Invitational at Bay Hill.  I will address them in reverse order of importance:

1.  Where's Waldo & Tiger?
I cannot remember watching a Tiger-included event in which he was not seen or mentioned in the final round, regardless of where he was in the field.  This week was no different than most others as we saw quite a bit of Tiger on Saturday despite his position 9 or 10 holes ahead of the leaders.  Could his  conspicuous absence on Sunday have anything to do with the driver that he let fly in anger on Saturday?  That's my guess as the King is all about tradition, gracious and gentlemanly conduct and what's good for the game - club throwing - NOT!  Doubt his influence?  NBC recently partnered with the Golf Channel - Arnie helped found and fund the Golf Channel. 

2.  Worst closing round EVER! 
Since I have been recording and analyzing the Tour Winners on ShotByShot.com (early 2009), this 280 (-8) is the highest 4-round total that I have seen for a non-major.  Partially due to the course - good job, Arnie - but also just poor play.  Martin Laird's final round +3, 75 should not have been good enough to win but for a major stumble by Steve Marino and the final-hole bogey by Marc Leishman.  In any case, it made for good drama - much more fun to watch than a multiple shot victory.

3.  What ARE the odds of Laird's 2-putt on 18 from 87 feet? 
Johnny Miller gave us his estimate of the odds of a 3-putt/playoff:  40% This would mean 2-putt/Win:  60%.  I was struck by how little credit was given to the great lag putt that followed Johnny's prediction - 3' 7" - especially with the win on the line.  One of the on-course commentators chimed in with the note that Martin had 3-putted from close range (23 FEET) on the final hole of the Barclays only to subsequently lose in a playoff.  Thank goodness Martin could not hear this great comment...  I was thinking it as I wrote about this in my 9/1/2010 entry:  How Hard is it to WIN on the PGA Tour?  

What are the odds?
Hard to say because the Tour does not provide detail on putting stats by range outside 35 feet, but here is what I was able to get:
a.  For all putts greater than 35 feet in 2011 (8 events) the Tour averaged 2.11 putts and Martin Laird was slightly better at 2.02 (ranked T17).  Not very helpful!

b.  The average distance from which the Tour will experience a 3-putt following a GIR is:  41 feet.  Again, Martin is a bit better - 45 feet.  Again, little help with our 87 foot challenge?

So much for the Tour, I decided to break it into pieces.  From my study of distance control on the PGA Tour, I learned that the Top-5 players' average lag from 20 feet and more was to within7% of the start distance.  From this study, I determined that 10% was an acceptable lag. Outside that could be considered an ERROR.  Martin Laird had 8 opportunities of 20 feet+ in his final round.  Five were distance control busts (13% to 19%), but three were winners (0% - holed, 2% and the final 4%).  Overall, his distance control for the final round was an acceptable 10%.

If we assume two lag results for Martin on #18 from 87 feet of 7% and 10%.  He would be left with putts of 6' 1" or 8' 6" respectively.  What are the odds of 1 vs. 2 putts from those distances?  Back to the Tour:

YTD 2011 - % 1-Putt
Lag to %     Distance (ft.)     Laird       Tour Avg.
   7%                     6 ft.               54%           70%
  10%                    9 ft.               56%           46%
  
Good job, Johnny Miller!  Your odds of a playoff (3-putt) of 40% were spot-on.  Given a good or acceptable lag, according to my study, Martin would have had been in a playoff in the 46% to 44% range.  Fortunately for Martin, his lag was OUTSTANDING - 3' 7" or 4% - well done!

Finally, as I have said before, I recommend that the rest of us use the 10% Rule when evaluating our lag opportunities.  If nothing else, the math is so much easier!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

What is BALL STRIKING anyway?

Isn't it always a bit more fun to watch an event on a course that you've played?  The Copperhead course at Innisbrook is special and NOT because it is easy.  To emphasize its relative difficulty,  Johnny Miller cited the critical importance of "Ball Striking" - no, not the act of hitting the ball solidly, but the PGA Tour Stat.

Being familiar with that stat, I was interested to hear Johnny explain or elaborate, but he didn't.  Why the omission?  First, it's complicated, and my guess is that: a) it would take too long; and/or b) he did not want to get it wrong - which would be easy to do.  So I decided to refresh my memory and dig out my list of PGA Tour Stats Definitions.  (In 2009 I killed a small tree and printed the 26 pages of over 400 Tour stats.  I figured that before analyzing and criticizing, I should know the subject matter.) In fact, I counted 18 driving distance stats on the Tour's stat list - far more than one can digest. 

BALL STRIKING - Categorized as an 'Off the Tee - Other Stats,' is actually a combination of the player rankings in three other stats: 

"Ball Striking is computed by totaling a player's rank in both Total Driving [computed by totaling a player's rank in both Driving distance and Driving accuracy]  and Greens in Regulation."  This numerical total is compared to other players and the player with the lowest total rank becomes #1 and so on up the ladder. 

Greens in Regulation and Driving Accuracy are fairly straightforward stats.  They are simply the percentage of Greens and Fairways Hit, respectively.

Driving Distance, a carryover from the pre-Shotlink era, is based upon distance off the tee as measured on TWO holes per round.  As the definition states, "Care is taken to select two holes which face in opposite directions to counteract the effect of wind."  It is my guess that this stat is still used to maintain some sort of statistical integrity over time because Shotlink now captures the distance on every hole and the stat that includes "...all drives...measured by laser..." does exist.


So, how important was Gary Woodland's Ball Striking?
Not very!  According to this stat, 55 players performed better than the winner of the event.   Here is exactly how Gary earned his #56 Ball Striking ranking on Copperhead: 

Total Driving = Ranked #41
     - Driving distance:  #7 (296.5 yards)
     - Driving accuracy:  T#54 (hit only 57% of the fairways per round)
   The total of 61 found Gary ranked 41st in the field.
  
Greens in Regulation =  T#29 (12.75 per round, 70.8%)
_____________________________________________
Total of the two rankings:   70, placed Gary at #56 in the field.  For perspective the corresponding  average for the field was 192.  Helpful?  Again, not very!


OK Johnny, I apologize!  It was totally NOT worth the time to explain this stat.  I only did so because I looked it up to reconfirm my impression that it was relatively useless.  It is too complicated, not particularly relevant and almost impossible for your viewers to relate to their own games.  It is the first time that I have heard this stat mentioned during a telecast in years and probably should be the last.

So, how DID Gary Woodland distinguish himself last weekend?
In a nutshell, Long Game and Putting.  Gary hit our 70% Rule for GIR's on the button, and had only one minor error - a No Shot result from the tee on the par-5, 11th hole on Sunday that resulted in a bogey.  Putting was the difference.  Gary overcame two 3-putts from fairly close range (27 and 30 feet) with unusual accuracy from 20 feet and in.  Over the four rounds, he 1-putted 51% of his opportunities (Winners profile = 45%) and  holed 47% of putts from 11 - 20 feet (Winners = 35%).  Finally,  it was two clutch putts in this range on the final holes (16 and 11 feet) that secured his 1-shot victory.  Talk about "Putt for dough!"      

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Why Nick Watney Won: Is it Tiger's New Swing?

I warned that I would keep an eye on Tiger's progress.  What I found of interest, in this week's Cadillac WGC Championship, was the  continued talk of Tiger's struggle with his "new" swing.  Shouldn't this translate into a struggle with his Long game?  NOT SO!  Granted, there were a couple of notable, very UN-Tiger-like drives.  One was on the 2nd hole, round 2 - a full, 3-metal that traveled only 122 yards and was featured in an embarrassing graphic that showed Tiger's ball all alone 100+ yards behind the next shortest drive.  OK, Tiger did not drive the ball very well (only 6.5 Fairways a round) BUT he avoided the big mistakes and recovered exceptionally well.  

Tiger averaged 13 GIR's (tied 4th), and was better tee-to-green (more efficient)  than the winner (Nick Watney).  Their ShotByShot.com Long Game Efficiency Indexes* were 2.57 vs. 2.82 respectivelyThis means that Tiger hit more GIR's and in fewer long game shots than Nick - Efficiency!   (The hypothetical perfect round is 36 Long strokes/18 GIRs = 2.00.  For more on this see:   A Better Way to Track Long Game).  Incidentally Tiger, the Winners average 13 GIR's with no more than one ERROR per 4-round event, as you did here.  So you are close. 
*US Patent # 7,766,737 

As the graph above shows, the critical difference, AND why Nick Watney won, was his great short game  and putting performance.  Further, if this event is representative, this is where Tiger needs to return to form.

How good or bad was it?  Watney vs. Tiger

Chip and Pitch Shots:
     # Attempts/Avg. distance - 16 /3.9 ft.  vs.  23 /8.7 ft.
                                % Saved  -  75%                70% (Good, from those distances)      
Sand Shots:
     # Attempts/Avg. distance - 13/6.4 ft.  vs.  7/11.7 ft.
                                % Saved  -  69%                43%

Nick's short game was the best I have seen.  His average putting distances were considerably better than our PGA Tour Winner's Profile.  On average his Chip/Pitch shots were 2 feet closer and 2.5 feet closer from the Sand. 

Finally, sick of reading about Tiger (like UJ!), let me know.  For that matter, let me know what would be of interest?
Thanks,
Peter
PSanders@shotbyshot.com 

Monday, March 7, 2011

Putting: "Distance is the most important part"

I have been preaching that putting is the most distance-driven part of the game for over 20 years.  The quote in the title comes from Jack Nicklaus during the Sunday telecast of the Honda Classic.  His point, that regardless of the distance of the putting opportunity, the correct distance is the most important factor in success.  Nice to hear from the game's #1 all-time player.  I arrived at this conclusion by studying the data while Jack obviously based it upon his experience (73 Tour wins and 18 Majors) and his meticulous study of the game.  Remember Jack, with caddie Angelo, was the first to pace off the distance of his approach shots.  What golfer today, at any level, would attempt an approach shot without knowing the distance to the yard?  Sergio purportedly demands his distances to the half yard.  But how many golfers, even on Tour, know the distance of their putting opportunities?

Y.E. Yang does!  Dottie Pepper remarked, during the Honda telecast, that YE paces off his putts and it was evident in his pre-shot routine on the 10th, 11th and 14th holes.  No wonder YE putted so well in last week's Ascenture Match Play and again in the Honda and has climbed to #29 in the World Rankings.  Another prominent player that paces off his putting distances is Phil Mickelson.  Phil also practices distance control diligently from 40, 50 and 60 feet and credits this with his recent Masters win.

Why is DISTANCE so important?
The average PGA Tour player will make 50% of their putts at 8 feet and average 2.0 putts or better up to a distance of 40 feet.  Beyond 40 feet they will 3-putt more often than 1-putt.   These numbers fall off fairly dramatically as skills diminish.  Our data tells us that the average 10 handicap -  a much better than average golfer - will make 50% at 5 feet and average more than 2.0 putts once outside 20 feet.  Distance and distance control are extremely important and I recommend that every serious golfer learn to build this function into their on-course and practice routines.  I have included "Hints on Tracking the Distance of your Putts" in the FAQ's and More section of the website but here are the cliff notes:

1.  Don't wait until it is your turn to play.  Start the process of evaluating your putting opportunity as you approach the green.  Even from as far as 50 yards or more, check the overall slope of the terrain that will influence your putt.

2.  When you mark your ball, you must either walk past the hole to your ball or walk from your ball to the hole to remove the flag.  Simply count your steps.  For longer putts, get to the mid-point between your ball and the hole, check out the slope and then count your steps back to the ball and double the result.  Your distance calculation will be close enough.

3.  Check the distance of your stride (from heel to heel).  The standard male stride is about 25 - 27 inches, NOT 36.  You may have to stride out to attain a 3-foot length.  I practice with a yard stick at home (while watching golf).  Next time you watch Tiger on TV, notice how his caddie strides out when pacing off yardage - and Steve is a big man.

Successfully build the distance function into your putting routine and you will become a better, more confident putter.