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%)

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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!"