Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Why Don't Americans Win?


My great friend Bruce, and 30+ year Member/Guest partner, had the treat of playing in a ProAm with Padraig Harrington - I never get invited ANYWHERE!  First, Bruce reported that Padraig could not have been more fun, but I have no doubt that Padraig said the same to his friends about Bruce.  When the topic was raised of why there are so few Americans in the Top-20 and why Europe dominates the majors, Padraig's response was interesting.  In short, he blames the overwhelming money on the PGA Tour.  The best US players go directly from college to the PGA Tour, and learn to survive  - but not to WIN - on Tour.  By contrast, on the far less lucrative European Tour (or Asian Tour) players must contend and win in order to make big money.  Padraig also suggests that this explains the lack of success the US is having in the Ryder Cup.  Makes sense to me!

Patrick Cantlay is having a pretty good summer!  
If you watched the US Open and/or the Traveler's, Patrick's travels were frequently discussed.  From the Palmer Cup at The Stanwich Club, Greenwich, CT (my home course!), on to the US Open at Congressional where Patrick not only took the Low Amateur honors but contended (T21).  Next, back to CT and TPC River Highlands where he posted 67/60 to hold the lead after the 2nd round.  This week he is on to Aronimink GC in PA for the AT & T.  WHEW!

Back to Padraig's point, as an amateur Patrick passed up $46,425 for his T24 finish in the Traveler's.  Out of curiosity, I checked the European Tour's BMW Championship in Germany this week and the money is slightly less than half.  24th place paid $27,832 (I did the Euro conversion to $).  The BMW winner made $473,000 vs. $1,080,000 at the Travelers.

What does Patrick need to do to win?  
Simply stated, he must avoid errors off the tee and improve his putting.  While Patrick's long game was excellent (13.5 GIR's), he incurred two penalties off the tee.  Our winner's profile incurs one of these tee shot penalties only once in every 10 rounds.

As the ShotByShot.com %1-Putt graphic above shows, Patrick needs to increase these numbers, especially in the important ranges inside 10 feet.  The Tour's new Strokes Gained stat supports this as Patrick ranked 33rd with .46 strokes gained on the field.  The five winners that I have tracked since this stat was launched have averaged 1.27 strokes gained and Fredrik Jacobson blew the Traveler's field away by gaining 2.25 strokes.

Finally, Patrick, if you see this I have set up an account for you on ShotByShot.com and will try to add your AT&T rounds to get you started.  If you contact me, you may continue to use the program with my compliments.        

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Is Harrison Frazar simply a "Blind Squirrel?"

There was not much star power to this week's FedEx St. Jude Classic.  No doubt THEY were all getting better acquainted with the rough at Congressional.  That said, I found Harrison Frazar's story compelling, and was delighted to see him prevail.  Until this week, he had competed in 381 professional events (27 Nationwide/Nike, 354 PGA Tour) with only one Nike Tour win to show for it.  But how bad was it?  Since earning his Tour card in 1996, Harrison had earned over 9 million dollars - over $650,000 per year - for playing golf!  Sign me up - I'll take that job!  Oh, and add $1,142,053 for this week's work.

What happened this week?
Harrison's key stats jumped dramatically this week to vault him into the winner's circle.  To illustrate, I will cite his YTD Average and (Ranking) vs. his performance This week % (Ranking):
GIR's:  60% (178)  vs.  69% (8)

Scrambling:  57% (140)  vs.  82% (1).  [He saved 18 of 22 opportunities.]

Putting - Strokes Gained:  .18 (111)  vs.  1.39 (7)  

In my opinion, the rankings suffer from serious inflation as one retreats from the top level players; however, they do illustrate that Harrison had well over 100 players on Tour that were doing these important things better than he has been - that is, UNTIL THIS WEEK.  Golf is such a confidence game that, having put it all together and finally won, his new confidence may carry him to great heights.  Or, he may have finally stumbled upon that all-elusive acorn.  It will be interesting to see which way he goes.  

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Muirfield's Front 9 Must be EASY?

In four rounds, Steve Stricker was 24 strokes lower on the front 9 than he was on the back!  If the opening track is not much easier, perhaps he needs an energy bar or a beer at the turn?

A brief story about my tour around Muirfield Village
Actually, the 9's are not anywhere near that different.  I have walked, no ran them.  Years ago, I was asked to provide our unique ShotByShot.com analysis for the marquee group in the Wednesday, Pro Am prior to the Memorial.  The Group: Jack, the CEO of the named sponsor, and two prominent clients.  Realizing that it would be inappropriate to expect this group to learn our system and record data during what could be the most pressure-packed round of three of their golfing lives, I agreed to walk with the group and record the data myself.  What could be more fun -  walk 18 holes with Jack Nicklaus???  NOT EXACTLY, as the gods or the PGA Tour was not on my side - they would not allow me inside the ropes.  Believing that a commitment is a commitment, I agreed to accomplish my task from the OUTSIDE looking in.  It proved to be one of the most difficult feats I have ever undertaken.

During Saturday's telecast Ian Baker-Finch mentioned that the course featured water hazards on 13 holes.  I can confirm this because I jumped over or trudged through all 13.  Further, most meander along the entire hole, crossing the fairway multiple times.  A good friend, and member of Muirfield Village, refers to it affectionately as a 6 to 10 ball round for the average 15 handicap golfer.  I looked it up and the USGA's "Bogey rating" is 105.3.  That says that the average 18 handicap golfer is expected to shoot 33 strokes over par here.  Incidentally, the Course ratings for the front and back 9's are less than one stroke different:  Front 38.1 vs. Back 38.8. 
  
What else was remarkable?
Just before the Masters, I listed a few things that I have noticed that the Winners of PGA Tour events have in common.  One is Off Shore Holeouts - or that most winners will hole out from off the green once in their four rounds.  But Stricker's FOUR holeouts is outrageous!  OK, two were short game opportunities - not that uncommon.  The other two were special:  
  • 2nd Round, Par 3, 8th hole:  Ace from 185 yards.
  • 3rd Round, Par 4, 2nd hole:  116 yard approach shot - holed - Eagle.
I can't explain it but, like the two above, most of Steve's fireworks happened on the front 9 and, given these thunderbolts, NO WONDER HE WON!  

Friday, June 3, 2011

More clarity in PGA Tour stats

I am quite excited about the Tour's recent implementation of the Strokes Gained putting statistic.  Since 1999, Shot By Shot's putting analysis has featured this method of evaluating putting which we call 'Strokes Lost or Saved.'  As I have been saying for these many years:  "It is the only accurate means of evaluating putting because it includes every putting opportunity and its distance."  For more on exactly what Strokes Gained is all about, see my recent post:  At Last, Putting Analysis we can trust from the Tour 

In terms of accurately evaluating relative performance and being able to point to exactly what separates the winners from the others, the Tour now has an accurate summary stat for Putting, a facet that represents 40% of the game.  My research shows that the remaining 60% can ALMOST be covered by two other Tour stats:  GIR's and Scrambling.  

Greens Hit in Regulation (GIR's) - It's simple - the age-old long game barometer.  Its flaw:  It does not tell what happened, and how bad was it, on greens not hit in regulation. 

Scrambling = The percentage of holes where the green was not hit in regulation but par or better was achieved.  At least at the Tour level, this stat fills in most of the puzzle; however, it still leaves out what happened, and how bad was it, on those OTHER holes (Greens NOT Hit in Regulation where bogey or worse was the result).

I say "At least at the Tour level,..." because Scrambling is a fairly useless stat for the majority of amateur golfers.  First, it is widely misunderstood. Golfers believe it to be saving par from green-side opportunities NOT every green missed in regulation, regardless of how and why.  Second, they hit so few GIR's and "Save" so few of the opportunities, it becomes meaningless.

What would work?        
If the Tour were to adopt my patented Long Game Efficiency Index, almost all of the gaps in the analysis of the entire game would be filled in.  It would then have highly accurate summary stats for evaluating the Long Game and Putting.  Scrambling would cover most of the short game.  The one small missing piece would be ERRORS in the Short game, such as sand shots left in or sculled out of green-side bunkers, and similar errors from chip/pitch situations.  I would say, close enough for now so let's try it.

Once the Tour makes this leap, it will only need to reform its current method of ranking players in each skill.  More on this soon...