Were the Barclays greens unfair?

First, the Barclays felt a lot like a Major.  I give credit to Bethpage Black - with an assist from the FedEx Cup - for helping to insure that the top players remain engaged as the season winds down.  This course is hard.  With the rough long and thick and the greens fast and severe, it is every bit of its 78.1 course rating, and more.  My "A" group had the thrill of playing there just before it was closed down for the first Open.  We found it almost too hard to enjoy.

There was some whining about the greens being unfair this time, so I decided to dig into this a bit.  First, I have never seen a winner on the PGA Tour 3-putt SIX times as Nick Watney did.  Typically, a winner will have zero or one 3-putts.  Ricky Fowler survived FOUR 3-putts to win in a play-off at Quail Hollow - extremely unusual.  

I thought, "If the winner had six 3-putts, how did the rest of the field fare?  Were the greens unfair?"  For the answer, I re-read my recent blog, written after the 2012 Memorial, in which I discussed a reasonable measure of green difficulty - the age-old Tour stat:  3-Putt Avoidance:  The % of time 3 or more putts were taken for a hole (total 3 and 4-putts divided by the total holes played.)  To read this blog, click here.

According to my 3-Putt Avoidance barometer, Bethpage Black ranks right up there @ 3.51.  This says that the field averaged just over 2.5 3-Putts in 72 holes.  For perspective, the four Majors in 2012 averaged 3.91, with the Masters the most difficult @ 4.88; the British Open the most benign @ 2.53. 

Not quite satisfied, I dug deeper.  What about the number of players in any event that had ZERO 3-putts?  Surely this might provide a strong indicator as to the difficulty of the greens.  I looked at this stat for the 35 events in the books YTD:

# Players with ZERO 3-Putts by event

Fewest (Most Difficult Greens)

• 3 players (Augusta, TPC Sawgrass, Bay Hill)
• 5 players (Riviera, Quail Hollow)
• 6 players (Torry Pines, TPC San Antonio)
• 9 players (TPC Four Seasons, Colonial, Olympic, Congressional, Bethpage Black)

Average for all 35 events - 13 players had zero 3-putts

Most (Easiest Greens)

• 79 players (Trump Puerto Rico)
• 27 players (TPC Louisiana)
• 21 players (Waialea, Copperhead)

Two Points:

1.   Bethpage clearly did not stand out as unfair but stood up nicely with other Major venues as challanging.

2.  Wouldn't The Donald be horrified by this analysis.  To twist the blade, the field at the Trump Puerto Rico event was smaller than the average tour field at only 132 players.  So 60% of the field did not have a 3-Putt!  And dare I say that it was not the strongest field? 

  

Where has Ted Potter, Jr. been?

It was fun to see some new faces/personalities in the hunt at the Greenbriar Classic.  I recorded and analyzed Ted Potter, Jr.'s rounds and was impressed with how clean they were.  There were a couple of minor short game misses and only ONE, minor, driving error - a No-Shot result that required an advancement to return to play.  This made me wonder:  What exactly has Ted done in prior events and what suddenly changed?

Ted turned pro in 2002 and thru 2011 played in 74 events on the Web.com tour (formerly Nationwide Tour) but only made 19 cuts.  Ted's two wins in 2011 earned $439,000 and more importantly graduation to the PGA Tour.  Prior to his recent win, Ted played in 15 PGA Tour events but with little success:  9 missed cuts and T13 best finish.  What changed in Ted's game to suddenly produce a win?

Bottom line, lightning struck - he put it all together, and kept it together, for all four rounds. As you can see from the chart above, Ted's Stack-18 elements were slightly better than our 2012 Winner's profile.  For an explanation follow this link to an earlier blog:  Stack-18 Explained

As I looked at each of these key elements in Ted's 15 prior events, they were consistently below his Greenbriar performance:

Putting:   Ted's overall average is at least positive, but just (.18).  There has been a pattern of poor putting holding him back in that 7 of his 9 missed cuts featured negative Strokes Gained putting numbers (worse than the average of the entire field).  Ted had one very positive putting number (3.3) at Pebble Beach, but with only two rounds (MC).

GIR's:  Prior to this week, Ted was right at the Tour average for GIR's (62.8% = 11.3).  In his best finish (T13), Ted hit 71%.  He equaled his 72% at Greenbriar just once at the Wells Fargo, but again for only two rounds (MC).

Scrambling:  Ted's 80% this week was clearly a key factor in his success.  Saving par on 4 of the 5 missed GIR's each round is very good, even when compared to our Winner's profile.  His prior performance @54% is below the Tour avg. (56%) and in his 9 missed cuts Ted's average dropped to 48%.

If I were working with Ted and had collected and analyzed all of his 2012 rounds, I could provide clear indications of what really contributed to his lack of success before this week.  Certainly, putting is important and Strokes Gained nails that piece for us.  However, the 1.83 strokes difference amounts to only 30% of the 6.2 difference in Ted's scoring average.

What is the answer?  I have stated many times that my biggest issue with the Tour's robust "stats" is that they do not include ERRORS.  I have worked hard to find clues that allow me to infer the existence of these mistakes and have deduced that Ted's Driving and Long games have included 2 to 3 errors per round amounting to 60% of his scoring difference. 

My Preferred Tour Short Game Stat

(Tour Averages in RED are educated estimates as these specific numbers are not available)

Dustin Johnson did more than a few things right to squeak out a 1-stroke victory at the FedEx St. Jude Classic.  Not the least of which was his fortuitous birdie - birdie - par finish while other notable contenders stumbled home.

Dustin's long game was solid.  He hit 12.5 GIR's with only two long game errors.  When he missed the GIR, his Scrambling percentage was excellent at 77%.  While I view this to be a very important stat, I see it as a scoring stat much more than the short game measure that I believe it was intended to be long ago.  Why?  It concerns only instances when the GIR was not achieved.  This omits a significant number of short game opportunities and includes holes that don't involve a short game shot.  The following situations are not considered in this stat:

1. Short game shots to save birdie on par 5 holes.  50 years ago, it was the exception for players to hit on or around par 5 holes in two.  Today, it is more the rule.  The Tour average for Going for Par 5 holes in two is 50%.  Longer players, like Dustin Johnson, go for it 65% or more.
2. Short game shots to save birdie on short par 4 holes.  Today, most courses have one of these potentially reachable par 4's.
3. Missed GIR's due to long game errors which do not involve short game shots. 

To support my point, here is a breakdown of Dustin's 25 short game shots at TPC Southwind:

1. To save birdie:  6 (not included in Scrambling)
2. To save par:  18 (included in the Scrambling)
3. To save bogey: 1 (not included in Scrambling)

I find that Proximity to Hole (ARG) affords a much more reliable picture of the short game.  Definition:  The average distance to the hole (in feet) after hitting the ball onto the putting surface from around the green.  (Note:  'Around the green' indicates the player is withing 30 yards of the edge of the green.)

I have two minor issues with this stat:

1. It does not include shots that miss the green.  These ERRORS HAPPEN (see chart above), and they impact scoring but are totally lost in the Tour's stats.
2. 30 yards from the edge of the green can be as much as 60 - 70 yards from the hole.  I would prefer the distance range be measured from the hole.

That said, it still provides valuable perspective.  Dustin found the putting surface with 24 of his 25 attempts and his average putting distance was a precious 2' 9" closer than the average of the field.  The average 1-Putt percentages from these distances are significant - just under 5 strokes on Dustin's 24 opportunities:

• Dustin - 4' 7" (call it 5 feet) = 73%
• Field   - 7' 4" (call it 7 feet) = 53%

Bottom line, here is why I prefer this short game stat.  First, it includes most, if not all, of the players actual short game opportunities.  Second, it measures pure short game skill, and is not influenced by the player's putting as "Saves" are.  

Which course has the most difficult greens?

Jack's Memorial looked like a mini-Major with a winning score of only -9.  A more typical winning score on Tour is -12 to -18.   I have not played Muirfield Village (...never get invited anywhere!) but I have walked/run the course (long story).  In my opinion, it is a very hard golf course - streams meander thru and around almost every hole; the woods loom large, deep and dark; and the green complexes are severe.  Remember when Jack added special rakes that created deep furrows in the sand traps?  How hard is it?  The Course rating/Slope system does a fairly good job of displaying the relative difficulty and Muirfield "Memorial" tees are rated 76.9/153, which is up there - 4.9 strokes above the 72 par for the scratch golfer.  

Watching the event, I wondered "OK, I get the difficulty of the course but what about the greens alone?  There must be a way to judge the most difficult greens on Tour."  As my readers know, I am a big fan of the Tour's new Strokes Gained Putting stat.  I am certain that the answer lies in this data but is not readily available to "outsiders" because the raw data is "normalized" each week so that all we see is how players relate to the average of the entire field for that event.  The average "Strokes Lost" to the Tour's performance model each week would clearly reveal the relative difficulty of the greens at each venue.  Until I can get this data, is there another way?

How about the relative frequency of 3-putts for the field?  For this, I looked at an old, traditional Tour stat - 3-Putt Avoidance:  The percent of time 3 or more putts were taken for a hole (total 3 and 4-putts divided by the total holes played).  I looked at all 2012 Tour events (thru Memorial) and found the following:

• The average of all 22 events:  3.31 (2.38 3-Putts per 72 holes played)
• Easiest greens:  Doral Blue Monster @ 1.95 (1.40 3-Putts per 72 holes played). 
• Most difficult:  Kapalua Plantation @ 5.04 (3.62 3-Putts per 72 holes played)

Other difficult greens:

• Augusta National:  4.88 (3.51 3-Putts per 72 holes)
• Quail Hollow:  4.33
• TPC Sawgrass:  4.32

Other easy greens:

• Harbor Town:  2.04 (1.46 3-Putts per 72 holes)
• Waialea CC:  2.19

To add some perspective on 3-Putt performance, the graph above compares the average # of 3-Putts per round for the PGA Tour Winners (2012) and Tour average to an array of handicap levels.  

No wonder Rickie Fowler hasn't WON before!

I have never paid much attention to Rickie Fowler - although he is hard to miss when he shows up dressed like a giant creamsicle.  But then, if I were paid what I can only guess he is paid, I would probably...  In what little I have seen of Rickie on TV, I have concluded that he is a poor putter.  He just seems to miss too many key putts when in the spotlight.  So when I saw him sneaking up the leaderboard on Sunday at Quail Hollow I assumed that he would fall short, again.  The fact that he hung on to win surprised me and made me question my belief that Rickie's weakness is his putting.  As I try to study the winner of every event, I looked forward to taking a close look at Rickie and what he did to get his first win.

First, my impressions were correct - Rickie is a POOR putter - by PGA Tour standards.  In this event he simply putted well enough to squeak by.  The Strokes Gained Putting stats - by far the Tour's BEST stat -  support my point (for an explanation of this stat, see: At-last-putting-analysis-we-can-trust):

• Fowler's Strokes Gained total of .672 at Quail Hollow was the second worst of the 13 Winners that I have studied this season.  Only Justin Rose putted worse in his win at Doral (.114).  
• The 2012 Winners have averaged 1.549.  This means they have gained 1.5+ strokes on the field per round, or just over six strokes per 4-round event. 
• Rickie has recorded NEGATIVE Strokes Gained putting totals in SIX of the TEN "measured" events this season.   (Measured means tour ShotLink data is collected.)
• His average for these six events is -1.345 vs. only .695 for the three positive Strokes Gained totals.
• For the season to date, Rickie is ranked 140 in this important stat.  His overall average per round is -.235.
• This is clearly why Rickie has had trouble getting a win on Tour.  Just like the old adage that "99% of putts that don't reach the hole, don't go in" - I can add that 99% of players that give back strokes to the field on the greens, DON'T WIN!  

So how did Rickie win at Quail Hollow?
Very simply, his long game carried him to victory.  It was sharp and efficient and featured zero serious errors.  His short game complemented his long game in that it was solid and also produced no errors.  Rickie's putting - just good enough.

Driving - 2nd in accuracy, but more importantly, no penalty strokes on a very difficult driving golf course with many well-placed hazards.

GIR's - Ranked 5th with 14.25.  This is very good -  the 2012 Winners average just under 13 GIR's.

Proximity ARG - Ranked 8th @ 5' 10."  This is the stat that measures the putting distance after every shot that starts within 30 yards of the edge of the green.  The field avg. was 7' 3."

Hopefully Rickie's coach has recognized and is addressing the glaring weakness in Rickie's game.  Clearly, if he expects to contend with top tier players on the PGA Tour, he needs dramatic improvement in his putting. 

Player Ranking Report is ready!

What is it?

This new report can be run on selected players within a group (or an entire group) for a certain event or period of time.  It Ranks each player by Score and for each facet of the game in ShotByShot.com terms.  Further, it supports the analysis with the key pieces of data that most influence each piece of the puzzle.

Background

For the past two years I have prepared this report for RCGA and GAO Junior events.  The first year, I transferred each piece of data (for hundreds of players) from each player's individual analysis and did all the Rankings and summary calculations by hand.  It seemed like a good idea at the time... AND IT WAS as these unique reports were very well received.  So well received that I made a commitment to make it available as an additional feature for the appropriate groups. 

This also seemed like a good idea...  Two different programming companies, four different programmers and countless dollars have passed under the bridge BUT, FINALLY, and thanks to the professionalism of my friends at USchedule, my idea has become a reality.  The Player Ranking Report is now available as a Group Leader option.

Who wants or needs it?

The obvious candidates are:

• HS and College Golf Teams
• Junior programs

Instructors with motivated players that want to improve and become better competitors.  After discussing it with a long-time instructor/client, we came up with the following:

• Build a group of similarly motivated students.
• It will help if they are of a similar handicap range.
• Designate Tournament days or weekends during which the players record stroke play rounds.
• Run the reports and share/discuss them with the group.

This will be great experience and allow them to see exactly where they stand among their peers.  Great preparation for competition and for seeing what it really takes to get to the next level.

What does the report function cost? 

I have not decided yet.  For a limited time, I will allow my current Group Leaders to use it.  If interested, please contact me.

Phone:  203-968-1608

Email:  PSanders@shotbyshot.com  

No Wonder Luke Donald is #1 in the World!

 

Last week I mentioned one of my general rules for winning on the PGA Tour:  Stack-18.  I emphasize GENERAL because as with most RULES it does not always hold true.  Such was the case with Justin Rose last week at the WGC event.  I pointed this out because Justin was the lowest "Stack" Winner that I have seen at 16.6.  By contrast, Luke Donald built the highest Stack at 20.9 when he recently won the Transitions Championship.  

What is Stack-18?

In my ongoing study of the Winners on Tour, I have observed that they consistently stack up a total of  the following three key stats for a grand total of 18:

1.  GIR's

2.  Successful Scrambles - The number of par saves when the GIR is missed.

3.  Strokes Gained - Putting

I take each of these stats (per round averages for the event) and add them together.  As you can see from the chart above, the average total for the winners of the first nine tournaments of 2012 is 18.1 (this excludes Luke Donald).  With the exception of Luke and the aforementioned Justin Rose, there is an eerie consistency among the rest as they are tightly clustered around the magic #18.  

The reason Luke Donald's stack is so high is that he actually doubles up on two pieces of the stack.  His successful scrambles (79%) are high because of his short game prowess AND his exceptional putting.  Luke's short game is strong but his putting is the best on Tour.  He was #1 in Strokes Gained Putting in 2011 and #1 in the Transitions tournament at 2.59.  This number tells us that based upon the distance of each putting opportunity, and the number of putts needed to hole out, Luke beat the average putting performance of the Transitions' field by an average of 2.59 shots per round - or over 10 strokes in total for the tournament.

Despite a lone 3-putt (50 ft.), Luke Donald 1-putted 34 of 70 holes (that's 49%!!) and OH, he holed out from "off-shore" on the other two holes.  In addition to his 17, par saving, 1-putts to achieve a 79% Scrambling stat (the Tour avg. is 58%), Luke had 17 additional 1-putt greens.   I hope my fellow Master's pool participants aren't reading this ... little chance,  only a couple of them can read.

What edged Justin Rose to #1 at Doral?

 

You = Justin Rose @ TPC Blue Monster - Doral

According to my general rules for Winners on the PGA Tour, Justin should have come up short.  He averaged only 63% when matched up to my 70% Rule and totaled only 16.6 next to my Stack-18.  I have not written about the latter yet but will soon.  Briefly, the Winners achieve a total of 18 when adding the following three key stats:

1. GIR's/per round (11.75)
2. Successful Scrambles (Non-GIR's x Scrambling %) - (6.25 x 76% = 4.75)
3. Strokes Gained - Putting for the event - (.114)

 Justin's Total = 16.64 

What did Justin do well?

Long Game - He kept the ball in play.  Justin had no penalties on a course that had its share of penalty opportunities.  The Tour does not give us penalty data but I saw a bunch during the telecast and the other players that I studied each had some. 

Short Game - Justin had 26 Chip/Pitch shots in his four rounds.  He got the ball on the green 25 times (20 / 77% finished within 5 feet of the hole) with an overall average putting distance of 3' 7".  The single short game shot that missed the green was on the 72nd hole where Justin was faced with a very difficult pitch over bunkers to a green that "ran away" toward the water.  Only needing to get down in two, he allowed the ball to barely roll past the pin and stop a foot or so off the green.

By way of perspective, the prior 2012 Winners that I have studied, have achieved average putting distances of 6' 7" - obviously very good.  Boy, is that a significant 3 feet!  The Tour average 1-Putt percentage jumps from just under 60% at 6' 7" to just under 90% at 3' 7".  It is no wonder that Justin's Strokes Gained Putting stat was so mediocre (he barely bested the field) .  It wasn't that he was missing putts that he should make, it was that he was rarely far enough from the hole for his 1-putts to rack up any meaningful strokes saved vs. the model.   

How Close is Tiger?

 

TIGER's SHOT BY SHOT.com PUTTING HANDICAPS

2012 Honda Classic

I had almost forgotten how much fun it was to see Tiger charging at the end of a PGA Tour event.  My peaked interest in this week's Honda Classic motivated me to watch the action LIVE, which I almost never do - I hate the commercials.  I prefer to record the telecast and tune in about half way.  This allows me to  fast forward through the commercials and "fluff" to finish in time to catch any playoff live.  But this event was exciting from the beginning of the Golf Channel telecast thanks to Tiger's early tee time and great play.

My extended viewing caused me to hear lots of pundit-speak about how close Tiger was, and opinions on what he needed to return to form.  I will admit that the Sunday morning experts alluded to Tiger's putting, but once again showed their lack of sophistication (or their AGE) by citing the number of putts spent in the first three rounds - COME ON PEOPLE!  Tiger's Strokes Gained - Putting stats laid it out clearly.  He gave up 2.35 strokes to the field in the first two rounds (3.6 strokes to Rory McIlroy).  His putting improved in the third round to gain 1.43 strokes on the field but still .6 strokes behind Rory.  Tiger's putting in the final round was exceptional but so was Rory's.  Overall, Tiger gained .56 strokes on the field, but LOST 3.9 strokes to Rory.  Bear in mind, this is putting alone - the one part of the game where we no longer need to guess.

Considering Tiger fell short by just two strokes, it would indicate that the rest of Tiger's game stands up well to the World's new #1.  I looked more closely and agree that it did, at least in this event.

Long Game

Tiger needed only 32.9 long game strokes to achieve 12.5 GIR's  per round while Rory needed 32.2 long strokes to reach 12 GIR's.  In addition to hitting two more GIR's, Tiger's average proximity to the hole was 20 feet - four feet closer than Rory's 24 foot avg.  I give the long game edge to Tiger.

Short Game

Tiger had 26 short game opportunities to Rory's 30.  While Rory clearly won the "Up-and-Down" battle (73% vs. 62%), as I have preached for years - that stat is a composite of short game + PUTTING.  A better measurement would be proximity to the hole.  Rory also won this one but only by one foot (5' 10" vs. 6' 11").  When I think about standing over it, that is an important 13 inches.  That said, we can give the short game edge to Rory - but not by much.

Bottom line, it was clearly Rory's putting prowess that won the day.  Congratulations Rory!  Tiger, welcome back!  Whatever you and Sean Foley worked on after Friday's round did the trick.  Keep up the good work and I look forward to  watching more live TV - it's good for the game.

How Good is "Strokes Gained - Putting?"

For those that need a refresher, Strokes Gained - Putting is the Tour's new putting statistic. It compares the distance of each putting opportunity to a model of the average Tour performance from that distance to calculate strokes gained or lost.  Each player's totals for each round is compared to the average of the field to reveal his strokes gained or lost.  It works!

It was great to see Phil and Tiger paired together in the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, at least for a few holes...  I cannot recall two more contrasting performances by marquee players.  Phil beat Tiger head to head by 11 strokes AND in the final round while both had their sights set on a win.  But wait, even more astounding was that ten of the eleven strokes was PUTTING alone.

How do I know this?  Their respective Strokes Gained - Putting numbers for the final round are:

    Phil:  4.799  (Phil beat the field average by almost 5 strokes.)

  Tiger: -5.288  (Tiger was 5+ strokes worse than the average performance of the field.  His ShotByShot.com Putting Handicap for the round was 21.  This is as high as I've seen for a tour player - much less one in contention to win the tournament.)

Put the two together, and Phil beat Tiger, on the greens alone, by 10 strokes!

I am a big fan of the Tour's new putting stat.  As I have trumpeted to anyone that will listen, I adopted this method of putting analysis 20 years ago and it has been the basis for ShotByShot.com's putting analysis since I launched the website in 2005.  That said, given the vast differences in the two player's long and short games, how could these game components (everything BUT putting) account for only 1 stroke?  See if you can follow my math.

First, the Putting

Tiger took 31 putts to Phil's 26 = 5 strokes.  If they had putted from the same spots (distances) on all 18 greens, these FIVE strokes would have been the extent of the difference in their putting performance, but they did not.

Tiger's average putting distance was 6 feet closer than Phil's (14 vs. 20 feet).  The Tour's model allocates another five strokes to their respective distances over the 18 holes.  It is not as simple as the difference in the averages (14 vs. 20 ft.) because the Tour's model, like mine, is not a straight line.  The five strokes are an accumulation of the differences in the values of each specific distance.  Please accept my word on this.

The Rest of the Game = 1 Stroke??

Bottom line, Tiger hit five fewer GIR's than Phil (9 vs. 14) with the same number of full swings (34).  With fewer GIR's, Tiger needed six more short game shots (10 vs. 4) to reach his 18 greens.  Subtract five because Tiger's ultimate putting positions were five strokes better/closer than Phil's, and there's the single stroke needed to make the total strokes add up.

Allocating the strokes lost or saved between Tiger's and Phil's long and short games tells another story, but for another time.  Please contact me with questions @ PSanders@shotbyshot.com.