Tuesday, August 28, 2012

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 AvoidanceThe % 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?