Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Henley conducts How-To-Win Clinic at Waialae

In five years of studying the winners on the PGA Tour, I have not seen such pristine data that from Russell Henley's recent win at Waialae.  First, it makes my collection task much easier and enjoyable.  I actually root for my players as I follow them through their rounds and suffer along with them when trouble strikes.  As you can see from the graphic above, Russell Henley blew away my Stack-18, and on the way accomplished a number of statistical feats.  See Stack-18 Explained

GIR's:  15!  The closest that any winner came to this in 2012 was Steve Stricker's 12.75 GIR's at the Hyundai.  The only other 15 that I have seen was Martin Laird at the 2009 TPC Las Vegas.  Incidentally, these two winners also shared the unusual distinction of hitting all 18 GIR's, and coincidentally, in their second rounds.

Strokes Gained Putting:  Henley gained an impressive 3.042 strokes on the field per round, or 12 strokes overall.  Note in the chart above, the average of the 2012 winners was 1.3.  To exceed 2.0 is not uncommon, but only Keegan Bradley exceeded 3 strokes (3.001) in 2012 when he won the Bridgestone.

Errors:  NONE!  This may be Henley's most outstanding bright spot.  To put it in perspective, none of the 2012 winners avoided all errors, with the possible exception of Luke Donald whose single blemih was a 3-Putt from 50 feet - which I don't really consider an error.  Well done, Luke! 

The frequency of errors experienced by event winners that I have studied may be of interest.  I will define what I view as each error and provide the winner's frequency:

Driving:  Drive hit out of play or into a penalty situration.
One every 4.4 rounds.  The error is usually the lesser "No shot" or out of play mistake, requiring an advancement to return to normal play.  I have only seen two of the most severe driving errors (OB/Lost) among winners:  Tiger at Bay Hill and Dustin Johnson two weeks ago in Kapalua. 
Approach:  Approach shot hit out of play or into a penalty situation.   
One every 11 roundsThis is usually a green missed in the water and is obviously course driven; however, Brandt Snedeker and Matt Kuchar each suffered two in their wins at East Lake and TPC Sawgrass respectively.
Chip/Pitch:  Shots within 50 yards of the hole that miss the green.  
One every 2.6 rounds.  Remember, these are merely shots that miss the green and do not generally cost the winners a stroke.
Sand:  Shots within 50 yards of the hole that miss the green.    
One every 8 rounds.  
Putting:  A 3-Putt from 40 feet and closer to be an error at this level.
One every 5.5 rounds.

The frequency and severity of these errors are extremely important.  I have found that errors do far more to influence score, at every level, than do the other shots.  Obviously, the winners on Tour are at the lowest end of the scale for both frequency and the resulting severity of their mistakes.  You should see what happens as one journeys up the handicap ranks to the average golfer and higher, but that is another story.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

What effect did the wind have on the 30 champions in Kapalua?

The Plantation course at Kapalua is a bomber's paradise with ample targets and large greens.  The four par 5's as well as three of the par 4's are reachable.  It is no surprise that a player like Dustin Johnson, if on his game, would win.  I found the most interesting aspect of this event to be the severe winds and their impact on performance.

The greatest impact was on putting!
Kapalua's greens are always near the top by my measure of difficulty, but were even more so this week due to extreme winds.  [For more on my measure of relative green difficulty, see my last entry:  Were the Barclays Greens Unfair?]  I look at two stats as a measure of putting difficulty:
1.  3-Putt Avoidance - the higher the number or frequency of 3-Putts, the more difficult the greens;
2.  # of Players in the field with ZERO 3-Putts - the lower the number, the more difficult...

3-Putt Avoidance
Last year the field at Kapalua was 5.04% - the highest of all the courses that I checked in my 2012 study.  5.04% means that the entire field (only 30 player/champions) averaged 3.6 3-Putts in 72 holes.  For perspective, in a typical tournament, an average field would 3-Putt twice in 72 holes.  This year the average for the Hyundai field at Kapalua was 7.47%.  The 30 champions averaged FOUR 3-Putts in just 54 holes.  Further, Dustin Johnson (the winner) had three 3-Putts.  Most PGA Tour winners have NONE, but some sneak by with only one putting blemish.

Players with zero 3-Putts
The average for the 25 courses in my 2012 study was 12 players.  In the 2012 Hyundai, only ONE player in the field escaped without a 3-Jack.  (Guess who?*)  This year's field not only had NO such lucky players, the best were seven players that had only two 3-Putts.  None of the events in last year's study had NO players in this category.

The long game was the least affected
Greens-hit in-regulation achieved by the field were almost identical from 2012 to 2013:  14.6 vs. 14.5.  Even these numbers are high as the Tour average in 2012 was 11.3 GIR's.

Finally, I thought that approach shot accuracy would certainly be affected by the high winds - I know mine is.  Not so much!  Proximity to the hole following approach shots was also very close from 2012 to 2013:  40' 7" vs. 41' 1".  Literally only six inches or less than 1% difference in accuracy in 30 to 40 MPH gusting winds.  THESE GUYS REALLY ARE GOOD!

*Bubba Watson!