Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Is Tiger Back? His Putting certainly is!

As an admitted statistical stalker of Tiger, I have good perspective on the parts of his game that separate him from the rest and punctuate his wins.  Until his two most recent wins, the dominant facet of his game has not been his putting.  An outrageous statement?  Let me explain:

It has been his Long Game Efficiency!  Tiger consistently hit more greens in regulation in fewer long game strokes than anyone in golf.  When I discovered this 2000 and 2001, I created my patented Long Game Efficiency Index to quantify his prowess.  The index also works well for amateurs, and is the foundation of the Long Game analysis contained in ShotByShot.com and fully explained in: A Better Way to Track Long Game Improvement.

This is not to in any way diminish Tiger's putting.  His has been consistently ranked near the top since Strokes Gained Putting has been used to analyze putting by the PGA Tour.  Further, we have all witnessed over and over that Tiger is one of the best clutch putters of all time.  So what is my point?

In my analysis of the Winners on the PGA Tour, putting is more often than not the difference maker and the Winners often record 'Strokes Gained' totals above 2.00 and even 3.00 (meaning that they have "gained" 2+ or 3+ strokes on the field PER ROUND.  Not so with Tiger.

Since 2004, Tiger has recorded 29 wins in which Shotlink captured his putting and Strokes Gained numbers were published.  Here are the Strokes Gained putting highlights of his prior 28 Wins:
  • 2013 Bay Hill was the first event with a SG total above 2.00 (an impressive 2.798)
  • Tiger's prior high was 1.981 @ 2013 Honda - just 2 weeks ago.
  • The average of his 28 prior wins was 1.087 vs. 1.398 and 1.360 for 2012 and 2011 winners respectively.
  • Tiger posted a win at the 07 WGC Cadillac Champ. with a -.793 SG Total.  This means that he won despite giving back over 3 strokes to the field in four rounds.  I have seen this once before BUT in a much reduced field.  It was Rory McIlroy's -.21 in the BMW Championship semi-finals of the FEDEX Cup.  
Perhaps Tiger simply putts as well as needed when he feels a win coming.  He needed to putt well this week because he made FIVE driving errors (1-Penalty, 4-No Shots) and only hit 11.5 GIR's.  Not his, or ANYONE's typical winning numbers.
 
Finally, it should be noted that two of his best statistical putting performances EVER came in very close succession in his most recent two wins.  If Tiger has found something and can hold onto it for a couple of weeks, I make him a clear favorite at the Masters.  Ignore this if you are part of my Master's Weekend Pool!      

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

153rd Event a Charm for Kevin Streelman

It is a very nice story to see Kevin Streelman win after six years and 152 prior tries.  Further, he did not back into it but instead finished the event in grand style, all the while knowing exactly what he needed to do to beat the score posted before he even teed off.  

As I like to do, I collected and analyzed his Shot By Shot data and was slightly taken back by the fact that he failed to reach either of my Winner's benchmarks.  Something I said or wrote, Kevin?  Why would you go out of your way to make me look bad?  Perhaps he has not read my blog and was simply unaware of what it takes to win on the PGA Tour?  If so, no wonder it took him six years.....

Could there be another reason why my work did not measure up this week?  What if the course were just that much more difficult, thus pulling the "bars" down?  This could be, and having played the course, I can attest to the tight, tree-lined fairways, ample water hazards and severe greens.  But how to quantify the difficulty relative to the other nine courses played on Tour this year?  Let me count the ways:

1.  USGA Course Rating:  [Forget Slope rating as it is geared to the bogey golfer.]  The Copperhead's back tees rank 2nd most difficult @ 76.8 behind Torrey Pines @ 78.2.  The average of all ten courses hosting events this season is 75.7  The easiest: PGA West @ 74 - no wonder Brian Gay won at -25.  OK, I accept this as a fairly good measure.  However, having served on a local golf course rating committee, in order to completely understand the rating process, I learned that there can be regional discrepancies in outcome.

2.  Average Score for the Field:  This number reflects the course's inherent difficulty as well as the playing conditions during the week of the tournament.  Bingo!  The Copperhead field recorded the highest average score @ 72.2.  Further, the weather conditions were not bad.  The Plantation course at Kapalua was 2nd @ 72.1 (High winds caused the 1st round to be cancelled and dramatically influenced play throughout.)   The average for all ten courses was 70.8 and the easiest, again, PGA West @ 68.8.

OK, let's agree that the Copperhead course is and was playing hard enough to lower the proven statistical benchmarks for PGA Tour Winners - WHEW!

Oh, one more thing that Kevin Streelman did to insure his victory - not a single Driving ERROR on a course where these errors were very easy to come by.  No wonder Jim Furyk calls Copperhead "...his favorite course in the Florida swing."  It's driving difficulty not only levels the playing field, it tilts it in his favor.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

How Good Was Tiger's Putting at Trump Doral?


The announcers and analysts raved about Tiger's putting this week, and rightly so.  Over the last few years I have noticed that the winners on the PGA Tour tend to separate themselves in the ranges between 10 and 20 feet.  Certainly 4 - 10 foot putts are important but all the contenders putt well inside 10 feet or they would not be there.  It is consistently making the longer 1-putts that earmarks the winners.

Tiger exemplified this trend in his win at Trump Doral this week.  The graph above displays Tiger this week, my 2012 Winner's profile and a large sample of Tiger's rounds - mostly wins - that I have collected over the past several years (Tiger Past).

I find three things of particular note about Tiger's putting:
1.  Tiger made 6 of 11 putts, or 55%, in the 16 - 20 foot range this week.  Try this at home!  Here are some comparative number for perspective on just how good this was:
  • 2012 Winners:  made 23% (or less than 3 of 11);
  • PGA Tour Average for 2013:  made 17% (or less than 2 of 11); 
  • 15-19 Handicap:  makes 6% (or less than 1 of 11).  This group will actually 3-Putt from this range almost TWICE as often as 1-Putt.
2.  What is going on in the 11 - 15 foot range, Tiger?  At just 3 of 13 (23%), Tiger is quite a bit below the 2012 Winners, and it seems to be a pattern.  More comparative data:
  • PGA Tour Average for 2013:  30%
  • Event average:  31%
  • 15-19 Handicap:  11%
  • @ 23% Tiger is about a 0 handicap.
3.  Tiger 1-Putted 61% of the 71 holes where he had a putting opportunity (One "off shore" chip in).  This is exceptional:
  • 2012 Winners:  46%
  • PGA Tour Average for 2013:   39%
  • Event average:  44% (remember, a reduced field of Top players)
  • 15-19 Handicap:  21%  
Congratulations Tiger!  Nice to see you smile - it's good for the game.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Good players don't make mistakes in the short game! Or do they?

When I started my business (a long, long time ago), I had the great fortune of working with the Golf Digest Schools and the top instructors in the world that ran them.  I was struggling with exactly how to define the short game for my subscribers (what distances from the hole?) and how to handle ERRORS (shots that miss the green).  Several of these icons of the instruction world took an interest in the new approach that I was taking with golf statistics and were incredibly helpful.  In particular:  Chuck Cook, Jack Lumpkin and Hank Johnson.  

On the latter question (ERRORS) the comment was made:  "Good players don't make errors in the short game." To this day, if one works with PGA Tour players and relies solely on their Tour stats for information, this would seem to be true.  But I have been tracking Tour performance for years and know that even the winners on the PGA Tour make errors in the short game.  

Recently, Pat, my genius programmer dug into the ShotLink data to see exactly HOW GOOD THESE GUYS ARE around the greens (within 50 yards of the hole).  Pat uncovered the following percent ERRORS thru the first five PGA Tour events this season:

Chip/Pitch errors:   6%;  Avg. cost:  .68 strokes
Sand errors:            9%;  Avg. cost:  .66 strokes

One might ask:  Why is the Chip/Pitch cost slightly higher?  Isn't this counter-intuitive?  It is BUT, when players hit the green with their Chip/Pitch shots, their average score is lower than when they hit the green from the sand.  Thus a mistake has a higher cost.

The sand game is a challenge, especially for the club golfer.  Note that the 10 handicap golfer in the Greenside Sand Performance chart above is just as likely to make an error as they are to get it up and down.  My theory is that for these golfers, sand shots customarily only occur 1 or 2 times per round.  As such, the skill is seldom practiced and generally misunderstood.  Further, most public courses, and many private facilities, do not have practice bunkers.  I recommend that instructors/coaches check out their players' sand games.  If necessary, go out on the course for this purpose.  First, verify that they have the right club for the type of sand and shots required for their course.  Next, do they have the basic OUT shot that can reliably get them on the green.  Only after these basics are covered should the array of other sand shots be addressed.

Finally, I was surprised that the Tour error rate for sand shots was as high as 9%.  My theory as to why is that they really are that good and try to get it close from everywhere.  Or could it be that because the Tour stats don't include them, they forget that their errors ever happen?