What really won the Texas Valero Open for Zach Johnson?

Here are Zach Johnson's “key statistics” according to the PGA Golf Tour:

Driving Accuracy: 66.1% = T 29th
Driving Distance: 295.8 = 47th
(It could not have been his driving?!)

Greens in Regulation: 76.4% = T 10th
(So much for his Long Game?)

(Maybe it was putting?)
Putts per GIR: 1.764 = 37th
Putts per round: 28.3 = T 27th
(Not if one believes these numbers!)

With these mediocre performance statistics, how on earth did Zach win this golf tournament?

A different perspective of the four rounds as seen through SHOT BY SHOT patented golf game analysis reveals this niblick of truth: the consistency and efficiency of Zach’s Long Game clearly won the day.

Driving
While Zach missed an average of 4.6 fairways each round, his misses were in fairly good spots from which he still had reasonable, if not good, opportunities to accomplish his next goal. Zach made only one true “mistake” – on the 10th hole in the final round he drove the ball into a place from which he could only advance the ball back into play.

Greens in Regulation
Zach averaged 13.75 GIR’s per round which is very good and slightly above our profile of other Winners on the PGA Tour.

Long Game Efficiency Index (LGEI, patent pending)
When we add up Zach’s long strokes (50 yards and out) and divide them by his GIR’s, we get an LGEI of 2.38. This is better than our “Winners” profile and equal to Tiger’s numbers recorded during his impressive 2006-07 win streak – to date the best I have seen.

But wait, there is more:
The greens were firm and fast and they were playing in the Texas wind – it was difficult to keep the ball on the putting surfaces. Zach had nine instances where his golf ball finished just off the green and almost all were putt-able, and he holed two of these. In six out of nine cases Zach’s ball, while off the green, was within 30 feet of the cup and definitely inside 2-putt range. If we count these six as GIR’s for the purposes of our LGEI, his index drops to 2.14. This is by far the best that I have seen and very close to the perfect “score” of 2.00.

Bottom line, Zach won the Valero Open because he managed his long game strokes nearly perfectly. He made only one error and consistently hit the greens or very near the hole.