Brian Gay: Putting for Dough!

Throughout the telecast of the St. Jude Classic on Sunday, Ian Baker Finch, once known as a great putter himself, commented on how the strength of Brian Gay's game was clearly putting. Ian made an excellent point to note that Brian had NO 3-Putts at that point in the telecast, and, true to his reputation, Brian did not let this comment jinx him into a stumble down the stretch.

Brian Gay finished five shots clear of his closest rivals and it was clearly his putting that was the difference. He was ranked #1 and #2 respectively in the old standby golf statistics - Putts per GIR (1.538) and Total Putts Per Round (25.0). I am no fan of these stats, but in this case Brian's performance was outstanding enough to drag them into relevance. Before we look more closely at his putting, his other stats support the point that the remainder of his game was solid but not spectacular.

As was said over and over again during the telecast (there was no drama to this ending so they had to fill the last 2 hours of air time with something), "Brian's game is not long but very accurate and consistent and he is a great putter." And the Tour stats bear this out.

• Driving Accuracy: T9th - (71%), quite good, averaging 10 of 14 fairways. More importantly, none of his missed fairways could be considered an ERROR (Penalty situation or poor enough result that it required a pure advancement shot to recover.)
• Driving Distance: 76th (266 yards - short by today's standards.)
• Greens in Reg.: T19 (12.25/round). I am more accustomed to seeing 13+ from the winner.
• Sand Saves: T24 (6/9, or 66.6%) with 1 ERROR (a shot left in the bunker). Winners are usually 70% or better with no errors.
• Scrambling: 65%, and again, lower than the usual Winner's profile.

Thus far, Brian's profile is not matching up to what I would expect from a Winner on the PGA Tour. This is where his putting prowess separates him and particularly from outside 10 feet where the averages for EVERYONE including the PGA Tour fall off rapidly. Note, in the above graphic which compares Brian's 1-Putt % to the average for the Tour (YTD 2009). Combine the fact that he had ZERO 3-Putts, his putting accuracy from 11 to 30 feet was remarkable. Had Brian putted no better than his peers in this range alone, he would have finished six shots higher and tied for 3rd.