When I analyzed Lucas Glover's rounds from last weekend's Wells Fargo Championship, his putting clearly stood out as the difference maker. More importantly, for the first time EVER the PGA Tour stats and ShotByShot.com agree. Why? The Tour debuted its new putting statistic this week: "Strokes Gained - Putting" and has posted several articles explaining it on their website @ PGATour.com/Putting. I wrote about this last year when it was first discussed in an article in the Wall Street Journal. To see what I said then see then: "Just a minute MIT..."
What is Strokes Gained?
In brief, the Tour has used the distance-specific, putting data collected by ShotLink over the last several years to create a computer model of what I call "down-in strokes" or the average strokes needed to hole out from every distance from 1 to 100 feet. Each player's putting opportunity, and the number of putts needed, is then compared to the "down-in" value of that distance (the model) and strokes gained or lost are calculated. The example cited: "...the average number of putts used to hole out from 7 feet, 10 inches is 1.5. If a player one-putts from this distance, he gains .5 strokes. If he two-putts, he loses .5 strokes. If he 3-putts, he loses 1.5 strokes." The total strokes gained or lost for a given round, event or period of time can then be compared to that of the field to determine the best putter. BRAVO! I COULD NOT HAVE DONE IT BETTER MYSELF! But wait - I did, and 20 years ago.
I have been killing the Tour for their myopic, misleading stats, especially putting, for 20+ years. To my delight, in their new material they point out the precise flaws in their old putting stats - all they had to do is search my blog - but I guess even they figured it out.
My creative story?
Shortly after I launched Shot By Shot in 1989 (a paper and US mail-based, analysis program), I realized that the old "#-of-putts" paradigm was dramatically flawed and that I needed to create something better. I decided to allow my subscribers to record the distance of their 1st putt on each green in order to create a putting model. Remember, computer modeling was a big part of my business background and why I established ShotByShot to begin with. By the time I had collected 4,000 rounds, I was able to create an effective model of what putting looked like, from every distance, for the 0-handicap golfer - I called it "Mr. Scratch." At 7,000 rounds, I not only had a Mr. Scratch model for putting but for the rest of the game as well and it became the foundation of my entire analysis program. While my model has been refined and updated over the years, the method that I created in 1990 has not changed and is exactly what the PGA Tour just released.
In 2004 I invested in a web-based delivery system for my analysis program, and launched ShotByShot.com - initially only the Putting Analysis, but the Complete Game followed in 2006. The difference between what I have done and what the PGA Tour just released is minor and strictly has to do with the data that we each collect and our clientele. The Tour's data is limited to their players and those events covered by ShotLink. I have Tour data but more importantly amateur data on men and women at every level of the game (now 27,000+ rounds and growing at 1,000/month). The Tour model is based upon the average of their performance while I was able to create my "Scratch" model by segregating out only the appropriate rounds. Further, while the Tour analysis only compares their members, I must analyze players at all skill levels playing all over the world. To do this, I used our database to determine the average Putting "Strokes Lost or Saved" at each handicap level for comparison. This enables ShotByShot.com to accurately assign a Putting Handicap for rounds analyzed.
Bottom line, I am delighted to see the Tour admit the flaws in their prior analysis and adopt something smart - no - BRILLIANT, if I do say so myself (right Trill?). I intend to speak with my friends at the Tour about possible collaboration as well as find ways to promote the fact that non-PGA Tour players all over the world can enjoy the same brilliant putting analysis at ShotByShot.com and NOWHERE ELSE!
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