There was not much star power to this week's FedEx St. Jude Classic. No doubt THEY were all getting better acquainted with the rough at Congressional. That said, I found Harrison Frazar's story compelling, and was delighted to see him prevail. Until this week, he had competed in 381 professional events (27 Nationwide/Nike, 354 PGA Tour) with only one Nike Tour win to show for it. But how bad was it? Since earning his Tour card in 1996, Harrison had earned over 9 million dollars - over $650,000 per year - for playing golf! Sign me up - I'll take that job! Oh, and add $1,142,053 for this week's work.
What happened this week?
Harrison's key stats jumped dramatically this week to vault him into the winner's circle. To illustrate, I will cite his YTD Average and (Ranking) vs. his performance This week % (Ranking):
GIR's: 60% (178) vs. 69% (8)
Scrambling: 57% (140) vs. 82% (1). [He saved 18 of 22 opportunities.]
Putting - Strokes Gained: .18 (111) vs. 1.39 (7)
In my opinion, the rankings suffer from serious inflation as one retreats from the top level players; however, they do illustrate that Harrison had well over 100 players on Tour that were doing these important things better than he has been - that is, UNTIL THIS WEEK. Golf is such a confidence game that, having put it all together and finally won, his new confidence may carry him to great heights. Or, he may have finally stumbled upon that all-elusive acorn. It will be interesting to see which way he goes.
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