What makes a great putter?

Brandt Snedeker ranked #1 in Strokes Gained Putting for the 2012 PGA Tour year.  Quite an accomplishment to be considered the best of the best.  I decided to see if I could find the key to his putting prowess - was there something that clearly separated Brandt from the rest?  My conclusion:  Two things stand out.
     1.  Consistency
     2.  Distance control

Consistency
In 18 events covered by ShotLink, Brandt recorded a negative Strokes Gained total in only five (28%).  While negative, these five poor putting events were not horrible.  The average of the five was only -.325 (only giving up .325 shots per round to the field) and his worst was only -.64.  

Brandt's other 13 events were positive SG numbers and for the year Brandt averaged .860 strokes gained on the field.  This profile is the picture of putting consistency.

But what exactly does he do to achieve this high level of consistent performance?  The answer does not exactly leap out of the Tour stats.  Speaking of the ..., there are NINE putting stat categories and 110 individual putting stats.  Each is expressed in a number or percentage with a ranking for perspective.  Further, there is a high degree of compaction which causes the rankings to sometimes be misleading.  That said, rankings in the TOP-20 on Tour are good in ANY stat.  The Tour average tends to be around 75.

Brandt's ranking for the year in a few stats stood out and lead me to my conclusion:

• 1 Putts 10-15 feet - rank 4 (this range consistently shows up in the Winners on Tour)
• 1-Putts > 25 feet - rank 8
• Putts made over 10 feet - rank 3
• Putts made over 20 feet - rank 4  

I believe that Brandt's high level of success in the four stats mentioned above comes from a great confidence in his distance control and the relative absence of fear about the length of the next putt.

Distance control
In 2000 and 2001, when Tiger was the dominant player on tour, I did a study of his distance control as it related to the other top players at the time.  I found that they all tended to average 7% of their start distance (40 foot start ==> inside 3 feet = 7%).  I also found that Tiger set himself apart by getting a higher percentage of his long distance lag putts to or past the hole.

ShotLink makes this exercise quite a bit easier and precise.  A study of Brand Snedeker's 2012 putts of 25 feet and greater revealed a similar result:

• His overall average lag distance - 6.5%
• 2-Putts - 5.8%
• 3-Putts - 14.2%

In both instances above (2 and 3 Putts), Brandt got 63% of these long putts to or past the hole.  I can't help but think of the annoying refrain:  Never up, never in!  Obviously, Brandt has taken it to heart.

Finally, we amateurs should take heed and work on distance control.  I like to focus on 10% of the start distance as my goal and highly recommend it.  First, we don't do this for a living and second, the math is much easier.

Muirfield brings out the worst in most - not Matt Kuchar

I have said for years that the frequency and severity of our mistakes in golf have a far greater influence on our score and handicap level than do our good shots.  Jack's event this weekend proved to be a great example of my point.  The table below displays the errors (mistakes) made by Matt Kuchar in his four rounds on Muirfield Village as compared to the average of the field.  For perspective, I added the average number of errors made by the PGA Tour in 2012 for an equivalent four rounds.

Muirfield Village is, without question, one of the most difficult courses visited by the Tour.  It is ranked the 3rd most difficult this year, based upon score over par, just behind PGA National - Champion (#2) and Augusta National (#1).  While I have yet to be invited to play Muirfield, I did walk (actually run) the course some years ago to record Shot By Shot data for Jack and his three pro am partners.  Not quite as much fun as playing but I did not lose a single ball.  

What did I learn?

• Playing is more difficult than walking.  The three amateurs, not bad golfers, picked up almost as often as they finished holes.
• Muirfield has lots of water that comes into play around the greens.  (Note the approach shot penalties are more than 2x the 2012 Tour average.)
• The greens and green complexes are very severe and present difficult short game shots. 

 In my study of the event this week, I was surprised to see that aside from the difficulty of the approach shots to the greens, it was the greens and their surroundings, especially the bunkers, that presented the greatest relative difficulty.  (Note the average number of short game errors were more than 50% higher than the 2012 Tour averages.) The Muirfield field made an error from the greenside sand 19.5% of the time - one in every five attempts.  This compares to 12%, or one in every nine attempts in all of 2012.

Matt Kuchar obviously had his sand game ready for Muirfield's test.  In seven attempts, his average putting distance was 6.7 feet (1.3 ft. closer than the field).  And he saved all seven (100% vs. 49% for the field), obviously with ZERO errors.  Well done, Matt!

How do your errors match up?