How difficult were the poa greens at Riviera

I recently did a detailed Putting - Distance Control study comparing Jordan Spieth's 2015 year to the most recent five, year-end, Strokes Gained leaders and the 2015 Tour average (please look for my article in the next issue of Golf Digest).  Something jumped out in that there were 88 4-Putts and five 5-Putts on Tour in 2015.  We obviously don't see these on TV.  I typically have one 4-Putt every season so like to get it out of the way early in the year.  Have never recorded 5 putts yet - WHEW!  In 27 years of Shot By Shot data, we see very few 4-Putts.  Why?  The vast majority of our rounds are match play format and players tend to very appropriately pick up that 3rd putt.

Not only did the fairly large number of 4+ putts stand out but two courses owned more of them than any of the others:

• CC of Jackson had the most with EIGHT 4-Putts in 2015.  
• Riviera was 2nd with SEVEN 4-Putts and, even more surprising, was that FIVE of the seven fell on the 1st hole - a very reachable Par 5.  

There was quite a bit of discussion during the Norther Trust telecast about the difficulty of the poa greens so I decided to see HOW difficult and WHY; as well as, see if the 4-Putts were repeated. 

The greater difficulty is not a surprise and was specifically pointed out by Nick Faldo - specifically the ability, or lack thereof, to make the 4-5 ft. putts.  Good get Sir Nick!  To support your point, the biggest difference between the 2015 Tour average and Riviera performance was the 4-5 ft. range (see graphic above).  This key distance led to the highest rate of 3-Putts that I have seen in a PGA Tour event.  Riviera = .72/round vs. 2015 Tour avg. = .51/round. 

Was it the Lag difficulty?

No!  The average start distances and leaves/results were close enough to be a wash but the average leave distances for 3-Putts was telling.  In 2015 the Tour's average leave  on 3+ Putts was 6.1 ft. (the distance for their 2nd putt).  At Riviera the average 3+ Putt leave distance was 5.7 ft.  In short, the Riviera field 3-Putted with far greater frequency by missing shorter 2nd putts - on average 5 inches closer to the hole. 

What about the 4-Putts? 

There were TEN in 2016 - up from the SEVEN in 2015.  They were obviously caused by unusually difficult pin placements:

• Round 1, THREE 4-Putts, on three different holes.
• Round 2, FOUR 4-Putts, 9th hole.
• Round 4, THREE 4-Putts, 6th hole.

I wonder if the Tour officials review their numbers to identify, and avoid, these overly difficult placements? 

Short Game: When is a missed green NOT an ERROR?

Shot By Shot was the first statistical program to recognize the importance of errors in the short game and enable our users to record them 25 years ago.  When we launched a simplified, web version of the program in 2005, we had users record when their short game shots were successful (hit the green) or missed the green (errors).  The subsequent putting distance recorded revealed the exact level of success but we did not know the exact extent of the mistake.    The percentage of misses (or errors) has been a valuable component in our short game handicap determinations - a proprietary balance of three factors:

1. Average putting distance when the green was hit;
2. % of attempts hit close (to within 5 feet for Chip/Pitch, 8 feet for Sand);
3. % Errors (shots that missed the green).  

The PGA Tour data does not include errors or missed greens in the 409+ ShotLink stats.  I had my my programmer extract these important pieces of data from ShotLink for use in my work with Tour players.  As one can see above, in 2014 the PGA Tour player on average MISSED greens with 7% of their Chip/Pitch shots (within 50 yards of the hole) and 11% for Sand shots from within the same range.  If you think these numbers, when viewed as errors, seem high - I agree. 

A post-round discussion with my genius programmer led us to the solution of this dilemma.  Why not see what percentage of the missed greens actually took the players more than 3 strokes to hole out?  Three strokes from a short game situation is not a SAVE, but it is certainly not a stroke lost. The save %'s are:  Chip/Pitch - 65% and Sand - 50%.  But four or more strokes to hole out is definitely an ERROR.

Once the programming was done, the answer confirmed that "These guys really are good!"  In 75% of their missed greens with Chip/Pitch attempts, and 73% of missed Sand shots, the Tour holes out in 3 strokes or less.

How does your game compare?  Just stay tuned.  Now that we have been collecting score by hole since last October, we will be able to exactly match our new Tour calculations.  I plan to wait until we have a full year of new data but am very anxious to see the results.

  

Good players don't make mistakes in the short game! Or do they?

When I started my business (a long, long time ago), I had the great fortune of working with the Golf Digest Schools and the top instructors in the world that ran them.  I was struggling with exactly how to define the short game for my subscribers (what distances from the hole?) and how to handle ERRORS (shots that miss the green).  Several of these icons of the instruction world took an interest in the new approach that I was taking with golf statistics and were incredibly helpful.  In particular:  Chuck Cook, Jack Lumpkin and Hank Johnson.  

On the latter question (ERRORS) the comment was made:  "Good players don't make errors in the short game." To this day, if one works with PGA Tour players and relies solely on their Tour stats for information, this would seem to be true.  But I have been tracking Tour performance for years and know that even the winners on the PGA Tour make errors in the short game.  

Recently, Pat, my genius programmer dug into the ShotLink data to see exactly HOW GOOD THESE GUYS ARE around the greens (within 50 yards of the hole).  Pat uncovered the following percent ERRORS thru the first five PGA Tour events this season:

Chip/Pitch errors:   6%;  Avg. cost:  .68 strokes

Sand errors:            9%;  Avg. cost:  .66 strokes

One might ask:  Why is the Chip/Pitch cost slightly higher?  Isn't this counter-intuitive?  It is BUT, when players hit the green with their Chip/Pitch shots, their average score is lower than when they hit the green from the sand.  Thus a mistake has a higher cost.

The sand game is a challenge, especially for the club golfer.  Note that the 10 handicap golfer in the Greenside Sand Performance chart above is just as likely to make an error as they are to get it up and down.  My theory is that for these golfers, sand shots customarily only occur 1 or 2 times per round.  As such, the skill is seldom practiced and generally misunderstood.  Further, most public courses, and many private facilities, do not have practice bunkers.  I recommend that instructors/coaches check out their players' sand games.  If necessary, go out on the course for this purpose.  First, verify that they have the right club for the type of sand and shots required for their course.  Next, do they have the basic OUT shot that can reliably get them on the green.  Only after these basics are covered should the array of other sand shots be addressed.

Finally, I was surprised that the Tour error rate for sand shots was as high as 9%.  My theory as to why is that they really are that good and try to get it close from everywhere.  Or could it be that because the Tour stats don't include them, they forget that their errors ever happen?

Big Ben's the Boss

Golf Digest's US Open Challenge was held yesterday at Bethpage Black. This now-annual event grew out of a comment made by Tiger Woods several years ago after the US Open was held at Oakmont. Tiger, so impressed by the difficulty of the course, challenged that a 10-handicap golfer couldn't break 100 there. Three celebrities known to be accomplished golfers, and a contest winner from Arizona, put Bethpage to the test.

Here's how they did:

Roethlisberger +11
Jordan +16
Timberlake +18
"Larry" +31

Roethlisberger led the group shooting 81 on the par 70 Bethpage Black course yesterday, but was awed. "Every golf course we play from now on will seem easy," he said after the round. Jordan was second with an 86, and Timberlake followed with an 88. Larry - representing all earthly golfers - shot 101. Had it not been for a fateful 10 on the 16th hole, Larry would have broken 100 as well. "But that's the way it is. Life goes on," was his philosophical post-mortem. We feel you, Larry!

For more insights on the day of fun at Farmingdale, go to: http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/usopencontest/2009/06/usopen_challenge_weinman_0612

For more perspective on how the course and the set-up at Bethpage Black differs from your weekend track, check out my prior post on this blog:

http://niblicksoftruth.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-tough-will-bethpage-black-be.html

How Tough Will Bethpage Black Be?

As we are about to watch the second US Open at Bethpage Black, I bet a lot of viewers will be wondering: “How much more difficult is this golf course that what my group plays on weekends?”

Golf Digest picked up on this last year and started the US Open Contest wherein four celebrity amateur golfers attempted to break 100. This contest grew out of a comment by Tiger Woods that the previous year’s course (Oakmont) was so hard that “… a 10 handicap couldn’t break 100 there.” Tiger was right – the 10 handicap shot 114. Tiger is clearly the best at his craft, but is he also clairvoyant? I’ll try to describe why this was a very safe prediction for Tiger to make.

Personal experience

In 2002, I played Bethpage Black on the last day before it closed for US Open grooming – boy, do I have some good friends. My group consisted of four low handicap golfers ranging from 2 to 5. We approached the round with great confidence, each anxious to see how well we would do. Five+ hours later, we emerged battered and exhausted and were all shocked at how brutal and relentlessly difficult we found the course. One of my friends said it perfectly: “I have never played so many par 5’s in my life!”

What makes an Open so hard?

Let’s do a statistical comparison of US Open venue, Bethpage Black (BPB) to the average courses played by ShotByShot.com’s male subscribers (AVG):

Total Yards / Par

· BPB: 7,426 / 70 = 106 yards per par stroke

· AVG: 6,400 / 71.5 = 89 yards per par stoke

Course rating: (The score that the scratch golfer should shoot)

· BPB: 78 (an educated guess as I have not seen it published)

· AVG: 71.5

Slope rating: (The relative difficulty for the “average” golfer)

· BPB: 155 (another educated guess but with confidence)

· AVG: 131

What do these numbers mean?

Chew on these niblicks: Bethpage Black is at least 6.5 shots harder for the scratch golfer and 11 shots harder for the bogey golfer. This means that the average male 18 handicap golfer that averages 92 with his group on weekends would average 103, and I believe this may be significantly understated.

In addition to the obvious difference in length, there are several other important conditions (that most of us will, thankfully, never see) to consider:

1. The typical fairway width of 30-40 yards is cut in half for a US Open setup (30 - 40 yards).
2. The rough height is generally twice the height that we amateurs face (from 2.5 – 3 inches and up in places vs. 1 to 1.5 inches at home).
3. Finally, the greens at an Open are usually very firm and fast making them unreceptive to shots from the rough, not to mention difficult to putt.

While you enjoy watching the professionals struggle for pars in a US Open, bear in mind how much more difficult the conditions are than what we typically play on weekends. Finally, if you ever get the chance to test your game on a US Open prepared course, get ready for the shock of your golfing life.

Driving Accuracy Redux

Apologies for some of the handicap coordinates missing from the chart in my last post on Driving Accuracy. Apparently the chart was too wide for my template. I published a similar article in Golf Digest, which can be found at http://www.golfdigest.com/instruction/longgame/accuracy/sanders_gd0809. It contains a simplified chart that may be helpful. If your handicap is missing and you'd like to know the average strokes lost specifically for you, please make a comment below and I will respond.

Good Luck, Max!

My friend, Max Adler, Associate Editor at Golf Digest, is contending today in the U.S. Open Local Qualifier at Misquamicut Golf Club in Rhode Island. Max selected Misquamicut as his venue because he fired a 67 there last summer. We had a fun session recently in which we worked on a hole-by-hole course strategy for today's round. Hopefully it will help him score at least as well as he did last time. I wish him all the best today.

Max has co-written my last three Golf Digest articles (heavy emphasis on the "written,") and is a user of the ShotByShot.com golf game analysis system. Max is writing an online diary of his quest for the "Black Ring" at Bethpage. He was kind enough to give ShotByShot a plug in a recent journal entry:

http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/usopencontest/2009/04/2009usopen_adler6